Pediatrics Rotation - First Impression: Apprehension from a Former President of the Pediatric Studen
- Hesham Hassan, M.Sc.
- Sep 7, 2017
- 4 min read
In Dominica, I was on the executive board for the Pediatric Students Association all four semesters…and was president of the club for the last two semesters. Many of my peers have assumed that I was so involved with the club because I wanted to be a pediatrician but I honestly entered medical school with an open mind about the future discipline I wanted to practice. Pediatrics club was a way for me to explore my interest in children since part of me thought about going into child abuse pediatrics after my stent with child protective services. However, anyone who knows me today would also agree that pediatrics is not the field for me.
Pediatrics is not miniature adult medicine. Kids are different in their physiologies and needs, and the difference is evident when you compare the different approaches you take in doing a history and physical between adults and children. With children, you really have to have a good eye for opportunity and obtain information from the patient as that opportunity presents. Family medicine gave me ample pediatric experience, so for my first day I felt well-prepared to handle pediatric cases. However, I appreciated my attending for sitting down with me initially to find out where I am in my education. We were able to talk about my experience before medical school, what rotations I had completed thus far, and if I had any interests for where I wanted to match. I told him about my desire to pursue OBGYN, and he told me how I could get more practice doing procedures during the peds rotation. So, why was I not so keen on the pediatrics rotation?
Firstly, I think a majority of my reservation against pediatrics stems from my own biases toward parenting. I am a parent who is proud of his children, but I also acknowledge my prejudices against other parents when their views conflict with my own ethics or principals. For example, two encounters that have stuck with me due to the extreme frustration I had were encounters that involved pediatrics. The first was a parent who was refusing to vaccinate her children because a friend’s child died due to febrile seizures the friend strongly felt were related to the vaccines. This patient could not be swayed regardless. I ended up becoming frustrated and recommending that she do some research into the diseases she was not willing to vaccinate against because children in developing nations are dying from these diseases still. I also suggested she look at some YouTube videos that show the progression of Polio because I know I would never want my child to die from something that’s preventable. The second encounter was from a mother who did not appear to take her child’s obesity seriously and blamed things on her child for what I would consider a parenting problem. Although I really enjoy children and care about their wellbeing, I could see my biases against some parent’s decisions as being what would prevent me from providing optimal care to every single child. And although I already know this about myself, I am still eager to learn pediatrics and hope to use this as an opportunity to improve my knowledge of development so that I can apply it one day in future practice.
The Work
So far, the work consists of seeing patients in the morning and the afternoon. I take a patient’s chart and enter the room. Then, I do either a detailed H&P for new patients or well-child checks/sport’s physicals or I will do a more focused physical exam for acute problems. The attending will then enter the room where I will present the patient and he will follow-up with his assessment and plan, deliver relevant patient information to the parents, and we might discuss afterwards various details of the case. I am at his clinic Monday through Friday, and the work day ranges from 9:00 AM to about 5/6 PM. On Wednesdays, we have our didactics lectures with the pediatrics chair either at the main hospital or her practice. I have been scheduled for my presentation in didactics, and have a week of in-patient peds scheduled midway through the rotation.
The Studying
I have ample time with having the evenings free and weekends off that I am definitely able to maximize studying with my Cramfighter schedule. I have created a list of high-yield topics based on various recommended materials, and should have enough time to solidify my knowledge base for pediatrics. Rumors around the exam include that the pediatric shelf is difficult and similar to learning a new branch of medicine like OBGYN. Each day during the week, I have scheduled 15 pages of reading from a primary textbook, 10 UWorld questions, and one CLIPP case from MedU. On the weekend, I have my schedule set with double the work. After two days of this rotation, I know I will enjoy having more opportunities to learn due to increased time available as well as feel comfortable that I will easily balance out family responsibilities with education.
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