All entries for Tuesday 25 April 2017

Paediatrics and Prescribing

We’ve had a few nice weeks so far on the paediatrics ward as part of our Child Health rotation. It’s been a really interesting experience and our timetable has given us a nice distribution between clinics, ward rounds and teaching. The hospital we’re based at has a substantial paediatrics ward, and patients come there for all sorts of reasons. We’ve seen patients with serious infections, patients with severe asthma episodes, patients with mental-health problems and lots of other issues that cause them to be hospitalised. Some are routine, and others are a lot less common – which is of course really cool for us students!

Most hospital wards have the reputation of being functional places without much emphasis on décor or surroundings. The paediatrics ward at our hospital is nothing like that, though. The designers have given a lot of thought to making it a friendly, welcoming and non-intimidating place for children. It has a jungle theme, and there are pictures of wild animals and even palm trees throughout. The floor has a long snake and lots of lily pads for frogs to jump off of! The nurses’ uniforms have a little bit of extra colour around the collars and sleeves to make them seem less severe and more playful. As a child, I definitely would have thought it really cool to spend time in such a nice ward and it’s great to see that so much effort has gone into helping the patients and their families feel comfortable.

We don’t just spend time on the paediatrics ward, of course. We also have spent a lot of time on the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU), in which newborns with specific problems will spend some time after birth. A lot of the issues relate to either congenital abnormalities, infections or complications brought about by prematurity. We’ve seen some pretty strong babies, and the care that they get from the nurses and doctors is absolutely stellar. It’s also a great opportunity for us to see conditions in real life that we’ve only read about – including some very interesting heart malformations and manifestations of infections.

We have bi-weekly academic days as well, at which we address general topics applicable to all students in all rotations (not just paediatrics). Most of the time, this covers prescribing for core medical systems – as this will be a large part of our jobs as junior and senior doctors. I remember as a first-year student (and even before I enrolled), I honestly thought I would never be able to keep all of the drug names straight. But with time and exposure, it gets much, much easier to remember them all and their indications (I’m still working on contraindications, and interactions, and side-effects, and doses, and everything else). But the instruction that we get on academic days is very useful, and I expect it will serve us well into the future.

John

Luke Pemberton : 25 Apr 2017 15:58 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem