Merck Manuals Shares Guidance for Managing Your Child's Emergency Room Visit

KENILWORTH, N.J., Aug. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Each year, there are more than 25 million emergency department visits for children under the age of 18 seeking care. When a child is sick, parents often take on the role of articulating symptoms to physicians, helping their child follow treatment instructions and learning about medical conditions. Yet in the time before and after an emergency room visit, identifying reliable medical information resources can be a challenge for parents who are making critical decisions about their child's health.

The Merck Manuals, one of the world's most widely used medical references since 1899, offers content and resources for both new and seasoned parents. Authored by 350 independent medical experts and written in layman's terms, the consumer version of the site contains hundreds of educational resources for families managing acute or chronic health conditions.

The latest resource released today on MerckManuals.com is a video featuring pediatric specialist James Jeffrey Malatack, MD. A professor of pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University's Sidney Kimmel College of Medicine with primary clinical responsibility at AI duPont Hospital for Children, Dr. Malatack also serves on the editorial board for the Manuals.

In his video, Managing Your Child's Emergency Room Visit, Dr. Malatack discusses signs that should prompt parents to bring their children to the emergency room and how parents should approach follow-up.

"Parents, often if they've been up all night with the child, are exhausted. They want to go to the doctor, they want to be told everything is okay, and they want to go home and go to bed," says Dr. Malatack in the video. "And very often, the follow-up requires they maintain a vigilance about their child."

MerckManuals.com also has in-depth content for parents on a variety of topics, including:

• Fever in Infants and Children: How to take a child's temperature, causes of fever, managing febrile seizures and more.
• Vomiting in Infants and Children: Causes and evaluation of vomiting, treatment and more.
• Childhood Vaccinations: Effectiveness, safety and more.

Learn more at MerckManuals.com, and follow Merck Manuals on Twitter and Facebook to see more video content about Dr. Malatack's path to becoming a pediatric specialist.

About The Merck Manuals

First published in 1899 as a small reference book for physicians and pharmacists, The Merck Manual grew in size and scope to become one of the world's most widely used comprehensive medical resources for professionals and consumers. As The Manual evolved, it continually expanded the reach and depth of its offerings to reflect the mission of providing the best medical information to a wide cross-section of users, including medical professionals and students, veterinarians and veterinary students, and consumers. In 2015, The Merck Manual kicked off Global Medical Knowledge 2020, a program to make the best current medical information accessible by up to three billion professionals and patients around the world by 2020. For access to thousands of medical topics with images, videos and a constantly expanding set of resources, visit MerckManuals.com and connect with us on social media:

For Consumers in the U.S. and its territories: Twitter and Facebook 
For Professionals in the U.S. and its territories: Twitter and Facebook

About Merck

For more than a century, Merck, a leading global biopharmaceutical company known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada, has been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Through our prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies and animal health products, we work with customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. We also demonstrate our commitment to increasing access to health care through far-reaching policies, programs and partnerships. Today, Merck continues to be at the forefront of research to advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and communities around the world - including cancer, cardio-metabolic diseases, emerging animal diseases, Alzheimer's disease and infectious diseases including HIV and Ebola. For more information, visit www.merck.com and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

SOURCE MerckManuals.com