Saturday, September 04, 2010

A Day in the Life: Pediatrician Edition.

I spent the day yesterday shadowing our fabulous pediatrician. Beforehand, I worried that it might be a little awkward, following someone around all day without contributing anything, but it turned out to be a really enjoyable experience! I'm looking forward to doing it again next month.

We saw a lot of kids, of course...kids who were there for well-checks, URIs, EIs, rechecks, and one patient who came in for a rule-out of a fairly rare condition...kids who loved the doctor, hated the doctor, and were ambivalent about the doctor...and they were all adorable. I got a lot of smiles from all of those cuties. It was a busy day, though not unpleasantly so. It was a nice pace. We spent roughly 10 minutes (my guesstimation, I didn't pay attention to the actual time) with each patient which seemed the perfect amount of time, and from 9:30am until about 1:30pm there were not any lulls. Then we went to lunch, visited a baby in the NICU at the hospital, and came back to clinic and saw a few more patients before I morphed back into a parent when BubTar arrived for his 3pm appointment.

Things I learned, in no particular order:

1. I am not used to wearing heels all day. Ha! Obviously, I was on my feet all day and we did a lot of walking and took the stairs quite a bit. It didn't bother me a bit until I was OFF of my feet for a while...then, OUCH. Gotta work on that. ;)

2. Primary-care pediatrics is a lot of repetition. We saw many kiddos that were there for the same well-check, and so you basically repeat the same thing over and over. It isn't a BAD thing, just something that hadn't really occurred to me previously.

3. 4 months old infants are particularly adorable patients.

4. I need to learn more Spanish and get brave enough to utilize what I already know.

5. I can see myself being happy with this sort of career.

6. (which is not specifically related to yesterday) I can survive a week with roughly 3 hours of frequently interrupted a sleep per night, two sick kids, feeling mildly under the weather myself, while keeping up with my coursework and responsibilities, and still manage to enjoy myself.

PS: The pediatrician did a mono spot, a re-swab for strep, and a CBC for BubTar yesterday and all signs pointed run of the mill virus. He has a pretty inflamed throat and very swollen lymph nodes...but his fever broke this morning! I don't know if it will stay down, but it is a start! Also, KayTar seems to have a plain old URI, so I expect her to recover pretty quickly, too.

Cross-posted at Mothers in Medicine

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool experience!

Glad to hear BubTar finally caught a break from the fever.

Gizabeth Shyder said...

I wore heels once a couple of years ago and was pounded with thirteen needles in three different radiology clinics all over the hospital. Never again. Flats or sneakers for me.

moplans said...

glad you had a great day!

The Tutugirl said...

If you have to wear heels and be on your feet all day long, try Cole Haan Nike Air heels. They are ridiculously expensive, but you can usually find some on sale and they really do make a world of difference.

Becca said...

That sounds really interesting!! Glad Bub is on the mend.

Anonymous said...

Good grief you've exhausted me just reading this! I am amazed that you survived the last week so seemingly intact. The repetitive factor of general pediatrics is something I wouldn't have come up with either, and in some ways I think that would be sort of a comfort. Does your ped have time during the day to sit at a computer and email, as she has done so frequently with you? We've got a developmental specialist who is a reliable and timely emailer and it always amazes me as she is in a huge children's hospital with so many patients. How neat that you got to shadow the very doc that we've all heard so many good things about for so long!

And what are those clogs that nurses at the hospital always have on? Dansko? Get a pair!

Unknown said...

i think it's really cool that you got to follow your own pediatrician...sort of an inside lens into a career you normally view from the other side.

seconding all the "glad BubTar's doing better" voices. lots of love.

~aj~ said...

That is so, so cool that you got to do that...especially with a doctor that you already admire so much. And I've gotta agree with your assessment of 4 month olds. I'm about to have one of those myself and he just could not be any cuter!

~aj~ said...

Oh, and GREAT news that Bub's fever broke!!

Anonymous said...

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way. Do you think you should have gone to the NICU when you were feeling "mildly under the weather" and have two sick children at home?

Kyla said...

Anon: The pediatrician I was following knew that I had sick kids at home and I had also mentioned not feeling 100% the previous day to her (I was feeling just fine on Friday). When I was in the NICU, I didn't approach the isolettes or handle anything and I did wash when entering. I think/hope that I didn't do anything wrong by tagging along in that instance.