So I had two days off over Thanksgiving and was lucky my parents made the long drive here to spend it with me. I fixed turkey with all the trimmings and it didn't taste to bad. The rest of the weekend I've been working the 6 pm to 4 am shift in the ER which isn't my favorite but my last shift is tonight. I feel a little anti social not seeing anybody during the day and working all night.
Yesterday I felt like I had a minor breakthrough with a couple of patients. One of the challenges of Pediatrics is dealing with parents who have not very sick children but come to you wanting you to fix every little thing they perceive is wrong with their children. I saw a couple of infants yesterday whose parents came in because their kids have "nasal congestion." Now who, during this time of the year doesn't have congestion??? There was a recent movement to pull all the infant cough and cold medicines off the shelves because of some bad side effects and lack of efficacy. So basically, we can offer absolutely nothing to the parents of those kids. The break through I had yesterday is I walked into the rooms knowing I couldn't give these parents a magic pill to make the kids feel better but instead had the time to just talk and mostly listen to them for awhile. I was thrilled when they actually left happy! I mean you learn that most of the time patients/parents just want you to listen to them but sometimes you feel like people won't be satisfied until you fix their problems. In this case I couldn't do that but all three of these parents seemed pretty satisfied with the time we spent together. Additionally I discovered more information about the patients' home in that the parents all smoke which is going to cause congestion in babies because of the irritation of the smoke. Hopefully I might have made some inroads into getting them to think more seriously about quitting if not for their own but for their kids' sake.
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