PICU: Day One

Today was my first day in the PICU. I was with two interns, a third year, and one attending as we rounded on the patients. In the beginning, we were accompanied by a cardiologist and rounded on the patients who had cardiac defects. Among the cases I saw were Ebstein's anomaly, TGA, hypoplastic left heart, and Tetralogy of Fallot; pretty cool stuff. Well, good for studying, not for the babies and their families. I did see the little boy who presented with a brain tumor about two weeks ago (turns out he had an astrocytoma); he's currently on a trach but doing better. His mother didn't recognize me when I asked how he was doing, but maybe it's just as well.

We had a noon lecture on what I thought would be behavior science, but instead the lecturer showed us pictures of skin disorders with little stories for each of them (shingles, scarlet fever, herpangina, chicken pox, etc). He liked to talk and made us laugh for nearly 2 hours; we went overtime and were late to our respective clinics but no one really cared.

One thing I noticed about this hospital (and probably most hospitals) is that a lot of the mothers here are young. And because they are young, they tend to give their kids ridiculous names without thinking about the ramifications for those kids later on. There was a "Justin Case" in PICU, I think, and one of the interns said he heard someone named their girl "Placenta Previa" because it "sounded cool" (I hope that girl doesn't become a doctor or else she'll want a name change...) But the one that topped it all was when Enrique, one of the senior residents, said he knew a girl who was named Jenny Talia. Say that one fast....ugh.