In a message dated 7/3/1998 11:29:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, writes: > I ran across a paper which stated that one-third of all illness visits to the > office based pediatrician result in a diagnosis of otitis media. I would > guess that all varieties of URI's are seen regularly as well. I wonder if > these minor problems account for most of the pediatricians work load. Any > comments? I'm not sure if it's as high as one-third, but we do see a lot of ear infections. Yes, most of our workload consists of "minor" problems and well checkups--but try telling a mom that her kid's screaming at 3AM is a minor problem! The real problem comes in finding the occasional serious problem when it presents just like the last dozen minor ones, and not over-reacting to those minor problems that may present like serious ones. We see many kids whose presenting complaint is headache, stiff neck, fever and vomiting. But I haven't seen a case of meningitis in a long time. Similarly, we see a lot of kids with abdominal pain and vomiting, but only a few have appendicitis. I could go on and on, as I'm sure most of those in private practice could. We do deal with mostly minor complaints, but it's still a challenge, and sometimes even fun! Moshe Adler, MD