Friday, December 27, 2013

Welcome back

Wow....where did 3 years go?
Yeah I need to change that profile pic that looks like a porn star, instead of a respectable physician. You can tell it was posted in my "young" days.

Okay...so I survived 4.5 years of undergrad, 1 year post baccalaureate program, 4 yrs med school, 4 years of neurology residency and now I am halfway through with my 1 year of neurophysiology fellowship. People hear these things, because neuro has to do with the brain/nervous system and think I am smart which makes me feel like the biggest fraud, because I really don't feel smart and I feel like things I read, I forget the next week. I am not being humble, I know this because my friend asks me gynecological questions and I am clueless and have to look it up. My bf asked me where testosterone was made in females and I had thoughts but still had to confirm by looking it up. Yes, they say I am a specialist, but I tell you some of my attendings and even classmates know everything about our field and remember every aspect of medicine they ever learned. Well, that being said my strength lies in my ability to connect with my patients, and I genuinely care for them. I also now try not to slack on reading. Thank God for audio stuff and Through all this I have had mental and emotional stress but also felt fulfilled by what I do. That is a good thing because I, like many other medical professionals lag behind my non medical friends in financial and personal accomplishments it seems. Anyhow, enough personal mulling here is a story for you:

So we read an EEG (electroencephalogram-test to detect seizures) this week on a 1 day old infant.  His mother shows up at the Emergency room with stomach and back pains and they find out she is pregnant. They ask her how far along she is and she is not sure, thinks her last menstrual period was in April. SO they do an ultrasound and estimate baby to be 35 weeks and ask her where she has been getting care. Homechick says she hasn't had any prenatal care because she has been too busy to get to it and lost her medicaid. More questions, reveal that she is 33 years old and this is her 13the pregnancy...yes oh, I did not stutter, THIRTEENTH! She lost 2 kids but this will be baby number 11 that will reside in her apartment with her other 10 and her man. She has been treated in the past for gonorrhea, trich and chlamydia but luckily her HIV test was negative.

 So, the baby was born limp, no heart rate, no breath sounds, within his first 4 minutes of life he had to be intubated (breathing tube down his throat and placed on ventilator to breath for him) and then they did chest compressions on his tiny chest for 6 minutes before a pulse returned. Next, they noticed that all his labs were abnormal indicating multi-organ failure and they see him twitching abnormally and this is where we (neurology) comes in, because they order the EEG to see if he was having seizures. His EEG was flat...which means no brain activity at this time. And now begins the conversation with parents on what to do next as far as withdrawing care. The whole situation was just amazing and sad. I couldn't help but wonder if a child is already born dead...why do resuscitative efforts? Because you bring the child back, but after God knows how many minutes of brain death outside the womb not to talk of in utero, what kind of quality of life will he have? How will mom take care of him with 10 siblings?

Let me end this post on a cheery note of saying, life as a fellow is infinitesimally better than life as a resident or medical student :)

1 comment:

  1. Is it wrong that I was most focused on the fact that a woman a year younger than me has given birth to 13 children? May her wee one rest in peace though.

    I'm glad that being a fellow is great!

    lol she does look very unprofessional, to say the leaset! Get your bf or a colleague to snap a pic of you in your professional clothing, then blur the heck out of it!

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