June 7, 2019 – Tomorrow – Saturday, June 8, 2019 – our Duraleigh office will be without power as Duke-Progress Energy will be doing some work on the transformer that serves that building.

Therefore, our typical Saturday After Hours Clinic will take place at our Brier Creek office.

The “Written-In-Stone” Weekend Plan: Saturday, June 8th

• After Hours Clinic with be at the Brier Creek office (click here or see below for directions)
• No Walk-In Appointments on the Weekend
• Patients are seen by appointment only
• If you think your child may need to be seen this weekend, call 919-781-7490 in the morning after 9 am; our answering service will send us a message and you will get a call back from the Weekend Nurse working with the On Call Pediatrician.
• Weekend Clinic begins at 10am. Clinic ending time varies depending on how busy we are.
• After clinic, we are available to speak by phone about any urgent concerns you may have.

The “Stay Tuned” Weekend Plan: Sunday, June 9th

• Power should return later Saturday so that we can return to Duraleigh for our regular Weekend After Hours Clinic on Sunday
• Of all people, we know things can be unpredictable so our Sunday Backup Plan is to use our Brier Creek office again Progress Energy
• If we are going to a backup plan, that information will be posted here on our website

Going Old School (No EMR)

• While the power is down at Duraleigh, we will not have access to our electronic medical records (EMR) system
• We’ll be making a paper record that will be entered into the electronic record later
• We will not be able to send prescriptions electronically; if your child is prescribed a medicine, you will receive a written script that you can take to your pharmacy

Where is the Brier Creek Office?

• Some of you are very familiar with our Brier Creek location and some of you have never been there before. It is right down the road from a Target if you have some other errands to run that day.
• The address of our Brier Creek office is: 10208 Cerny Street, Suite 100, Raleigh, North Carolina 27617 (Click address for directions)

We Appreciate Your Patience

• If your child is seen this weekend, we will do our best to see that things go smoothly
• Being committed to seeing our patients in our office 364 days a year takes some extra effort – we think that is very important and well worth the effort
• Whenever possible, it is best to be able to avoid urgent cares, pharmacy clinics and emergency rooms and see your pediatricians when your child is sick

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, May 25, 26 and 27, 2019

1. IMPORTANT NOTE: Our office will be closed for routine business on Monday in observance of the Memorial Day holiday
2. We will offer a morning clinic for urgent needs on Saturday, Sunday and Monday
   

 All patients seen at our Duraleigh office by appointment only

• No walk-in appointments; be sure to call ahead
• Try to call soon after 9am if you think your child may need to be seen to talk to the on call phone nurse
• As always, we will be available for phone advice all day and every day

Your Memorial Day Weekend Lineup

• One of our Pediatricians is on call everyday to manage our after hours care
• Saturday’s On Call Pediatrician:  Dr. Jamila Fletcher
• Sunday’s On Call Pediatrician:  Dr. Emily Ross
• Monday’s Memorial Day Holiday On Call Pediatrician:  Dr. Ben Meares
  

After Hours Care

• Urgent calls outside regular hours: 919-781-7490
• After hours backup number: 919-831-5526
• Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222

May 24, 2019 – As a pediatric office that prides itself on top-notch care of newborns and their families – when one of our own is expecting – our baby shower game can’t disappoint.

Gotta keep it fresh – like we did in 2015.

When faced with five (yes, it was five) expectant staffers, we pioneered the Dirty Santa White Elephant Auction Baby Shower.

That day featured five expectant mothers all competing for their portion of the same baby shower booty.

The typical baby shower chorus of “Ooh’s” and “Ah’s” were replaced by “Watch out!” and “Oh no she didn’t!?!”

This past Wednesday‘s mild 80 degree temp and overcast sky were a perfect setting for breaking new ground again as we took to the Duraleigh office parking lot for Nurse Shannon B’s Flash Mob Tailgate Baby Shower.

We had the grass below us and the cool sky above us. We had corn hole and music featuring “Baby” in the title.

Oh yeah… we also had Two Roosters Ice Cream (exceptional).

Congratulations to Shannon B. We look forward to your big day.

Next up, Nurse Chessica…

May 23, 2019 – A quick note: this Monday is Memorial Day and that is an RCAM office holiday.

See how you can get up with our office if you have questions or need to be seen on a holiday here

In short, we handle holidays like we handle weekends (including this weekend prior to Memorial Day):

• One of our pediatricians will be on-call
• They will see our newborns at Rex Hospital in the early morning
• They will then see patients with urgent needs who have spoken with the nurse on call
• That clinic begins at 10 am at our Duraleigh office.

We hope that your family gets to enjoy these special days together.

It’s Easter Weekend, April 19, 20 and 21, 2018

1. IMPORTANT NOTE: Our office will be closed for routine business on Friday in observance of the Good Friday holiday
2. We will offer a morning clinic for urgent needs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday

 All patients seen at our Duraleigh office by appointment only

• No walk-in appointments; be sure to call ahead
• Try to call soon after 9am if you think your child may need to be seen to talk to the on call phone nurse
• As always, we will be available for phone advice all day and every day

Your Easter Weekend Lineup

• One of our Pediatricians is on call everyday to manage our after hours care.
• Good Friday’s On Call Pediatrician: Dr. Jen Long
• Saturday’s On Call Pediatrician: Dr. Jamila Fletcher
• Easter Sunday’s On Call Pediatrician: Dr. Jen Long

After Hours Care

• Urgent calls outside regular hours: 919-781-7490
• After hours backup number: 919-831-5526
• Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222

April 8, 2019 – Following our custom, now is the time we change our banner for the new season.

Formerly, “Children Frolicking in the Snow” – we now present “Young Child Looks Like My Oldest Daughter“.

1) Flu Activity: Much Less Than Before

The official message from the CDC website: “Influenza activity decreased but remains elevated in the United States.”

Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words:

This graph depicts the last three years of likely flu activity in North Carolina (from the NC Dept. of Health and Human Services). It shows how this year’s flu (red line) peaked in February (as it usually does) and has steadily trended downward to now much lower rates as typically seen in April.

Official declarations on the efficacy of this year’s flu vaccine won’t come until later but early reports show it wasn’t bad. Preliminary results put this year’s vaccine effectiveness at about 47% (up almost 10 percentage points from last year).

TAKE-HOME MESSAGE: Plan to get your families flu vaccine for the 2019-2020 flu season in October.

2) As Flu Winds Down, It’s Time To Schedule Your Child’s Well Visit

Every child 3 years of age and older are recommended to get an annual “check up” or “well visit”.

School athletics, scouts, and most summer camps will also require that your child has an up to date physical and likely require their form to be completed so that your child can participate.

TAKE-HOME MESSAGE: Beat the summer rush. Call and schedule your child’s annual well visit now.

3) Upcoming Holidays at RCAM

The holiday office schedule will be covered again as we get closer to those holidays.

As usual – for these holidays – we will be available by phone for questions and in the office for visits for urgent concerns.

4) #BigTimesAtRCAM

1. Last week, our very own Dr. Emily Ross got the pre-wedding pediatric medical office makeover (a.k.a. How many uses for exam table paper can you come up with?) from the RCAM nurses. Congratulations to her and her husband on their big day this past weekend. #BigTimesAtRCAM
2. Also, you may remember Sylvia who used to work at our front desk (her husband is Steve – between the 2 of them, they worked about 70 years at RCAM)? She stands to win ten’s of dollars in the Unauthorized RCAM March Madness Pick ’em if Virginia wins the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament tonight. #BigTimesAtRCAM

March 21, 2019 – Why would a pediatric medical office be promoting a ‘Battle of the Bands’ concert?

Is it because the movie School of Rock is a personal, all-time favorite and this blog writer is always looking for an opportunity to embed a clip of its climactic, feel-good, how-did-this-happen moment in the big competiton when the band expertly performs a song it had never played before?

While that is true – it is a favorite – that’s not nearly enough reason to support some seemingly-random, amateur band battle.

So why is RCAM supporting such an event?

[Pause now for a word we have sponsored]

The Maintain Your Brain Battle of the Bands will take place at Broughton High School IN TWO DAYS on Saturday, March the 23rd from 1-4pm.

[Back to your regularly scheduled program]

There are two reasons why Raleigh Children & Adolescents Medicine has chosen to be one of its (many) sponsors:

REASON NUMBER ONE: This community event is raising awareness of brain health (Who is against that? Not these pediatricians) and the proceeds will benefit the Triangle Aphasia Project. – a local non-profit that supports individuals with a communication disorder known as aphasia.

Aphasia refers to individuals with significantly impaired communication – but who are likely not affected in other ways. In other words, these individuals typically have their normal intelligence and normal memory but have a lot of difficulty communicating.

Individuals and families affected by aphasia benefit greatly when others with the time, energy and skill are there to help.

What a difficult problem, and the good folks at Triangle Aphasia Project are helping our friends and neighbors to find solutions to the obstacles that they face.

REASON NUMBER TWO: This event came together from the idea and the follow-through of a young person.

At RCAM, we want to support young people whenever we can.

Charlotte Fullbright is a sophomore at Broughton High School. Her grandfather was her inspiration and she has seen her idea through to make it a reality – this event takes place this Saturday.

Read more about Charlotte here and more details about the concert here.

Aaaaannd that… is why RCAM is promoting a ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest.

We hope that Saturday is a big success, that many people in our community are helped as a result, and perhaps that some will be inspired to use our time and our talent to help others.

January 7, 2019 – Just a brief note because I know many of you carefully follow this: back on the first day of winter – December 21st – we replaced our fall banner depicting “Children Hugging in a Field of Hay” with our current winter banner: “Children Frolicking in Snow.”

With that technical note behind us – now – on to the important stuff:

#1) Influenza (Flu) Season Update 2018-2019

We still have flu vaccine for all patients except children 3 years and older with private insurance.

It is very unlikely that we will receive any more flu vaccine this season.

Here is a list of places where you can go and get your child a flu shot. We still recommend getting a flu vaccine as most of this season’s flu is still to come (in typical years, most flu arrives in January and February).

PLUG FOR NEXT YEAR #1: Get your flu vaccine next year in October. When you think of Halloween, think of a flu shot! October and November is when the flu vaccine is often in its best supply.

#2) How Much Flu are We Seeing So Far?

Pictured below are influenza statistics for North Carolina from about a week ago (the week ending December 29, 2018) for this year as well as the previous two flu seasons.

This year is the bright red line. You can see that this year is behind last year’s numbers (the dark gray line) for that particular week. You may recall that last year was a worse than typical flu season.

You can also see this year’s number of flu cases is beginning to rise a bit more quickly (see how the red line takes that left turn compared to the earlier trajectory).

That means – in the briefest of terms – there is a lot more flu to come (or as Mark Stoops would say, “We are just getting started bro.”).

# 3) 2019 – A Big Year Coming Up At RCAM

Dr. Muff Carr – after 40 years in the practice of pediatrics at Raleigh Children & Adolescents Medicine – will be retiring in August.

FORTY years! Holy Cow. Incredible. That’s a lot of children getting great care.

NOTE: Do NOT tell her I told you. It’s not a secret but she made me promise to not make a fuss (for those of you who know her, you know that’s classic Dr. Carr). I don’t think this is a ‘fuss’ but… you gotta find out somehow.

#4) Thanks for Your Cards!

Every December our staff gets a big kick when we receive your holiday cards.

We get cards for Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year – we’ve even gotten a few Halloween cards. We have chosen December – the time when we get the most cards – as the time to display them all.

We’ve even gone so far as to meticulously save and file away cards from previous years – that way, when we receive a current card, we get to display it with all of that families past cards.

In some instances, we have cards from each year from families going back to 2008 (the year we got the bright idea to start saving your cards). So, when that family’s cards go up, they may have 10 or 12 including past years.

To say the least, we all love having a visual of your children growing up year after year after year.

This year we received holiday cards from 63 different families. Including the cards from previous years for those 63 families, we got to display a total of 278 family holiday cards.

PLUG FOR NEXT YEAR #2: I know that some of you are sending out cards and might not think of your pediatrician. It’s okay. We know. When your child is healthy, we are some of the last people you want to think about. Please… consider sending us a card (feel free to include cards from previous years; we have a lot of wall space we like to cover up in December):

Raleigh, NC 27612

In summary:

1. More flu is coming.
2. We still recommend flu vaccine for this year.
3. Next year: When Halloween comes, get your flu shot!
4. Also next year, send us your family holiday card.
5. Do not tell Dr. Carr.

Today is Tuesday, January 1, 2019

NOTE: Our office is closed for routine business today in observance of the New Year’s Day Holiday

No Walk-In Appointments on Holidays

• Like other holidays, we are open on a limited basis
• Patients are seen by appointment only at the Duraleigh office on all holidays.
• If you think your child may need to be seen today, call 919-781-7490 in the morning after 9 am and speak to the nurse working with the On Call Pediatrician.
• Today’s New Year’s Day Holiday clinic begins at 10am. Clinic ending time varies depending on how busy we are.
• After clinic, we are available to speak by phone about any urgent concerns you may have.
• Tomorrow will be a regular Wednesday workday.

The New Year’s Day Holiday Lineup

• Today’s New Year’s Day On Call Pediatrician:  Dr. Ben Meares

After Hours Care

• Our On Call Pediatrician manages our after hours care.
• Urgent calls outside regular hours: 919-781-7490
• After hours backup number: 919-831-5526
• Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222