the baby

I could tell a lot of tales from the last week of peds surgery. If you talked me recently, you probaly know I saw my first case of child abuse in America this week. I am not going to blog about it because of the sensitivity of the issue not even under password protected. I was surprised how hard it was for me. I seen so much gross neglect and abuse of children overseas. But most of it has been at the hands of the state and not at the hands of the child’s own parent. But it didn’t make me want to run from pediatrics, if anyting it motivated me. Little kids are so worth fighting for, there are few more just causes than protecting a child from harm and comforting them when they encounter it.

Today I was on rounds call. I went in and we were done by 7. I learned how to do an arterial blood gas and then found myself wandering the NICU. An idea came to my head. I presented myself to the nurses and asked if I could feed a baby. I explained that I had volunteered before I came to medical school. I spent 45 minutes holding a baby who happened to also be my patient. He had screamed all morning and his Mom never comes to see him. The nurse sent me to him when I asked to be put to work. I put on the gown and and sat in a rocking chair and watched the sun finish coming. I kept waiting for some doctor to walk in and send me off to do scut. But no one ever came and bothered us. I sang softly to him and stroked his little head and watched his eyes slowly droop When I left him in his crib, he was content and for the first time all day not crying. The nurses offered me a grateful glance. I nodded, grabbed my white coat and headed home.

There is more to these children than numbers and orders. My profession is really good at forgetting that.