Patrick Ewing

"People are starting to say this really is an epidemic out of control," notes Patrick Ewing, M.D., a pediatric pulmonologist and asthma specialist at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.

In steps AvMed Health Plan, the state's largest not-for-profit health plan, serving 300,000 members throughout the state of Florida.

People are starting to say this really is an epidemic out of control, what's going on here? said Dr. Patrick Ewig, a pediatric pulmonologist and asthma specialist at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg who is treating Kenny.
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Dr. Ewig, a youthful, bearded man who warms his hands before touching the tiny chests of his patients, treats 40 to 50 asthmatic children every week.As he quizzed Kenny's mom during their first visit last month, he found the boy had the hallmarks of the so-called Allergic March that makes his a classic case : an otherwise healthy child who first suffers bouts of severe dry skin, called eczema, followed by a cough or runny nose that steadily worsens.

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I had gotten accustomed to it -- Kenny coughs, Barrins said last month, during Kenny's first appointment with Ewig.It never occurred to me that it was something that needed to be treated on a regular basis..

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Ewig agrees.People need to understand the goals, and I think physicians have problems with this, too, he said.They don't always take it as seriously as we'd like if it's not right there, the wheezing, during that visit..

Barrins made the appointment with Ewig at the urging of a friend who also is a physician, and it has made a huge difference, she said.Ewig prescribed Flovent, one of several inhaled steroids that reduces the underlying inflammation of the lungs, that Kenny uses before school and before bed every day.