Asthma Success Story Video Transcription
I am the pediatrician, so I go to all the reservations and work in the clinic. My role is basically clinical implementation and just getting out there and teaching folks about asthma, recognizing their triggers, writing asthma action plans and so forth.
Once you have identified a child with asthma, and you’ve opened the door to that family saying, this is my goal for you. I always say that. I say, as the physician, my goal is for your child to run and play and go to school like every other child. I don’t know what you have been doing before but that’s my goal for you and that is what we are going to work towards, and then I go from there. I find that the kids and the parents always have so much better control once you give them the tools that they help control their asthma. They start to have an understanding of the symptoms, identifying triggers always makes asthma control so much better. Once you’ve identified what the real goal should be for those kids, the families blossom. I’ve seen kids who have had ER visit after ER visit and frustration and been to specialists and not really got it until you sit down and say, “No, this is not the way it should be. Let’s make our goals the same and work towards those goals.” And the family may not have even thought that was possible.
We actually have one child who, I call him my child with special health care needs champion because he also has other medical conditions and his mother was a young mother, and she had other kids, and he was special. She had so many different issues dealing with trying to keep her job, trying to make all the appointments that she had, trying to give him his medications, not understanding anything. One of his issues was his asthma, constant ER visits, constant going to different specialists, trying to figure out what is causing his triggers. And we sat down and we made goals for all of his needs. We also prioritized what we need to do. Okay, one thing at a time mom. We are going to get it done until we get everything done. He is where he needs to be, and actually not even six months later – it took six months just to get everything where it needed to be – he was awesome. And now, he is my success story. His asthma has been under control, it has been at least a year now since he had an ED visit, his mother understands his asthma action plan, she understands his medications, and he has also been fitted for his walker and he just comes cruising down the hallway and I just think, there is my champion, my success story. I could make him a poster child, I really believe in that mom and I believe in that child.

8/3/11