Well checks are when a parent or parents brings there kid in to clinic in order to make sure they are growing and developing normally. This is the appointment where I "simply" ask about eating, drinking, peeing, pooping, weight gain, smoking, drugs, abuse, car safety, child proofing, keeping poisons locked up, gun safety, proper sports wear, sun safety, sun screen use, nutrition, obesity, family diseases, and any questions or concerns the parents might have (I'm not including all the topics if I did this would be a much longer post). A seasoned doctor could talk about any one of these for half an hour...but you only have 15-30 minutes total for the encounter...so get busy and stay on point!
In medical school I always saw checking on a child that was "well" as something that was easy and so I ignored it. I took rotations that I considered exciting, rotations that were difficult, rotations where the kids were actually sick, thinking that I would take care of that "easy" part someday. As time went on I continued to push it aside and "get by". All the while neglecting a really fundamental part of pediatrics. In the end, I compare how I felt to how an illiterate adult must feel when confronted with reading. The longer you go without knowing it the harder it is to ask for help...the more embarrassing it is to not know how to do it...the more you dread it.
But in running into this particular attending, she wouldn't let me "get by" anymore. She grilled me on exactly what I was "checking". She did it in front of my friends...and I felt very, very stupid. I'm sure my face was flushed as she pointed out how disorganized my approach was, how poorly I questioned, and brought up my pathetic attempts at anticipatory guidance (car seats, child proofing, etc). It's times like these when you feel like someone is antagonizing you. You can choose to say "Screw You"...and I REALLY wanted to say it. But there is this "wise man" proverb from some book I read in childhood that has always stuck with me...the idea at least, I may be butchering the wording.
A Wise man seeks out advice and a fool despises it.
I think it stuck with me because I'm often too proud and too often don't have the skills or ability to back up that pride. That quote has saved me countless times, times where I felt embarrassed, where my pride told me to shut my ears and close my eyes, but then that thought would strike me like an arrow, and it would give me the strength to grit my teeth and open them.
That's what happened this last week. I realized that she was right and since my last post all I have chosen to do is those dreaded, damn well child checks...embarrassing as it is to have me friends see me slowly, painfully stutter through them day in and day out. It has seriously been such a depressing and dull week. I can't count the number of times I saw two patients one with something exciting in the header like "seizures" or "blood in stool" and instead I would choose the one next to it saying "Well Child Check"...it's been a very humbling two weeks, but I console myself in knowing that every day I get a little bit better and my weakness gets a little bit stronger...someday soon I'll be "reading at grade level".
Newbie Doc
