The Moose with Loose Poops

You may laugh at the title of Charlotte Cowan's book, The Moose with Loose Poops, but you'll be sure to get a smile out of your sick child if he's suffering from a tummy ache. Charlotte Cowan, M.D., is a pediatrician who has written a series of amusing books to help children and parents better understand the most common illnesses that befall young children.

The Moose with Loose Poops is the story about a four year old moose named Miles who suffers from a tummy ache. He and his parents are on a picnic in Maine when he begins his bout with vomiting and "loose poops." Miles is disappointed because his illness may prevent him tagging along with his father on a camping trip. But their pediatrician, Dr. Hippo, helps Miles to recover in time to accompany his father.

Other books in the series by Cowan address issues such as earaches, colds, fever and sore throats. All are targeted to educate children, parents and physicians about treating children when they're feeling bad and don't understand why. Each book contains a separate Parent Guide that parents can use to help them and their child understand his illness and why he's having uncomfortable or pain-causing symptoms.

Besides being extremely educational, The Moose with Loose Poops is also entertaining - especially to young children. Descriptions and words that may cause adults to flinch will make a child laugh with delight. Pediatricians will want to keep a copy in their offices to show to their little patients and make them feel better.

The Moose with Loose Poops by Charlotte Cowan, M.D., has a funny title - but behind the words is a message to kids, parents and physicians to take the symptoms of a sick child seriously. Helping children understand their illness may make them feel better - and laughing will definitely transport them away from a sick tummy for awhile. The Moose with Loose Poops is a story that kids can relate to and giggle about.

Cowan's newest and final book in her "Dr. Hippo Series" was written to help parents and children better understand pediatric gastroenteritis. The illness usually begins with a tummy ache and can take the form of diarrhea and/or vomiting - scary symptoms for a child to understand. Cowan specifically addresses this illness because in the U.S. alone, there are 1.5 million visits to the doctor, 200,000 children hospitalized and 300 child deaths that could have been prevented - all taking place in one year's time.

The Dr. Hippo Series includes a polar bear with a cold, an elephant with an earache, a frog with a fever and a giraffe with a sore throat. Now, The Moose with Loose Poops, about a young moose with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, completes the series.

Cowan's books will delight your child, reassure and educate you to better deal with childhood illnesses through stories of adorable animals who are all treated and made well by Dr. Hippocrates, a hippopotamus pediatrician. All books are hard cover and beautifully illustrated in full color. Each includes a laminated Parent Guide in question and answer format.

Charlotte Cowan, M.D., is a pediatrician, currently on staff at Mass General Hospital for Children in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Cowan treated children and worked with parents for many years, noticing that children who were cheerful and personable during well-visits sometimes became inconsolable when they were sick. The parents were also suffering - usually tired and worried about their child and how to treat his illness.

Dr. Cowan loved reading books as a child, and so she naturally thought that books designed for children about various pediatric illnesses would be the perfect way to educate and reassure both the children and their parents. She realized that children's books would be the answer for communicating her messages. First, Cowan founded The Hippocratic Press, its main mission being to publish medical children's stories for the purpose of reassuring children and parents and to entertain.

The Moose with Loose Poops is the final book in Cowan's Dr. Hippo Series and tells the story of a young moose with symptoms of pediatric gastroenteritis - vomiting and diarrhea. Her other books include:

The Little Elephant with the Big Earache
Katie Caught a Cold
Peeper Has a Fever
Sadie's Sore Throat

Each book contains a Parent Guide companion to educate parents about how to treat a child with those symptoms.

Charlotte Cowan, M.D. served as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and received fellowship training in Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago's Medical School (Pritzker School of Medicine). She's an excellent speaker and has appeared on CNN's Accent on Health, where she was interviewed about children's earaches and antibiotics.

The Dr. Hippo Series - both the individual titles and the series as a whole - has received numerous book awards. This "stamp of approval" from children's book critics proves very gratifying. Charlotte Cowan, M.D., a board certified pediatrician and author of the Dr. Hippo Series, comments: "Having only launched the first title in 2007, I am proud to have been recognized so quickly. The fact that we share these awards of distinction with many internationally recognized recipients renders them even more valuable!"

See a list of other awards given to Dr. Hippo Books

As a pediatrician trained in ethics and concerned about the accessibility of health care to American families, it made perfect sense to leave clinical practice in order to write stories for sick children. "Why on earth waste all of that education?" people ask. "When will you write about something important?" others add, on hearing that I have chosen to start with picture books about common problems like colds, earaches and fever.

Let me explain.

As a pediatrician at Boston's MassGeneral Hospital for Children, my days were frenetic, filled from early morning until evening: with babies and children, patients in the office and the hospital, staff meetings, phone calls and emails from parents and colleagues, endless paperwork, and insurers' demands for better documentation. It was a life of chaos and commitment, a life I loved but found increasingly difficult to sustain. As the years slipped by, there seemed to be less and less time for people in a setting which was and should remain primarily about patients and giving them outstanding care.

One of the refreshing aspects of my practice was its diversity. I had a world map in my office and lost count when my patients' countries of origin exceeded 25: I had patients from India, China, France, Poland, Japan, Ethiopia and Algeria, just to name a few. I had families from all walks of life, well educated families, families from shelters, and all kinds of families in between.

Regardless of background, these families were universally concerned about their children, eager to learn about a child's illness or developmental stage. Sometimes, parents brought in their children just to talk- with a small concern masking a larger problem. Frequently, parents called--or emailed. Sophisticated parents searched the web, making their own diagnoses and coming in only to confirm the "web" care they had already given.

Although their styles differed significantly, all of these parents were seeking health information. Their insistence on education was admirable, appropriate-and impossible to fulfill given the time constraints of the day. I grew frustrated by the gap between the care I wanted to deliver and the care I had time to give.

I began to think seriously about changing the system in which my colleagues and I were practicing. I wanted not only to honor my parents' needs for advice but also to streamline telephone and office visits, rendering them both more fruitful and efficient; I hoped to decrease parental demand for unnecessary medications and emergency room visits. With a background in English and training in Medical Ethics, I turned to books-- educational books that could reach families in their homes, books appropriate for the office, libraries and schools.

Children's stories emerged as the perfect venue for such education-especially for a pediatrician. Child focused and friendly, picture books are read and reread: repetition facilitates learning for both parent and child. The books are grammatically simple, accessible to parents with a limited education or for whom English is a second language. Finally, reading with a parent provides comfort to a sick child even as it fosters literacy.

My goal was to write books that would entertain, educate and reassure both parent and child. Although the stories were primarily for children, I decided to include a separate Parents' Guide with each book. Each story would chronicle an illness from onset to resolution and include sage advice from a pediatrician hippopotamus, Dr. Hippocrates. Each Parents' Guide would answer questions like: "How can I keep my child comfortable at home?" and "When should I call the doctor?" I started with acute infectious illnesses because they affect millions of American children annually, fill our waiting rooms, and cost billions of health care dollars every year. I chose ear infections, fever, colds, sore throat, and gastroenteritis-- and began.

I eagerly (and naively) sent off my collection of stories to be published. The publishers were not enthusiastic: "Too long and too medical," they said. They found the topics trivial and of little interest to children; they frowned on my dual focus on parent and child. They suggested that I write for parents: "Children don't need this education," they advised.

I disagree. I know that parents and children belong together; I also know that children do better clinically if they understand what is wrong with them when they are ill. Frustrated and determined, I decided to publish the stories myself. The Hippocratic Press was born.

My learning curve has been steep. Greener than an intern in July, I rewrote my stories, taking to heart much of the publishers' criticism. I edited my work drastically - I cut the stories by well over 50 %; I removed descriptions and put them aside as notes to the illustrator. I made the stories much more active by replacing paragraphs with dialogue. But I left the medicine the same, and I also left my focus on parent and child intact: that dyad seems valid to me, normal and necessary in the world of pediatrics.

With my text largely rewritten, I moved onto the other aspects of book production. I found illustrators. I arranged focus groups of pediatricians, testing my hypothesis that these stories would prove beneficial. I found reviewers to insure that I was medically sharp and current. I learned about book production--its layout, editing, scanning, and printing processes.

After six years, I have five titles out, including our most recent, The Moose with Loose Poops. Response within the medical community has been overwhelming: pediatricians across the country generously have offered their time and wisdom. The American Academy of Pediatrics and Harvard Medical School both have expressed strong interest in the books. For the last three years the CDC has invited me to their annual Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work conference because my books argue for the judicious use of antibiotics. In fact, our first title, The Little Elephant with the Big Earache, has been used in a dozen states in their respective Antibiotic Awareness campaigns. Evaluative feedback --where available-is uniformly exceptional.

Having released the books to the medical community first-to test the waters, to insure that what I have written is accurate, timely, appropriate-we are moving on to make the books available to the general public. Of course this was my original dream: to make my pediatric education and experience available not just to the children and parents in my office but to families across America, reaching them in the comfort of their own homes, giving them access to better health. This is all about the ethical concept of resource allocation: putting your energy and talent where they can make the greatest difference. Through writing this set of children's books, I have hoped to achieve just that.

The path I have chosen is not well traveled, but it is on its way to making the proverbial difference in my life. If by writing children's stories, I can comfort sick children, improve their care through education, and cut health care costs by helping parents avoid unnecessary medical visits and expenses, then I will feel justified in having left the practice I cared about so deeply.

Keep your eyes out. After I finish this first series on acute infectious illnesses, I hope to tackle obesity, asthma, prematurity, and... The possible subjects are endless but have in common that each will be a tall order for a short story!

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Dr. Charlotte Cowan is a board certified pediatrician and author of 5 medical children's stories that entertain, educate, and reassure both parent and child. Covering fever, colds, earaches, and sore throats, each book includes a Parent Guide. For information about her latest, The Moose with Loose Poops, visit: http://www.drhippo.com/