AAP Voices Blog

My Patients Are Afraid. So Am I.

I am a pediatrician. I care for children who often don’t have the words to describe what they’re feeling, but it doesn’t take a medical interpreter to sense a major shift in the past year. 

Working at a clinic on the U.S.-Mexico border, I’ve had countless visits where a child’s medical complaint is overshadowed by a family’s fear. They fear for their lives as they know them, separated from their homes and community.

As I sit beside my patients and their families, I sit in silence carrying that fear, too. My own father has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the past six months. 

My father is one of the many whose fate is in limbo and I am one of countless daughters - alongside sons, spouses, parents and friends - waiting for answers that may never come. 

I see that stress and loss in my patients every day: parents, grandparents, and even classmates removed from a child’s life overnight, leaving much more pain than a stomachache or a broken arm. 

As physicians, we will be confronting these health impacts in our communities for generations to come. Currently, children are not showing up to routine check-ups and missing preventive care visits. Families avoid clinics, turning to emergency rooms only when their child’s condition becomes critical.

I feel this more deeply than my patients know. Current immigration policies put detainees at risk of preventable disease. My father has endured outbreaks of tuberculosis and measles during his detention. What goes unspoken are the health risks to families left behind, including the toxic stress that disrupts brain development in children of all ages. 

That stress can impact various bodily systems, leading to PTSD, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. It can also disrupt school performance, sleep, and emotional regulation. I can counsel families and offer coping strategies, but there are only so many band-aids we can put on a wound that is hemorrhaging. I cannot provide words that will heal them when the root cause is forcible separation from the family members that love them.

My father, like many immigrants, came to this country seeking something better for himself and his children. He became a small business owner and helped raise three successful daughters: a physician, a lawyer, and an engineer. Now, his detention and absence have left three generations living in fear. 

We need policies that prioritize family unity, ensure timely care resolution and expand alternatives to prolonged detention, especially when children are involved.
In my exam room, I can diagnose illnesses and offer treatment but I cannot treat a child’s fear of losing a loved one. No child should need a prescription for that.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the American Academy of Pediatrics.