Being posted in Paediatrics is like being posted in a zoo, with my role being that of a chief zookeeper.
In the first half they let you deal with slightly older kids (with "old" here defined as 60 days from birth). Every morning, afternoon and night I get to terrorise them with syringes and needles. As pleasurable as this sounds, it gets dull after the first few days. There's only so many times you can hear screams of terror before your eardrums start to crack. Which is why they shift you out to the "Newborn" intensive care unit after two weeks.
Here you're placed in a huge room with 60+ newborn babies, most of them with tubes in their mouths, tubes in their noses, tubes in their urethras and tubes in their veins, all looking pretty much like aliens incubating. And the worst thing is that despite all of this, they're not the most alien thing in the room. That honour goes to the Staff Nurses.
Your one responsibility in the newborn unit is to "receive" babies when they're born by Caesarean section. It all starts off with a scribbled note from the Department of Obstetrics informing you that a certain number of pregnant women are scheduled to have a few kilograms taken out of them. This note comes at least four times a day (and night), at the most inconvenient of times.
You then make your way to the Emergency Operation Theatre, and get ready to wipe down a tiny wriggling newborn human being that's sometimes bathed in it's own faeces and choking on it's own secretions. It becomes a problem if the thing doesn't cry though; you then do the most doctor-ish thing you can think of - run and call somebody else for help.
The most difficult thing in this whole episode is carrying the baby. Some people hold the baby with a single hand, by the neck, during transport. I guess that's one way to do it. But being an amateur at baby-carrying, I tend to use both my hands, albeit awkwardly, while trying very hard not to drop it. Mothers "carry" babies. I "hold" them.
One month of Paediatrics is now nearly over, and it's only confirmed the one thing that I've always known. Children and babies are annoying. Terribly annoying.
In the first half they let you deal with slightly older kids (with "old" here defined as 60 days from birth). Every morning, afternoon and night I get to terrorise them with syringes and needles. As pleasurable as this sounds, it gets dull after the first few days. There's only so many times you can hear screams of terror before your eardrums start to crack. Which is why they shift you out to the "Newborn" intensive care unit after two weeks.
Here you're placed in a huge room with 60+ newborn babies, most of them with tubes in their mouths, tubes in their noses, tubes in their urethras and tubes in their veins, all looking pretty much like aliens incubating. And the worst thing is that despite all of this, they're not the most alien thing in the room. That honour goes to the Staff Nurses.
Your one responsibility in the newborn unit is to "receive" babies when they're born by Caesarean section. It all starts off with a scribbled note from the Department of Obstetrics informing you that a certain number of pregnant women are scheduled to have a few kilograms taken out of them. This note comes at least four times a day (and night), at the most inconvenient of times.
You then make your way to the Emergency Operation Theatre, and get ready to wipe down a tiny wriggling newborn human being that's sometimes bathed in it's own faeces and choking on it's own secretions. It becomes a problem if the thing doesn't cry though; you then do the most doctor-ish thing you can think of - run and call somebody else for help.
The most difficult thing in this whole episode is carrying the baby. Some people hold the baby with a single hand, by the neck, during transport. I guess that's one way to do it. But being an amateur at baby-carrying, I tend to use both my hands, albeit awkwardly, while trying very hard not to drop it. Mothers "carry" babies. I "hold" them.
One month of Paediatrics is now nearly over, and it's only confirmed the one thing that I've always known. Children and babies are annoying. Terribly annoying.
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