I have decided that my frustration with the medical staff of my little hospital's lack of breastfeeding knowledge compels me to do something. (The last straw was the chart review I did for a poor woman who's mastitis was initially managed in the office by her obstetrician recommending abrupt weaning as the sole therapy, and then when her symptoms became severe and she presneted to the emergency room, she was admitted and treated with IV metronidazole of all things. Our CLC (the only breastfeeding support we currently have) wrote several nursing notes recommending more appropriate therapy, including at least some milk removal, and was ignored. She was treated by both an internist and the obstetrician during her admission, and fortunately managed to get better somehow, although her breastfeeding relationship with her very young infant was lost.) I have printed a copy of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine's protocol for mastitis treatment and forwarded it to the appropriate docs as a first step. (The protocol is very nice, actually, and well-referenced.) As a second step, I have volunteered to give a continuing medical education talk which is usually attended by a good portion of the medical staff on breastfeeding. The audience will be primarily primary care physicians, but most will be internists, not pediatricians or gynecologists. I'm hoping to make it interesting for those folks, while not terribly boring for the few who do peds or OB. I will have about 1 hour. I think I will stick to some basic goals - 1. Encourage docs to understand the value and importance of human milk for human infants 2. Encourage them to understand some very few basics of breastfeeding, such as supply and demand 3. This is probably most important - Identify resources for physicians when they are unaware of what to do when treating a breastfeeding mom, to include print resources such as Dr. Hale's book, and our community resources which include LLL, an IBCLC at our local WIC office, and our hospital CLC. Any other brilliant ideas on what to cover, or how to present it in an engaging fashion? I have a couple months to prepare (which I'll need, with my crazy life!) Jennifer Tieman Family Physician Mom to 4, including my nursling Caroline Rose, age 2 1/2 *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html