No Shirts, No Shoes, No Behavior, No Service

by RICK RADER, MD * EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Being a college student in the tumultuous Sixties, I had the requisite long hair and a beard (since I only half matured, I still have the beard). In the summer of 1968, a friend and I traveled across the country in our version of a “coming of age road trip.” We had jobs lined up at the World’s Fair in San Antonio, Texas. One of the most striking reflections […]

As Tolerated

by RICK RADER, MD * EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Medical advice is a tricky thing. For the most part physicians will provide very specific, well defined directions. “Take two pills (200 mg each pill), three times a day, with food, and stop immediately if you begin to break out in a rash and call the office.” Pretty precise (okay the concept of a “rash” might be up for interpretation). “Holding the red elastic strap between your two hands […]

Can I Quote You On That?

by RICK RADER, MD * EDITOR-IN-CHIEF I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to start an editorial on quotes with a quote, but I quote, “A quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business.” A.A. Milne, the author of this quote (about quotes) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children’s poems. I had […]

Spell Bound

by RICK RADER, MD * EDITOR-IN-CHIEF If it’s words they needed, they could have contacted and consulted with any one of a number of “exceptional parents.” They encounter hundreds of them in the course of a therapy visit, an IEP meeting, appeal for denied services, hearing for compassionate use of an unapproved medication. My earliest recollection of the power potential of spelling came from my parents who would spell words in front on me so […]

Happy Birthday, Joe!

by RICK RADER, MD * EDITOR-IN-CHIEF If they really wanted to give young boys the excitement, challenges and thrills of a real life adventure hero, they should have reinvented him as “G.I. Joe the Group Home Action Hero.” “War is hell!” declared Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman; and I have no doubt it is. That is, unless you’re seven, you’re home from school with a low grade fever and you have the entire carpeted […]