Day 5-6: Does an embryo have a soul?

I’ve learned that the doctors on the pediatric service like pimping students. But, their pimping is quite different. The first such adventure I had was when a doc held out a little girl’s hand to me and said “ok what is the diagnosis?” To his credit, he did say that the girl had recently undergone a bowel resection and whose CBC showed anemia. But, all I could think was “wow that girl’s hand looks really normal!" It turned out that her knuckles were actually hyperpigmented, as were her lips, which are common signs of Vitamin B deficiency. He looked quite pleased that he stumped the American medical student who has never seen it before, but I plan to redeem myself… somehow.

I’ve appreciated the teaching here so much. Even though the docs have so many patients to see, and even though most of the patient encounters occur in languages I can’t understand, they always seem to make it a point to teach me something. And in incredibly nice ways. Like the doctor at the HIV clinic today who started mapping out the different stages of infection, and what the CD4 counts mean at different ages in between seeing patients. Or the Resident who always makes sure I understand what the disease is before she continues to explain the patient’s plan.

The Doc at the Pediatric HIV clinic pimped me too. He asked me "Does an embryo have a soul?" Of course I didn't know (again) and then he said to check out this lecture that afternoon, which I did. It was fantastic, it was led by an endocrinologist from Singapore who taught ethics, and compared the views of world religions toward stem cell research, and the use of embryos. It was the most unbiased ethical talk I've been to, and I really appreicated the neutral and enthusiastic attitude of the speaker. The discussion afterward was fun too, with surprisingly strong opinions surfacing and good questions being asked. But, now I definitely feel more informed and understand why there's so much conflict going on in the US about the issue.

One patient we saw yesterday had Pierre-Robin Syndrome, which I’ve read about but never seen before. I took a pic because I thought he was the cutest kid ever! He looks a little unhappy in the picture, but right after I took it, he blew me a kiss!

Today I had the chance to do the RUHSA clinic, which is CMC's rural outreach program. We went to the outpatients clinics, and my resident saw a ridiculous amount of patients... it must have been close to 40 in a few hours. And, on no sleep. Here the residents take call every other night and admit patients overnight twice a week. Last night she admitted 14 new patients and didn't sleep at all. They don't have post call days here... so she was still at clinic, and as the senior resident was helping the other interns with difficult clinic cases and just as pleasantly as she was when I saw her yesterday. I'm still in awe. I don't think I could ever complain about q4 call as an intern again... wow. I've included a few pics of the clinic here too.

It's been fantastic on Pediatrics, and I'll be sad that tomorrow is my last day. But, after a nice weekend lying on the beach with the other uthscsa med students in Pondicherry (did I spell that right?) I'll be starting neurology! I wonder if they do the hop on one leg exam thing here too. :-)