Afraid of the Doctor-a book review

“Afraid of the Doctor” by Meghan L. Marsac and Melissa J. Hogan guides parents in preventing and managing medical trauma in children. It offers twelve strategies to support emotional well-being. The authors emphasize addressing both child and parent trauma during healthcare challenges.

Afraid of the Doctor: Every Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Managing Medical Trauma

by Meghan L. Marsac and Melissa J. Hogan

Written by two women who care about children, a lawyer and a psychologist, this book helps parents support their children through medical challenges and prevent or manage medical trauma.

Medical trauma can arise from a severe illness or injury, or from the treatment of a serious medical condition. Either way, this book addresses how these healthcare experiences lead to medical trauma in children, affecting their willingness to engage with medical care.

Afraid of the Doctor

Every Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Managing Medical Trauma

The authors’ goal is to give parents knowledge and skills to understand and address medical trauma, to better care for their child’s emotional and physical well-being during medical challenges.

The book offers twelve strategies parents can use to prevent and reduce medical trauma and support their child through medical interventions or chronic conditions.

Readers learn these strategies through character stories, anecdotes, step-by-step guides, examples, and research. These strategies can be adapted for specific groups, like very young children or those with cognitive or communication challenges.

Parents can experience trauma from managing their child’s medical challenges. The authors include tools for parents to recognize and address their response to medical trauma while caring for their child.

Read Sample from Book

Meet The Authors

Meghan L. Marsac

Dr. Meghan Marsac is a pediatric psychologist and Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky and Kentucky Children’s Hospital.

She is a leader in the field of pediatric medical trauma, having multiple publications. Her primary goal is to improve the experience of living with medical conditions for children and families.

Dr. Marsac serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Pediatric Psychology and Journal of Traumatic Stress. Dr. Marsac has spoken extensively on understanding and promoting adjustment to injury and illness in children and their families.

She is CEO of the Cellie Coping Company, which has distributed over 2000 coping kits to families of children with medical conditions.

Dr. Marsac trains medical teams in trauma-informed medical care. Clinically, Dr. Marsac promotes evidence-based practices to help families manage medical treatment and emotional adjustment to challenging diagnoses and medical procedures.

She is the mom of two energetic, loving boys. They enjoy playing outside, playing tag, reading, playing video games, and creating projects.

Melissa J. Hogan

Melissa J. Hogan, JD, has a child with a rare, genetic disease who has faced a countless number of surgeries, specialists, and as a result, medical trauma. In addition to advocating for her son’s needs, she consults on clinical trials in rare and neurodegenerative disorders. Her articles have been published in several medical journals.

She founded the leading research and advocacy foundation in Hunter syndrome, Project Alive, which has raised millions of dollars for research.

She has worked as a healthcare attorney and speaks on health care and educational advocacy, rare diseases, and clinical trials.

She lives with her three sons and a service dog outside Nashville, Tennessee.

Authors’ Recommended Resources

After the Injury

Health Care Toolbox

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

Resource to Download: What is Child Trauma?

c09d8214-c91f-43a0-a19c-486e2eca3ee6 Download

Why I recommend Afraid of the Doctor

I found this book browsing at my local library. I had never seen a book addressing this topic so I am glad to find this one.(I put affiliate links in this post.)

This book made me wonder how many children may have experienced trauma from encounters with me as a physician, not something I intentionally caused. I realized procedures that health professionals and even parents consider routine, like an X-ray or drawing blood, can be traumatic to children.

I recommend this book to every parent who wants to prepare their child for encounters with the healthcare system, especially for children with medical needs that require frequent and invasive contact.

The authors present the information in a straightforward, easy-to-understand format, utilizing twelve effective strategies. They explain what to do, how to do it, and offer examples of children and parents who used the strategy.

By the end of the book, we have followed each child’s story and see how they and their parent successfully managed medical trauma.

I recommend this book. If you don’t need it, you probably know someone who does. Do them a favor and forward this review to them.

This information is current as of the date of original publication or update. It may have changed by the time you read this. I invite you to fact-check what you read here.

This information is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. Before making health decisions, discuss with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider to decide what is right for you.

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Dr. Aletha

Another review- a book that teaches kids about the human body

HUMAN BODY Learning Lab-book review

“Human Body Learning Lab” by Dr. Betty Choi offers an engaging exploration of the human body for curious kids. Dr. Choi, a pediatrician and mom, provides an easy-to-understand guide, complete with hands-on activities. The book also includes important disclaimers for parents. Written for kids aged 5 to 9, it’s a valuable resource for parents and…

Keep reading

AI in Healthcare: Enhancing Patient Understanding

Although many patients find AI helpful for understanding medical information, experts caution about potential inaccuracies and privacy risks, urging careful use and verification of AI-generated responses.

This information is current as of the date of original publication or update. It may have changed by the time you read this. I invite you to fact-check what you read here.

This information is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. Before making health decisions, discuss with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider to decide what is right for you.

I recently had a medical procedure and when the results came into my patient portal, I logged in to read the results. The diagnosis was something I don’t have much professional experience with, so I did what many patients to with their medical information. I went online and searched for information.

Although this time I didn’t stop with a search engine. I used an AI assistant and was amazed at how easy it was not only to read information but also to ask questions and receive an answer. It even suggested additional resources and next steps.

Then I found this article on KFF indicating that I am not alone. And probably many of you have already used AI for this and other purposed. So I am sharing it here.

An AI Assistant Can Interpret Those Lab Results for You

(Edited for readability and length.)

written by Kate Ruder, September 15, 2025

When Judith Miller had routine blood work done in July, she got a phone alert the same day that her lab results were posted online. So, when her doctor messaged her the next day that her overall tests were fine, Miller wrote back to ask about the elevated carbon dioxide and low anion gap listed in the report.

While the 76-year-old Milwaukee resident waited to hear back, Miller did something patients increasingly do when they can’t reach their health care team. She put her test results into Claude and asked the AI assistant to evaluate the data.

Medical Records plus AI equals Understanding

“Claude helped give me a clear understanding of the abnormalities,” Miller said. The generative AI model didn’t report anything alarming, so she wasn’t anxious while waiting to hear back from her doctor, she said.

Patients have unprecedented access to their medical records, often through online patient portals such as MyChart. Federal law requires health organizations to immediately release electronic health information, such as notes on doctor visits and test results.

A study published in 2023 found that 96% of patients surveyed want immediate access to their records, even if their provider hasn’t reviewed them.

And many patients are using large language models, or LLMs, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini, to interpret their records.

Use AI for Health Cautiously

That help comes with some risk, though. Physicians and patient advocates warn that AI chatbots can produce wrong answers and that sensitive medical information might not remain private.

Yet, most adults are cautious about AI and health. Fifty-six percent of those who use or interact with AI are not confident that information provided by AI chatbots is accurate, according to a 2024 KFF poll. (KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.)

“LLMs are theoretically very powerful and they can give great advice, but they can also give truly terrible advice depending on how they’re prompted,”
Adam Rodman, internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Adam Rodman Is an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts and the chair of a steering group on generative AI at Harvard Medical School.

Justin Honce, a neuroradiologist at UCHealth in Colorado, said it can be very difficult for patients who are not medically trained to know whether AI chatbots make mistakes.

“Ultimately, it’s just the need for caution overall with LLMs. With the latest models, these concerns are continuing to get less and less of an issue but have not been entirely resolved,” Honce said.

Rodman has seen a surge in AI use among his patients in the past six months. In one case, a patient took a screenshot of his hospital lab results on MyChart then uploaded them to ChatGPT to prepare questions ahead of his appointment.

Rodman said he welcomes patients’ showing him how they use AI, and that their research creates an opportunity for discussion.

Roughly 1 in 7 adults over 50 use AI to receive health information, according to a recent poll from the University of Michigan, while 1 in 4 adults under age 30 do so, according to the KFF poll.

Should AI Give Medical Advice?

Using the internet to advocate for better care for oneself isn’t new. Patients have traditionally used websites such as WebMD, PubMed, or Google to search for the latest research and have sought advice from other patients on social media platforms like Facebook or Reddit.

But AI chatbots’ ability to generate personalized recommendations or second opinions in seconds is novel.

Liz Salmi, communications and patient initiatives director at OpenNotes, an academic lab at Beth Israel Deaconess that advocates for transparency in health care, had wondered how good AI is at interpretation, specifically for patients.

In a proof-of-concept study published this year, Salmi and colleagues analyzed the accuracy of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini responses to patients’ questions about a clinical note. All three AI models performed well, but how patients framed their questions mattered, Salmi said

For example, telling the AI chatbot to take on the persona of a clinician and asking it one question at a time improved the accuracy of its responses.

Are Medical Records Private with AI?

Privacy is a concern, Salmi said, so it’s critical to remove personal information like your name or Social Security number from prompts. Data goes directly to tech companies that have developed AI models, Rodman said, adding that he is not aware of any that comply with federal privacy law or consider patient safety

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, warned on a podcast last month about putting personal information into ChatGPT.

“Many people who are new to using large language models might not know about hallucinations,” Salmi said, referring to a response that may appear sensible but is inaccurate.

For example, OpenAI’s Whisper, an AI-assisted transcription tool used in hospitals, introduced an imaginary medical treatment into a transcript, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Using generative AI demands a new type of digital health literacy that includes asking questions in a particular way, verifying responses with other AI models, talking to your health care team, and protecting your privacy online, said Salmi and Dave deBronkart, a cancer survivor and patient advocate who writes a blog devoted to patients’ use of AI.

Can AI help physicians communicate results?

Patients aren’t the only ones using AI to explain test results. Stanford Health Care has launched an AI assistant that helps its physicians draft interpretations of clinical tests and lab results to send to patients.

Colorado researchers studied the accuracy of ChatGPT-generated summaries of 30 radiology reports, along with four patients’ satisfaction with them. Of the 118 valid responses from patients, 108 indicated the ChatGPT summaries clarified details about the original report.

But ChatGPT sometimes overemphasized or underemphasized findings, and a small but significant number of responses indicated patients were more confused after reading the summaries, said Honce, who participated in the preprint study.

Meanwhile, after four weeks and a couple of follow-up messages from Miller in MyChart, Miller’s doctor ordered a repeat of her blood work and an additional test that Miller suggested. The results came back normal.

Miller was relieved and said she was better informed because of her AI inquiries.

“It’s a very important tool in that regard,” Miller said. “It helps me organize my questions and do my research and level the playing field.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This article also appeared on NPR.ORG.

AI in Medical Education

I graduated from college, medical school, and residency without using a computer for training or patient care. When computers and the internet came into widespread use, medical education and medical practice changed to embrace that new technology.

Now AI is doing the same thing. Here you can learn how Harvard Medical School is building artificial intelligence into the curriculum to train the next generation of doctors.

Reader Reflection and Response

I hope you have learned something new in this post, or it confirms something you already knew.

How are you using technology to manage your healthcare? Do you use options such as

health record portals
online scheduling
video visits
internet search for medical information, with or without AI

Were you aware that doctors are using AI to create office notes and result summaries?

What concerns do you have about the value and safety of using AI in healthcare? What else do you need to know or want to learn about AI use ?

Cover Image

The cover image was created by the Jetpack AI Assistant from Automatic, Inc.

Exploring the HEART of Health

I hope the information in this post gives you inspiration.

I’d love for you to follow this blog. I share information and inspiration to help you turn health challenges into health opportunities.

Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.

I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.