Who Am I Kid-ding?
By the time this post goes live, I will be well and done with my pediatric rotation and 1 week down in my surgery block.
Last week, I wrote about the pressures we sometimes face to find our niches, to find our medical tribes, so to speak, and I mentioned that I'm in the process of doing so myself. Those who know me personally, know I've been #TeamPeds since day 0, but what many might not know is the road I've traveled within my tribe.
Probably like many interested in peds, I started with an interest in general outpatient peds. I had no other exposure to the different subspecialties and roles aside from allergy/asthma and I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to subspecialise in an organ system or disease. Over the course of my academic years, I encountered and became interested in pediatric emergency medicine and pediatric critical care. I was also awakened to the reality and prevalence of child abuse in our society and its longstanding impact through the ACE study, PCA-VA, and individual accounts from child abuse lawyers, investigators, and other pediatricians.
Over time, I realised that maybe the ED wasn't a good place for me, with its relative chaos, constant triaging, and preponderance of non-acute, non-emergent patients, and that the PICU, and possibly even NICU, would offer that variety, as would general inpatient as compared to outpatient. And yet, I found myself torn between the inpatient vs outpatient divide - do I want higher acuity or do I want to build relationships with families and grow with my patients?
I hated outpatient on my family med rotation and yet, it was very tolerable, sometimes fun, on peds. I loved inpatient on IM, but for peds, it was decent, though fairly slow and of middling acuity. NICU week was amazing - fast pace, a good blend of high-acuity, well patients, and interacting with families, but do I really want the 48 hrs on/48 hrs off lifestyle? On top of all that, I'm coming to realise that advocacy work can be done in any setting, provided the passion and willingness to put in the hours is present.
So, yeah, I'm torn. I may know what my specialty is, but I have no idea what I'll be doing within it. That's up to God to reveal during residency, I guess
Last week, I wrote about the pressures we sometimes face to find our niches, to find our medical tribes, so to speak, and I mentioned that I'm in the process of doing so myself. Those who know me personally, know I've been #TeamPeds since day 0, but what many might not know is the road I've traveled within my tribe.
Probably like many interested in peds, I started with an interest in general outpatient peds. I had no other exposure to the different subspecialties and roles aside from allergy/asthma and I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to subspecialise in an organ system or disease. Over the course of my academic years, I encountered and became interested in pediatric emergency medicine and pediatric critical care. I was also awakened to the reality and prevalence of child abuse in our society and its longstanding impact through the ACE study, PCA-VA, and individual accounts from child abuse lawyers, investigators, and other pediatricians.
Over time, I realised that maybe the ED wasn't a good place for me, with its relative chaos, constant triaging, and preponderance of non-acute, non-emergent patients, and that the PICU, and possibly even NICU, would offer that variety, as would general inpatient as compared to outpatient. And yet, I found myself torn between the inpatient vs outpatient divide - do I want higher acuity or do I want to build relationships with families and grow with my patients?
I hated outpatient on my family med rotation and yet, it was very tolerable, sometimes fun, on peds. I loved inpatient on IM, but for peds, it was decent, though fairly slow and of middling acuity. NICU week was amazing - fast pace, a good blend of high-acuity, well patients, and interacting with families, but do I really want the 48 hrs on/48 hrs off lifestyle? On top of all that, I'm coming to realise that advocacy work can be done in any setting, provided the passion and willingness to put in the hours is present.
So, yeah, I'm torn. I may know what my specialty is, but I have no idea what I'll be doing within it. That's up to God to reveal during residency, I guess
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