At the Long Beach community health clinic where I’m a pediatrician, I’ve learned that the way you ask questions can be more powerful than any medication.
For example, we saw a child who was struggling with her vision and clearly needed glasses. But a couple of months later, the girl’s mother still hadn’t followed up with the eye doctor.
The case manager wondered whether the mom should be reported for neglect. But instead of interrogating the mom about why she had failed to complete this seemingly simple task, she asked the question another way: “Is there something going on in your life that is keeping you from getting your daughter her glasses?”
It turned out that after years of experiencing domestic violence, the mom was in the process of leaving the abusive relationship to save herself and her family. If all she had done was to question her about the glasses, then she would have missed the most important thing going on in the family: the impact of the violence, abuse and other types of trauma that can have a lifelong impact on mental and physical health.
For the rest of this op-ed by Dr. Elisa Nicholas, go to http://www.presstelegram.com/o...cts-guest-commentary
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