Day 3-4-5: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

So it's been a crazy three days. And Michael Jackson died...what that has to do with pediatric surgery, I'm not sure, it was a cardiac arrest...there are no good surgical options for that. I had outpatient clinic today which was really inspiring. The doctor I worked with was super friendly and I saw so many cool cases, pectus excavatum and Marfans, a strangely adorable baby with Osteogenesis Imperfecta III, a bubbly girl from Nigeria with Hirschsprung's Disease (I saw a soave pull-through yesterday), a baby recovering from gastrochisis (they seem to be all over the place). Sure my head might be about to explode and obviously keeping up with a daily journal is a joke, but so far I'm really enjoying this rotation. While it seems impersonal to refer to patients as diseases, as far as HIPAA guidelines go it's kind of the only way. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but starting next week we have all new residents and interns so who knows how it will be. I've also discovered I'm not totally hopeless at answering questions in the ER, though the attendings can sure be intimidating. If I wasn't quite so sleepless, I'd almost be excited about the rest of the rotation.

Day 2: Last Call

4:00 am should be the time to come stumbling home from a bar, not the time to go stumbling out the door to pre-round on pediatric surgery patients. But what are you going to do? Actually I had a great day! I got to scrub in on two hernia repair surgeries (one on a little 5 week old baby!) and a cyst excision. I got to cut sutures! This may not seem totally thrilling, but my doctor was great and really tried to make sure that I could see everything. Not that I plan on doing hernia repairs on my own anytime soon, but at least I feel like I learned something. Staying till 7:00 pm wasn't so wonderful, but that's my only late call for a week. Now I've just gotta get some sleep because it starts all over again tomorrow....

Day 1: Pediatric Surgery

So today was my first real day of third year rotations and my first day in pediatric surgery. I love waking up and going to work while it's dark! While the day was pretty disorienting, everyone was super helpful...though it's safe to say that everyone from the attending physicians and fellows to the interns feels exhausted most of the time. Great. It's going to be one intense month.

After rounds we were each assigned two patients to follow. Both of my kids were born with congenital defects, an omphalocele and an esophageal atresia, that were fixed when they were born but are now presenting with ongoing complications months to years later. It really makes me appreciate how fortunate I was not to have any post-operative issues after my surgery for duodenal obstruction when I was 3 days old. Maybe some of these kids will be desperate third year med students 25 years from now...right now I just hope they make it home in one piece.