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AAP News Vol. 15 No. 12 December 1999, p. 28 © 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics
A young girl in the throes of an asthma attack is rushed to the hospital. The emergency department physician asks the girl's mother whether anyone in the house smokes, if the family has pets and other questions to determine whether environmental factors may have triggered the attack. It turns out the child's father smokes, and the family has a cat. The physician, however, doesn't have at her fingertips the steps needed to help the father quit smoking and to minimize the child's exposure to the cat.
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