Baby medicine: First day from the desk of Matt
This entry was originally posted in my personal blog but I thought it might be of interest here as well:
So, I totally just had my first day in the special care nursery. Pretty action packed. Well, not all that action packed actually…. but, you know, really good. I’m enjoying Paediatrics a lot.
Anyway, day started with our Professor of Paediatrics (great doctor, comes across like a friendly grandpa, actually a bit of a douche, but still a good teacher) who’s a neonatologist. So me and my attachment partner were treated to really comprehensive and consecutive bedside tutorials on the neonatal examination. Which is awesome, because it’s a really important learning objective, and I’m feeling much more confident already. Mid-way through the ward round though, the junior doctor’s pager went off and we were called to an emergency caesarian (just like in the TV shows :D) which was something I’d never seen before. Gross and beautiful all at the same time. The baby was really big and there was something really out of this worldly about seeing him pulled out of his mother’s abdomen all grey and icky. The umbilical cord was especially surreal with the baby up in the air but still attached. Quick as anything it was snipped, rushed round by the father to mum for a quick look before the junior doctor sat him under the heater for the once over. Then dad (ceremoniously) cut the excess of the cord off and baby was back over to mum for pictures etc etc.
Meanwhile, I’m there in my scrubs, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in awe over the whole thing. One of my neighbours was assisting with the operation which I really hope I get the chance to do. I should get the chance, really looking forward to that.
So that was awesome. Anyway, then medical grand rounds with a guest lecturer from Médecins Sans Frontières on malnutrition and some of the innovative ways they were tackling that. Really interesting, and relevant for a paediatrics term too.
Then we (my attachment partner, and I) wrote up our examinations formally for logbook purposes. And finally, to round off the day, a baby was transferred in to the nursery from a bigger hospital with DiGeorge syndrome. Which, basically, comes about due to a deletion on the 22nd chromosome and results in all kinds of different problems. Not a great condition to have but not that bad (many people with it don’t know they have it). Really excellent neonatal examination though because there are a whole bunch of birth abnormalities to find and they’re really important to see in the flesh. So often you have things in mind when you examine babies (and adults, for that matter) but it’s much more helpful if you’ve actually seen them before, of course.
Pretty awesome introduction to baby medicine, right? Oh, and I changed my first nappy, too. Really easy, don’t know what everyone complains about.
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