A Pediatric Recap

It's odd. Pediatrics was by far my best clinical experience but I wrote very little about it.

Due to a Monday snow delay, I only spent two days on the hospital floor. I did, however, get to spend a day in the pediatric hematology/oncology outpatient clinic, which provided me the chance to do lots of observing, ask questions, and entertain younger siblings while an older child got their chemotherapy treatment. It also provided what was perhaps one of my most profound pediatric experiences, when a four year old boy rattled off the names of each of his chemotherapy treatments to me -- this was shortly after he and I talked about the joys of a peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwiches. I felt like someone punched me in the stomach.

My days on the floor were wonderful. I shadowed great nurses (some of them PLU graduates!), and performed lots of assessments on a wide variety of patients. My first day we had an adolescent under observation during her recovery from a suicide attempt, a toddler recovering from a sickle cell crisis, and an infant recovering from several complications from surgery to repair a congenital heart defect.

I spent most of my time with the baby even though I couldn't hold her. I helped the occupational therapist during her assessment, and watched the baby's PICC line get removed. I also had the chance to take out the toddler's IV prior to his discharge. That kiddo had a pretty mean right hook. :)

My second day on the floor was a little slower. I took on the care of a school-aged child with asthma. I performed his assessments, and gave his medications. I also had the chance to help another nurse on the floor with a difficult patient. He was a fussy infant experiencing withdrawal symptoms while being weaned from narcotics. It took me and a nurse tech to calm him down, and then I held him for an hour. The unit secretary came in the room to tell me how sweet it was to see him calm and letting someone hold him. He'd been inconsolable the day before.

And there were so many more wonderful experiences! If there's anything I've learned in pediatrics, it's that I don't like seeing sick kids -- but I do love taking care of them.

Labor and delivery has some serious competition.