Dr. Josyann Abisaab

Water safety is incredibly important, especially during the summer months.  Doctors like Josyann Abisaab will explain that they see many tragedies every summer, as parents come to the emergency room with their children who have had pool accidents.

Drowning is actually the second most common cause of death from injuries for children under 14.  Here are some key tips to keep kids safe around the water in the summer.

Children should never dive off of the side of a pool unless an adult says that the water is deep enough.  They should look at the depth markers and pay attention to them.

Make sure to test the water’s temperature before jumping in, as the water can shock the body and make both blood pressure and heart rate increase.

And adult should always be present when children are in the pool and all pool rules should be obeyed.  Make sure children don’t run around the pool, since they can slip and hurt themselves on the ground or fall into the water.

Children who are just learning to swim should stay in the shallow end, and children should be taught not to push or jump on others in the water.

One of the most common injuries seen in the ER is the ankle injury. Ankle sprains, breaks and fractures are most often a result of activities which require quick stops and starts, as well as abrupt changes in direction. Improper footwear is also a common cause of such injuries.
Emergency care doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab understand that it is important to:

• Do daily exercises to strengthen the ankles, as well as to increase their flexibility
• Strengthen and support old ankle injuries
• Wear the correct shoes for an activity such as hiking or soccer
• Avoid running on uneven surfaces.

Having a child with asthma can be very stressful. It is hard to know when an ER visit is necessary. Emergency care doctors such as Dr. Josyann Abisaab recommend you prepare for such a visit in advance, and become familiar with the symptoms that need emergency care. Some of them are:

• If your child’s coloring changes; blue or gray lips and/or fingernails
• If your child has difficulty talking
• If your child’s peak flow reading drops below 50% and does not improve with medication
• If your child repeatedly uses rescue medications for severe flare-up symptoms which do not go away after five or ten minutes, or return quickly.
• If the areas between the ribs, below the ribs and in the neck pull in dramatically while your child inhales

The season of “falling leaves” has given Autumn its popular moniker as the Fall season. But for doctors, like Josyann Abisaab MD, who staff the emergency rooms around the country, “fall” has taken on a whole new meaning. Forty-two million Americans seek emergency room treatment each year. Many of those injuries actually occur in the performance of ordinary household tasks – such as the outdoor yard maintenance so many of us set out to achieve each autumn. Leaf raking, lawn mowing, and roof inspections all have their potential dangers, including major falls, painful cuts and back injuries. Lawn mowers, in particular, must be viewed as the large, potentially harm-causing machines that they really are.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that more than 225,000 people were injured by power, manual and riding lawn mowers in 2007.

The good news, however, is that these dangers can be easily avoided by adhering to these few simple tips:

– Turn your engine off before you begin any maintenance work on your lawnmower.

– Don’t use your hands or feet to clear debris from under a lawnmower. Use a stick or broom handle instead.

– Don’t remove safety devices, shields or guards on switches.

– Never leave a lawnmower running unattended.

– Wear protective gear like goggles and gloves, boots and long pants when mowing.

Next month in Beirut, Lebanon there will be a conference of The Lebanese Society of Emergency Medicine.  Dr. Josyann Abisaab is on the Scientific and Organizational Committees for this 4th Annual Conference.  In addition to Josyann Abisaab, M.D., another ten faculty members from New York Presbyterian Hospital will be joining her in Lebanon as either speakers or workshop leaders for the conference.

Many times, your calls to the doctor in the middle of the night and your trips to the E.R. to see doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab, can be avoided.  By keeping certain essential medicines and items in the home, you may be able to better treat your sick child in the middle of the night.

In the medicine chest (high out of a child’s reach) you should always have pain and fever relievers, a children’s antihistamine and cortisone cream (with doctor approved instructions), saline nose drops, a nasal aspirator, a medicine dropper, petroleum jelly, Ipecac and a digital thermometer.

In the kitchen, make sure to have olive oil, canned peaches or pears in syrup, ice pops, flat cola or ginger ale. In a child’s room, you should have tissues, a cool-mist humidifier, and allergy-preventing sheets and covers if your child has allergies or asthma.

If your child is throwing up in the middle of the night, it’s usually not a situation where you need to run to the E.R. or call the doctor.  As long as your child isn’t throwing up anything green or bloody, and he isn’t complaining of pain the lower right side of the stomach, you can probably wait until the morning to be seen.  These situations described above would require a phone call to the doctor, however, or a visit to an E.R. to be seen by a doctor like Dr. Josyann Abisaab.

Assuming it’s just regular vomiting, clean up the mess and calm your child down.  Please a cool, wet washcloth on his forehead and face and keep a plastic bowl by the bed in case he needs to throw up again.

To help to settle their stomach, you can give them flat soda or ginger ale.  You can also open a can of pears or peaches and give the child one tablespoon of the syrup every fifteen minutes.  Dr. Philip Itkin, a clinical associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical College in Omaha says that this helps to settle the stomach and to keep the child hydrated.  Try popsicles as well.

According to a blog post by Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN.com, the number of E.R. visits caused by children’s concussions has more than doubled over the last 10 years.  Certainly, E.R. doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab are noticing this increase and are working to help to isolate the issues.

Citing a recent study published by authors Dr. Lisa Bakhos and her colleagues in Pediatrics, Dr. Gupta states that this is occurring even though there is an overall decline in sports participation in America.

The concussion rates were highest for children who played hockey and football.  These numbers could be due to a number of factors.  It is possible that the increase is a result of more competitiveness and intensity in sports, but it’s also possible that they are a result of increased awareness and reporting of accidents and injuries.

USA Today featured this interesting story recently, covering one solution that the Louisville Metro Emergency Medical Services have found to the problem of overcrowding in the emergency room.  Whether you are a potential emergency room patient, or an emergency room doctor like Dr. Josyann Abisaab, it’s certainly worth a read.

With the new program in place, the lowest priority calls are being diverted to a nurse who can spend time with patients and help them to find treatment and solutions.   While the program is a fresh idea in America, it’s widely used in the United Kingdom and Australia, says Jeff Clawson, medical director for the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch.

If you, or someone you know, have recently had Salmonella poisoning, it’s important to understand your various treatment options.  Many patients will come to the emergency room and receive treatment from the emergency room doctors, like Dr. Josyann Abisaab, while others will seek out their primary care physician.

Most people with salmonellosis recover on their own in four to seven days with no antibiotics or other treatments.  The main goal of salmonellosis treatment is to prevent dehydration. In order to prevent Salmonella infections, it’s very important to cook food thoroughly to prevent food poisoning and to wash hands carefully during food preparation.

Children should also know to wash their hands after handling a pet.  Don’t keep pet reptiles in the home if you have children under five, and monitor children at a petting zoo or farm.