“(CNN) -- Over this past week, I had some interesting conversations with colleagues who are also health care professionals. These conversations usually start with, "You know what I hate about the media ... ?"

Now, over the past eight years, I have grown accustomed to being engaged in these sort of discussions where I am asked about everything the "media" have reported over the past few months, and asked to defend things point by point. It can be a challenging task.

This time, however, the topic was H1N1, or swine flu.

I spent the weekend thinking about what I was being told, and realized there was a larger point here.

People were scared, more than I had seen in a long time. And, health care professionals were blaming the media -- accusing them of being alarmist...”

  The story has some good advice for parents at the end of the article.