Kids as Patients vs Brain Surgery

I’m wrapping up my Neurology rotation with 2 weeks at a children’s hospital–aside from having (mainly) adorable patients here is a list of things that have made this service particularly awesome. If you go to my school this list of “perks” may help you decide when picking between peds neuro, neuro surgery or ICU care.

1. The hospital is colorful. Like seriously, there is a theme to every floor. You can’t help but smile when even the architecture of the building has color in mind. It is also a brand new hospital so everything is very modern.
2. Parking is free. FREE!
3. Parking is close! (when you savor every minute of sleep you can get, saving yourself 5 minutes of walk time is worth its weight in gold).
4. Breakfast is free! The food is amazing with fresh fruit, pastries, yogurt parfaits, bagels, coffee. When you are a poor med student you can be easily swayed by the little things in life like starting your day with a full-healthyish- stomach.
5. Lunch is free! I can’t rave as much about the lunch, but I will say it is 100% better than any of the other free lunches at other hospitals. It is always catered, so if you are not a vegetarian like me, you’ll probably love it.
6. The electronic medical record is easily one of the best choices around. Super easy to look up stuff.
7. The residents are super nice.
8. The attendings are super nice.
9. The patients are hilarious. Case in point, I was trying to examine my first little patient of the day and he looks at me and says “excuse me, you are interrupting my cartoons.” Absolutely the cutest.
10. You have NICU patients. The tiniest, sweetest, humans around.
11. The hours are very tolerable. Typically I start my day around 7:20 am so I have time to see my old patients and read briefly about any new ones I will be picking up. You have morning report (free breakfast!) at 8 am, which includes an hour discussion about one particularly interesting case and the teaching points involved. Followed by time to see and examine your new patient before rounds start around 9:45am. Rounds typically wrap up by noon lecture (free lunch!) followed by time to write your notes, check in on your patients before you head over to the main medical center for afternoon lecture at 4pm. You are free to go home after that, which is usually either 5pm or 6pm.
12. Being able to put parents at ease is very gratifying. It feels tremendous when you can send a child home and they are all better.
13. This hospital sees some of the rarest childhood illnesses you’ll come across. In one week I’ve already seen two cases of Guillane-Barre (overall incidence of 1 to 2 per 100,000 per year). You are guaranteed to learn a tremendous amount. The cases are all very interesting.

Now to the alternative….instead of peds neuro you have the choice of picking either neuro surgery or neuro ICU care. I was able to get a glimpse of the high of neurosurgery while on-call one night. This was the first time I’ve ever scrubbed for a case and it will easily be a memory that stays with me for a lifetime. The excitement of being in an OR is hard to describe. Furthermore, being in the OR when emergency neurosurgery is involved is like putting that excitement on steroids. Few things in life are as surreal as looking down on a human brain. The whole time I was standing in that OR I just kept thinking to myself how lucky I am that I am in this profession and have the absolute privilege of being in this room right now. The whole world disappears when you have surgical tools in your hands and get to watch someone literally fixing the human body. Of course, as thrilling as that experience is, picking neuro surgery as your elective comes with a price. You will have exhausting hours (think 5am start times), high stress, high pressure–yet all that comes with the prize of being in the OR. So choose carefully.

My favorite part of my neurology experience has been the camaraderie with my team. Everyone has been so eager to teach and learn. I’ve enjoyed all my co-workers. Actually, maybe I just miss having co-workers. Being in school full time was certainly an adjustment. Now I get to have a little bit of that feeling back of what it’s like to be around people you work with! Although I don’t get a paycheck, and the teams change all the time, it is nice to feel like I am working again.