Pediatric Pulmonary review

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since I have blogged.  I have been meaning to update, but I've been really busy.  I guess I'll just update you on the last rotation: I loved it!  I guess I have pretty much enjoyed all of my pediatric rotations and this was no exception. My attending was great and I learned a ton.  The children were wonderful and the parents were great.  I learned so much!!  I don't think I'll go into pediatric pulmonary, but it is on the list of specialties that I would consider.

I had to do a big project for my rotation.  I gave a presentation on Asthma in children.  I learned an amazing amount.  The average rate of asthma is around 7% in the USA, but there are homeless populations in New York City with rates as high as 40-50%!!  Also, there are subgroups of the population who don't respond as well to treatment, namely the beta agonists (albuterol), such as the Puerto Ricans.  No one knows why they don't respond, no one knows why they have higher rates of asthma and no one knows why it is more severe.  I could go on and on.  It is amazing to learn all of these things about asthma, especially while I'm living in New York and seeing patients that fit these criteria (I saw a little Puerto Rican girl who didn't respond to albuterol and I saw homeless children with horrific asthma).  I don't think I would have had the opportunity to learn something in a book and then see patient's whose lives are affected by the disease in  most cities.  The diversity and size of New York City makes medical training in New York City great: if it happens anywhere, it can and will (at some point) happen here

Anyway, I was suppose to give my presentation to other students until an opening in the lecture schedule opened up.  I gave a noon conference for the residents!  I am lucky they are pediatricians (and therefore nice) because they could have asked me difficult questions just to show that they know more than I do (at least at this point in my education).  Nonetheless, I was well prepared and I am proud of how I did (so was my attending.)  Overall, it was a wonderful rotation!

Pediatric Pulmonology

I'm so happy to be back in the world of pediatrics!  I didn't realize how much I missed working with children until returning to the pediatric unit after a month of surgery.  Don't get me wrong, I like adults, but I love working with children.  They are so full of life, they are little fighters and shockingly, they never seem to feel sorry for themselves (unlike many adults, including myself).  I just like the atmosphere of pediatrics--I feel like it is, for the most part, more positive than other areas of medicine.

I had a couple cute kids this week.  There is a little girl, about 10 months old, who has been admitted for a month due to a bad infection.  She was looking great and got to go home (she was admitted for so long for intensive antibiotic therapy).  Whenever we rounded on her, she would dance, give the residents hugs and apparently she learned how to say "bye-bye" while in the hospital.  Now if I had the infection she did, I'd be grateful that I was getting better and would be okay, but I doubt I'd be dancing when the doctors came to check on me.

I really like the attending I am working with this month.  She is super smart and really well rounded.  I think I am going to learn a ton about pediatric pulmonary.  I have to do a big presentation for this rotation, which I started this week.  I chose to do my presentation on asthma because it is so common and such a bread and butter area of pediatric medicine.  However, now I wish that I would have picked something like hyaline membrane disease of the newborn because I don't know as much about it as I do about asthma.  Nonetheless, asthma is a much more common and studying it in depth will prove to be beneficial to me in the future.