Dear Patients,
Our first two days of clinic with well children in the morning and sick children in the afternoon have gone very well. This is the best, safest way to conduct pediatric care during these trying days. We will now be scheduling well clinic type visits through lunch each day. Here are the types of visits that are appropriate for our morning well child clinic:
Newborn hospital follow up visits including bilirubin rechecks and weight checks
Checkups
Injuries, lacerations, bruises, orthopedic, etc.
ADHD, behavior concerns, anxiety and depression
Abdominal pain, GERD, constipation
Headaches, dizziness
Skin concerns – rashes without fever, eczema, warts, etc.
Ear infection recheck visits without fever
Synagis shots
Our sick clinic is operating each day in the later afternoons and will conclude when our sick patients are seen. This clinic is appropriate for children with colds (runny nose and cough), fever, aches and chills (influenza), ear pain, sore throats, diarrhea, vomiting and other infectious illnesses. Common pediatric infectious diseases and there symptoms can be viewed by clicking here: https://www.afkpeds.org/common-infectious-disease-symptoms-in-children/
If there are concerns that your child might have COVID-19, you must first contact Arkansas Children’s Hospital at 1-800-743-3616 or go online to UAMS at https://uamshealth.com/healthnow/ to be cleared of COVID-19 concerns before making an appointment here. If you need a COVID-19 test, ACH or UAMS will arrange for this to be done. We are not doing COVID-19 testing at our office.
The CDC has two very excellent webpages on Coronavirus. What to do if you are sick with corona virus. How to protect yourself from coronavirus. Click on the hyperlink to go to the pages.
Please remember that for most people, COVID-19 is a mild illness. In China, this was true for 80% of people who catch the disease. Children had especially mild symptoms with no reports of death in children under 14 years of age and a very low attack rate of the disease symptoms. In other words, almost all children have mild disease. Why children are spared severe disease is not known, but we are very thankful that is the case.
Therefore, if your child gets sick with a mild cold, cough and fever, simply stay at home. Even if your child has a mild form of COVID-19, complications are not expected. Testing is not needed. Testing is indicated for hospitalized people who are in respiratory distress. If your child is not in respiratory distress (fast breathing, retractions, shortness of breath), you DO NOT NEED A TEST!
We tested our Telemedicine software today and it was a success. We will let you know when we are ready to book our first telemedicine visits. Stay tuned!
We pray safety, and calmness for you and your family!
Jerry Byrum for all our physicians
