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Director, Child/Adolescent Diabetes Program at Children's Nat'l
Fran R. Cogen, MD, CDE, originally from New York, has resided in San...
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Monday, June 08, 2009
View All of Dr. Fran Cogen's Posts
On May 26 I was on my way to Children's National Medical Center listening to National Public Radio, when I was alerted that the announcement of President Obama's Supreme Court Justice nominee was to be released at 10 am. I was extremely interested, but this especially peaked my interest because one o...
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as long as my child is healthy
frankenduf
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 03:51 PM
I've often wondered about the counterintuitive claim that children with (manageable) illness do better than their peers- sort of like the lament that these children are 'forced to grow up' too quickly- the discipline and work ethic which is necessitated in managing early disease may pay dividends in character development later on- of course the irony is that the children won't see it that way- they just yearn to be healthy like everybody else- i thought this profound wisdom was summed up by a child of thalidomide, who had grown up without arms and became a professional drummer!- he was obviously successful, and when asked if he could do it all over, would he wish to have arms- he said no, because it would fundamentally change who he was- but when asked the same about his son, he said that he would want his son to be normal, because he knows the hardships he had to endure
I've often wondered about the counterintuitive claim that children with (manageable) illness do better than their peers- sort of like the lament that these children are 'forced to grow up' too quickly- the discipline and work ethic which is necessitated in managing early disease may pay dividends in character development later on- of course the irony is that the children won't see it that way- they just yearn to be healthy like everybody else- i thought this profound wisdom was summed up by a child of thalidomide, who had grown up without arms and became a professional drummer!- he was obviously successful, and when asked if he could do it all over, would he wish to have arms- he said no, because it would fundamentally change who he was- but when asked the same about his son, he said that he would want his son to be normal, because he knows the hardships he had to endure