When your child is sick or injured, and its severe enough to seek emergency attention, it can be overwhelming.
Then, after a whirlwind of activity (alternating with anxious periods of waiting), you have a stack of discharge papers and maybe a prescription to pick up, and you’re headed home. Now, you’re thinking of everything you didn’t ask, like what to do if your child doesn’t seem to be getting better.
Maybe the doctor even stops to ask if you have any questions, and you find yourself drawing a blank!
Here are some questions to keep on hand for these situations.
Should We Follow Up With Our Pediatrician?
The emergency department primarily aims to provide immediate, stabilizing care under severe circumstances.
The providers there will not typically handle follow-up care. In most cases, they’ll want you to schedule an appointment with your pediatrician or primary care doctor to ensure that treatments work and your child is healing as expected.
They may communicate this, but emergency room doctors are overwhelmed, and a parent in the emergency room is frequently overwhelmed, and it’s an easy piece of information to miss.
So, ask your ER provider, “Should I follow up with my pediatrician, and when?”
Take your discharge paperwork with you to that appointment! It will list any medications and doses and any care instructions!
What Should I Expect From The Medications?
All medications work differently.
For instance, if your child has been prescribed a nebulizer or an albuterol pump, you may expect to see improvement within minutes of giving a dose. On the other hand, pain medications can take longer to take effect, and you may not see improvement from antibiotics for a few days.
So, check with your doctor about what to expect. You can also ask about side effects. While the most common side effects of most medications that would be offered to your child are likely mild, it’s a good idea to know in advance what side effects might be serious and warrant immediately stopping the medication. Even mild side effects, like drowsiness, may have enough impact to warrant altering plans, such as giving the dose at bedtime instead of before supper.
What Changes Should We Expect Over The Next Few Days?
Whether it’s a respiratory illness or a broken limb, there is an expected progression.
Your emergency provider can tell you what to expect from your child’s illness or injury. This will help reassure you that the progression is normal — or warn you if the progression goes awry.
The doctor or nurse should be able to tell you whether to expect alertness or lethargy, pain and discomfort, swelling, or other symptoms that can continue or arise after initial treatment.
Asking before you leave the hospital will save you from making frantic phone calls in the days to come.
What Care Should I Provide At Home?
If your child has not been prescribed pain meds, the doctor may have a preference for which ones to offer at home. Some OTC meds may interfere with some prescription meds or cause other complications, so be sure to check.
Other care instructions might include whether to keep your child still and restful, whether he’s contagious and should be kept away from others, or any recommendations about changing bandages, bathing, or other activities that may affect an injured area.
Some care instructions should be on your discharge papers, but there may be other specifics that your doctor would like you to follow that don’t appear on your printout.
What Changes Warrant A Call To The Pediatrician?
If healing isn’t progressing as it should, it may be necessary to call your doctor.
This can be for any number of reasons — sometimes your child needs a different antibiotic than was initially prescribed; sometimes the initial problem may be misdiagnosed, or complications may be overlooked; something could happen after the visit to exacerbate the problem.
This may not require a return to the emergency room, though. For example, if the antibiotic isn’t working, your pediatrician may call in a different one.
Your pediatrician or urgent care may be the preferred source of care if the ongoing issue isn’t as emergent as the initial issue.
Your emergency room physician can tell you what issues warrant additional care beyond the scheduled follow-up.
What Should Prompt A Return To The ER?
Ideally, you leave the emergency department with a child on his way to healing, and life is quickly back to normal.
Unfortunately, in some cases, an injury or illness can still take a turn for the worse after initial treatment and may even warrant further emergency care. It can be hard to assess at home and determine whether the change in circumstances warrants further emergency care.
Your doctor may want you to return to the ER if, for example, there are signs of infection in a wound, if the fever continues above a specific temperature and won’t ease after medication, or if there are changes in your child’s breathing.
Ask before you leave so that you know what changes (or lack thereof) are serious enough to return to the ER.
When Should My Child Return To School?
If your child has a contagious illness, there is typically a specific range of time that they should stay out of school to avoid spreading it.
Some injuries may also warrant healing before returning to a child’s full activities, potentially including school or extracurricular activities like sports teams.
Before leaving the hospital, ensure you know how long your child should stay home and when he can return to his usual activities. If you ask for a doctor’s note for attendance purposes, specify when your child should return to school.
What Else Should I Know?
With a medically delicate child, I’ve learned that doctors will often ask, “Do you have any questions for me?”
All too frequently, I find that I don’t know what to ask. So, I’ve learned a tidy catch-all: I ask, “If it was your child, what questions would you be asking?”
You could also try, “What else should I know?” or “What other important information might I be missing?”
Any open-ended question that invites the doctor to fill in the blanks will help you collect information that you might not even be aware to ask for.