A doctor’s personal story of vaccine hesitancy

Before I was a doctor, I was a dad. My oldest daughter was two years old when I started medical school, so I did a little bit of parenting without the benefit of any medical knowledge at all. I remember her 2-month visit well. It was one of the few visits that I was able to make, and my baby girl was getting her first set of shots (after leaving the hospital). I’ll be honest; I hadn’t given it much thought. I was fully immunized as a child, and I’m pretty sure I was fully re-immunized when I signed my life over to the U.S. Navy. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my child — I did. And I still do. My girls are amazing, and I’d do anything for them. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t educated — I was. And I still am, much more so than I was then. But I figured that there was a reason the CDC recommended vaccines. They knew more about them than I did, for sure. I was a naval officer and could talk all day about how splitting atoms makes submarines move, but vaccines were a topic with which I was unfamiliar. My wife and I hadn’t really talked about it; we just planned to go with the pediatrician’s recommendations — after all, we picked him because we trusted him. My daughter would be getting three shots that day, the combination of which would protect her against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, H. flu, pneumococcus, and polio. Seemed like a good deal. Ain’t nobody got time for polio. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to resp...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Pediatrics Source Type: blogs