Dr. Kathleen Ann Ritger M.D., M.P.H.

Clinical intuition is difficult to describe. Personally, it is the art of integrating nonverbal information that a patient presents in order to reach a diagnosis, reducing the need for diagnostic testing. This is especially important in children who often react differently to procedures, tests and...

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carb, adequate-protein diet that was designed by Dr. Russell Wilder in 1924. It became popular then for its effectiveness not only in treating epilepsy but in weight loss. After a few years, the popularity of the ketogenic diet began to wane as new...

It has been known for a while now, but not fully understood why, that the age of parents can have an effect on the child's chance of being on the autism spectrum. The full reasons why are not known, but there are some ideas. To examine the potential reasons, recently a study looked at behavioral...

Babies who are exclusively breastfed have fewer and less severe infections, when compared to babies who are partially breastfed or not breastfed at all, according to a study published in, Archives of Disease in Childhood. This protection is regardless of the healthcare and vaccinations provided to...

What is laryngitis?Laryngitis is the swelling of your voice box. It is often caused by an infection, mostly by a virus. The voice box is also known as the larynx. It links the back of your throat to the windpipe. The vocal cord and larynx are part and parcel and are required for speech. Laryngitis...

Silent reflux, or laryngopharyngeal reflux, is similar to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), however, it lacks the characteristic symptoms of GERD. Both conditions are caused by contents from the stomach moving backward into the esophagus. As the typical symptoms of gastric reflux are lacking...