Goo Goo Gah Gah

Things learned after a week in the newborn nursery:

1. Newborn babies smell fabulous. Seriously. Go smell a baby. You'll be glad you did.

2. Swaddling is more difficult than you'd think. I mean, wrap a baby like a burrito, how hard could it be? Harder than it looks, my friend, harder than it looks.

3. Poopy diapers are not as disgusting as I thought they'd be.

4. Babies = not so breakable. After just a couple of days, you get used to picking them up and flipping them over and whatnot without worrying that their head will snap off.

5. Work is not work when you spend your morning with one hand on your stethoscope and the other on a pacifier.

Connect

I love Peds.

I'm probably beginning to sound like a broken record, aren't I?

Today I saw well babies who needed shots, kids with viral illnesses and fevers whose parents were worried about the possible need for antibiotics, kids with dry skin and coughs and ear infections. I sat and chatted with a very shy just-turned-teenager whose mother began our talk with "He won't talk to anyone he doesn't know."

"Ok then," said I. "Let's get to know each other." I told him my name, where I was from, things I liked to do. I asked him where he went to school, what he liked to do with friends, what he wanted to be when he grew up.

"There. Now we know each other."

And suddenly we know that I like video games just like you like your xbox, and you got a kinect for Christmas, and you might be able to use that to exercise. Now we can identify goals and make changes and try to bring your blood pressure down and get you to stop eating chips after school so you can lose some weight.

I handed out some Benadryl today, and looked in ears and proclaimed them uninfected, but more than that I made connections. And hopefully those connections will result in healthier, happier kids and families.

That is why I love peds.

Love at first sight

My day today flew by so fast I looked up and couldn't believe it was 5:30.

I saw well babies, kids with viruses, a rash, an almost teenager with a weight problem who loved basketball. I chatted with moms and played with younger sisters and was apparently the interpreter phone magnet (seriously, folks, my spanish skills are not good enough for this business).

At first I was nervous, because I'm at the clinic where I did my externship two summers ago, and wondered if my attendings would find me as impressive now as they did then (when they had no expectations--what if now, as a third year, I was just another third year?). At the end of the day, however, the attending I was working with went over my note with me, quietly told me that it was good to have me back, and that my note was better than an intern's. They asked if I still wanted to do peds and were pleased to hear that I was pretty much set at this point.

There is no other way to put it--I LOVE what I did today. I loved everything about it. I walked out of work so happy I couldn't help but smile. It was one of those Aha! moments when you just know. It's right. This is right. I am in the right place, I am meant to do this, and I am good at it. I love peds, and I will make a good pediatrician, and I am so excited for these next two months.

The only problem now will be how to force myself through two months of surgery after this is over. :-)

2010

It's 2011? Really? This seems, for some reason, much more surreal than most other changes in the calendar. I'm not sure what it is, but something about "2011" seems much more futuristic and far-off and other than 2010 or 2009 before it. Or maybe it's just that after 2011 comes 2012 and in 2012 I'll actually have someone put green hood over my head and call me "doctor" and expect me to actually know something.

Either way, with the passing of time and dropping of the ball (even with all of the absolutely horrifying musical acts it entailed--I mean seriously, was anyone else watching the washed up awfulness that was the New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys mix last night? I mean, how old did those guys look?) comes time for reflection on what has passed, and what will come. Sometimes it's actually hard to remember what happened a full year ago and remember that it actually was just a year ago that you were doing those things, after all.

So, in 2010:

• January started with Pathology and lots of it. That's most of what I remember--studying for a shelf and being very beaten down with it, and relieved when it finally ended.
• February and March were basically just school, with its studying and whatnot.
• In March, D and I took a fabulous spring break trip to Vienna, Austria as a delayed gratification gift for our first wedding anniversary (the previous June). Even though we were both sick by the end of it, it was fabulous--D's first time, my second, to what has quickly become our favorite city in the world.
• April and May, if I remember correctly, weren't incredibly exciting other than the weather got warmer and school got less difficult. The first weekend of May I took my last final of med school and drove home with the windows down and Sweet Caroline blaring and good times never seemed so good. Of course, the next day I had to start studying for the boards.
• The month of May I spent locked up studying for boards. That is all.
• In June I spent 3 glorious weeks on vacation, including a week in Florida with family.
• July kicked off the insanity of third year, with a six weeks spent on OB/GYN rotation, which I enjoyed somewhat (labor and delivery was fun, oncology not so much). I ruled out OB as a future specialty.
• In mid-August I switched to Psychiatry with child Psych, which I really enjoyed (mainly because of the kids and the people I worked with. We had great hours and a great team, but at the end of six weeks I was bored. Definitely not being a psychiatrist.
• At the end of September I started Internal Medicine with a month on wards at the VA. I had a good team of residents and a scary attending, got along ok, and tried to convince myself I liked it. Some things I liked, others I didn't...I went back and forth for a long time. November I spent on Infectious Disease and enjoyed my HIV patients a lot. December I was on endocrine and decided that Diabetic patients were what probably tipped the scales away from Internal medicine for me.

And now for 2011:

• I get to start my year on a pediatrics rotation, which I am very much looking forward to.
• This year, I will start applying to residency positions, and hopefully begin interviewing in November and December.
• I plan on surviving surgery.
• I will (hopefully) escape for a bit to the beach.
• I will celebrate my third wedding anniversary

Can't wait.