For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while now, you may or may not know that aside from my blogger status, I am also a full time medical student currently in my clinical years. One of my intentions for this year is to document my medical school journey through a series of amusing stories that I encounter at the hospital. Hopefully, you’ll find my stories entertaining and maybe even learn something from them.
Pediatrics was my first stop after returning back to the hospital from a very short-lived Chinese New Year break. Completing my 6-week clinical rotation here has left me with a truck load of thoughts and reflections, far surpassing what I had initially expected entering this seemingly cute and harmless specialty.
None of these points are to be in any way, taken as medical advice. Most of them are just my thoughts and some of them are straight-out rants. With that said, let us begin!
1. Education starts with the parents
One thing that’s for sure is that education plays a really important role in the paths that children will take eventually. Some people might try to put their children in the best schools to receive the highest quality education, but I really do believe that education for these children start way before they’re put into school- education starts with their parents.
It’s really disheartening to see children being spoken unkindly to or being neglected by the ones who are supposed to give them the most love. And it really does matter, children are like sponges and they pick up on how their parents speak to them, speak to others, and speak to themselves. In There are plenty of rude parents in the pediatrics ward, and usually the way I see their children either speaking to them or to their siblings are just as aggressive. Here’s a kind remind to all the parents out there to be the kind of person that they want their babies to become 🫶
2. You are their biggest role model
Remember that cool big kid who used to give you attention and play with you when you were like 7 and no other big kids wanted to play with you? How they made you feel super cool and you still remember them even after decades have gone by and they probably don’t even remember you?
No matter where you are, whether you’re at school or in the pediatrics ward, you’re that cool big kid for these children. You’re the one they’re looking up to, and you’re the one they get excited about and will remember for decades onwards for giving them the attention that they want. You might not have done anything out of the ordinary, but to them it literally means the world.
You might be the reason that they want to become a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, or an artist. They are literally looking up to you as role models, so be a good one. Be one that you would one day want your own children to encounter and remember.
3. Fathers who dont know anything..
Okay, this one’s more of a rant than anything, but…
Women! Stop marrying useless fathers who don’t know anything!!
I’m literally trying to scream through my screen right now. Are you really okay with the fact that your man does not know the birthweight of your child, at what weeks they were born, or how long your baby has been having a fever for? The worst one I’ve seen (so far) is a father with 7 children and he doesn’t even know how many times his wife has been pregnant.
Can we please talk about why women are expecting this kind of below bare minimum effort from men? I’m obviously not one to judge anyone’s marriage but something tells me these are some big big red flags…These are not the men that we should be even looking at, let alone marry!
Wake up and do better.
4. It takes a great deal of patience to be a pediatrician
I’ll be the first to say, I don’t think I could ever become a pediatrician.
Being a pediatricians is hard. It’s hard to communicate with children, but even harder to communicate with parents. It’s crazy the things I’ve seen parents blame doctors for. If you’re not passionate about kids, then you’ll hardly make it here. Everybody likes kids, but not many are passionate enough to become a pediatrician.
5. Life is unfair and you have everything to be grateful for
For my last two weeks in pediatrics, I was placed in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), which also works very closely with the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and the SBR (sick baby room). Although placements here were not as intensive as my previous two (infectious diseases and gastroenterology), many of them were a lot more severe.
In the NICU, I cared for a six month old preterm baby suffering from intraventricular hemorrhage. He’s had at least 3 different seizures since birth and he has obvious neurologic deficits. His mother is only able to visit him for half an hour everyday, and it has been like since he was born. I’ve also seen a newborn with severe meconium aspiration syndrome and was put on ECMO for a week, basically a form of life-support only used for the most life-threatening conditions that affects the heart and lungs. And also a 13 year old girl who was able to run a marathon just last year diagnosed with terminal stage renal cell carcinoma.
All of these cases got me thinking…if you have a roof over your head, clean water to drink, wifi to read this, then you are very blessed.
This is one of my biggest takeaways from my 6 weeks in pediatrics- the fact that life truly is unfair for some people. Everyone has their own problems, it’s true, but if your problem can be solved then you probably shouldn’t be whining about it. For some people, it doesn’t get better.
And these are the biggest lessons I learned in pediatrics. If you have stayed this far, thank you so much for reading. Let me know what you think in the discussions below, and I will see you in the next story!
Until next time,
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