Tuesday, December 1, 2009

It Has a Seizure Button?!

Earlier tonight, I went to a pediatrics skills workshop for M1s and M2s. There were about 30-40 students there total, and we were divided into smaller groups to rotate through several stations.

My first station was a well-child physical check-up. Two pediatricians brought in their kids for us to learn/practice check-ups on. They were such good sports about it. One kid was 4-years-old and he was seriously the cutest and most adorable thing ever! When his mom was demonstrating the physical on him, she asked, "What's that spot on your neck?" And he said, "It's my special spot," referring to a dime-sized birthmark on his neck. He was precious; he reminds me of my baby cousin.

Alas, I didn't get a chance to play with the 4-year-old. The kid I worked with was 7-years-old. It's all good. After the pediatrician finished demonstrating on him, she asked him to pick who got to go first to examine him. And he chose me! ^_^ So in general, you go from head to toe. So I kinda massaged his head and neck to make sure everything was fine, no weird bumps or massive lymph nodes, then I listened to heart and lung sounds. I'm not sure exactly what I'm listening to because we haven't formally learned yet, but it's all good. Then I got to listen to bowel sounds and then my favorite, the liver scratch test. So with the liver scratch test, you put your stethoscope where you know the liver is. Then you lightly scratch the stomach closer and closer towards the liver until you can hear the scratching sound. Once you hear the scratching sound, you've found the inferior (lower) border of the liver. Pretty cool! I took someone's hammer and did the knee reflex on myself - that was fun.

After that, we went to the immunization session where we learned how to give injections into muscle and subcutaneously. Ugh, I had issues getting rid of bubbles in the syringe - they just wouldn't float and go away!! It was pretty bad when the pediatrician at that station laughed at my incompetence with needles, lol. I think this is a sign that I shouldn't be giving injections to anyone.

Then the last station was the airways station. Personally this was my favorite one. We were shown how to use a laryngoscope to intubate (stick a breathing tube down the trachea) the airways on a child dummy. When I first put on the air mask, the pediatrician noticed how I was holding it wrong and remarked how I must've played the piano. o_O She said she used to play piano for many years, and that I was the first person to have held the air mask the way I did. Now, all laryngoscopes are left-handed tools, so I was excited since I'm left-handed. So was the pediatrician, so we were both quite excited. ^_^ It was also funny watching the right-handed people use the scope wrong before being corrected.

Lastly, some of us returned to the first station that we had missed. It was doing a well-baby check on a SimBaby (a fake simulation baby). The SimBaby is really cool in that it can simulate different heart sounds, lung sounds, cries, pulses, can turn cyanotic (blue), and can even seizure. When we heard that, Karen - from the anatomy lab table across from me - and I exclaimed at once, "Omg, it has a seizure button?!" Let me say, seeing a seizing fake baby is kind of funny. But, if you mentally transpose that seizing onto a real baby, I think that'd be scary as hell. We thought it'd be really mean if someone pushed the seizure button while you were working on the SimBaby, because then it becomes an "Oh shit!" moment.

All in all, this was totally the highlight of my day. Karen and I spent some time just staring at the kids because they were so cute!!

8 comments:

Seth said...

I feel like I'm getting some sort of mini-education-by-proxy reading some of your posts. It's fun, in a way, with the humorous moments you have.

Mike said...

Your heart is definitely in Pediatrics!

tracy said...

Wow, glad you had such a great time...and learning, too! Those SIM patients are sooooo cool!

tracy said...

Hi Seth,
i've always liked you and your pic!

Anonymous said...

Giving shots...HA! amateur's stuff. Get raised with livestock and a ton of animals and that will teach you right quick how to give shots, lol.

Mmmm, yeah, seizures irl are not cool at all. Nothing leaves me more unsettled or more scared shitless than watching someone you love have an attack. I guess that's a good thing they have on the baby, though, because in real life you are occasionally going to get epileptic patients.

Dave83201 said...

Coming soon to a Toys-R-Us near you! The SimBaby... the doll every little girl, or med student, is going to want Santa to leave for them under the Christmas tree.

tracy said...

Hee, Dave Love it!

Aaron said...

hahaha. and what does that got to do with the title? i love the scratching liver though! rather funny. :P