An olive-skinned boy with familiar doelike eyes and close-cropped hair perches on the stool in the corner of the examination room. Daniel is my 6-year-old patient for a well-child check, the third of the morning at the community clinic. He concentrates on his dirty tennis shoes but glances up when I enter the room. A generously proportioned African American woman accompanies him: his mom, I wonder. I introduce myself.
“He’s been with me for a month,” she says. “I don’t know much about him.”