Pedatritions Essay, Research Paper

In Michael Rich MD and Miriam Baron s MD study, Child Health in the Information Age: Media Education of Pediatricians, they conduct a survey of 209 pediatric residency programs. This survey compares with and updates information in the 1986 survey The Impact of Television on Children: Current Pediatric Training Practices. Many questions were designed to elicit comparable information as the previous survey as well as incorporating other aspects that were not as significant in 1986, such as the internet and video games.

Hypothesis: The objective of this study was to determine what pediatric residency programs are teaching trainees about media and the influence of media on the physical and mental health of children and adolescents.

Methodology: Surveys were sent to 209 different pediatric residency programs in 44 states and Puerto Rico. The survey of residency curricular training consisted of 17 items about children s exposure to media including television, movies, popular music, computer/video games and the Internet, the effects of this exposure on specific health risks, and associations between program characteristics and media education in the residency curriculum.

Results: The data collected showed that there is little training for the affects of media. Across the board only one item scored more then 30%. In the category of Interventions on Media Exposure in regards to whether residents are taught to discuss media us with patients or parents, only 47% checked of yes. While the rest of the items scored even lower out of the 7 items from the 1986 survey all improved, 5 of which either almost doubled or id infact double the percentage from the previous survey. They concluded that there needed to be a media education curriculum for pediatritricians in training and provide formal faculty training in the teaching of media issues.

The research was conducted in a very adiquate fashion. I can t think of a better way of gathering this type of information in another manner. However they did make compirmises as far as the survey was concerned. To help garuntee a high level of participation in the survey (204 out of 209) they didn t include any essay type questions, instead were mostly checkbox questions with limited short or numerical answer. While it is important to have as many participants as possible I think that some of the questions would have been benifited by reqiuring a detailed answer.

This survey notes some of the participants who completed the survey after August may be subject to social desirability bias, which may have resulted in overreporting of media education in programs, particularly on the part of those training directors that completed surveys after the August 1999 publication of the AAP policy statement on media education

I think the this survey brings fourth an important point. Parents are supposed to be able to go to their childs pediatrician when they need information about their childs health. Having a place where information is given to parents and education them in how to let their children vew and take in the massive amount of media there is out there. I have issue with America s tendancy to blame TV and video games for the violence of today. The answer to that question is not, what can be done to remove this violence? but instead how can we educate our children about TV.

Media literacy is something that we as a nation lack. We teach our children how to talk, to read, to ride a bike, but we don t teach them how to watch TV and how to interprut the messages it brings across. Wouldn t a child be less likely to imitate a violent action he s seen on TV if one of his parents had a talk with him about how TV works.

If pediatricians were adiquately trained to deal with this, and instructed to bring it up with parents it would establish a base of information that would give them ideas on how to deal with their children in regard to TV.

Bibliography

Michael Rich, MD, and Miriam Baron, MD Child Health in the Information Age: Media Education of Pediatricians Pediatrics 2001 Jan 2001 Lexus

Nexus Feb 2001