Pediatrics!

I think I found my calling.  I really enjoyed Peds!  I think a few good ways to know if you enjoy something include...
1.  You don't mind waking up in the morning to go to work
2.  The day goes by pretty quickly
3.  You don't mind staying later than usual a few times
4.  Staying up all night to do your job doesn't bother you (as much)
5.  The people already doing the job seem to really enjoy their work

Pediatrics was a 2 month rotation, 1 month outpatient and 1 month inpatient.  The outpatient month was split into 1 week of a private practice clinic, 1 week of newborn nursery, and 2 weeks of specialty clinics at Children's.  For my inpatient month, I spent 2 weeks on the Hematology/Oncology floor and 2 weeks on a General Pediatrics floor.  So, I got quite an array of pediatric experiences and I really enjoyed every bit of it.  I liked both sides, the outpatient was more well-child check ups and growth/development stuff, and the inpatient had a lot of pretty sick kids.

Usually, when people don't like pediatrics, they give two reasons.  #1 being the fact that it is difficult to see sick kids because they can't always tell you what is wrong and it is sad, #2 being it is difficult to deal with parents either being super scared and emotional or at the other extreme, being absent.  I actually loved the interactions I had with parents and the relationships developed with them, because they are usually really wanting help and guidance and if they are the absent type, you have a chance to be an advocate for child.  As for watching kids be sick, I felt a strong motivation to try to help them get better, and the good news with kids is that they are pretty resilient and do get better.  It is extremely difficult to watch a child suffer, and heartbreaking when they die, but I trust in God's sovereignty and rest in the knowledge that matters of life and death are in his mighty hands.  As my medical training goes on, I've learned more and more that end-of-life issues are an area where a doctor has an opportunity to help provide comfort, dignity, and loving kindness more than almost any other time.  We had a lecture about pediatric palliative care, and the doctor said something along the lines of all books are different lengths, but every book has an ending, and we can be a big part of making it a good ending.  As semi-cheesy as that sounds, I thought it was a good way of looking at it.  Most of the time though, our goal was to help kids get better and go on to live a long life. 

So, if nothing else changes, I'm starting to look into Pediatric residency programs.  Mark and I have talked a lot about where we'd like to end up, and the cities with the best job opportunities for Mark's field of work are New York, Chicago, LA, and Seattle.  The good news is they are all big cities with lots of different Pediatrics programs, so we'll see where we end up!