Pediatrics 110

As a rotation, pediatrics was a good one to end on. Family medicine, internal medicine, and ob/gyn all helped so that I felt there wasn't a steep learning curve. That allowed me to spend time playing with the patients. I like kids. Infants can't follow directions, toddlers won't, and adolescents do the opposite of what you want, but I don't mind the patient population. Playing with the children to assess development, joking around to distract them, relinquishing the white coat in favor of colorful toys and stickers are all kind of fun. In this rotation, I got to experience most of the facets of pediatrics. Primary care and nursery are fun primarily because of the patient; technically, they are straightforward and not challenging. The bulk of urgent care is made up of runny noses and painful ears and coughs and sniffles; occasionally, we even have a well child brought in by an overanxious parent. So the majority of patients on the outpatient side were good medical student patients. On the other hand, inpatients were sick. They were complicated, some were well-known to the hospital because of chronic debilitating conditions, and neurologic conditions were more common than I expected. As students, we took a much more hands-off role in the care of these complex patients.

I loved the attendings on this rotation, and the patients loved them too. Pediatricians are warm, enthusiastic, funny, and engaging. Oddly enough, I didn't jive with the "culture" of the residents. Every specialty has its own culture, and though there wasn't anything bad about the pediatric residents, I just didn't feel like I fit in.

Pediatrics has always been in the back of my mind as a potential specialty. During this rotation, I struggled a lot with whether I wanted to go into it; I would miss the adults, but if I went into internal medicine, I'd miss the kids too. In the end, I felt that the general bread and butter stuff didn't interest me enough, and I didn't feel like I fit into the pediatric resident culture. Though the "zebra" diagnoses (many of which are genetic) are fascinating, I'm not ready to commit to a pediatric subspecialty.