Sunday, June 28, 2009

Pediatric rotation @ St. Peters

I spent 5 days @ St. Peters University Hospital in the Peds unit. I had a good time. I took care of two sweet little kids. One was a 1 yr old male, who came in because he was having 1-2 minute seizures due to rapid spike in temperature due to an ear infection. While there, he was treated for ear infection, but seizure activity got worse. Before he was sent to PICU, I cared for him for 5 hours. I never actually witnessed a seizure, but he had chart documented seizures lasting up to 5 minutes, with tonic clonic activity. He lost consciousness and was not breathing. He was a sweetie pie. He was hooked to 24 hr EEG monitor with electrodes to his scalp. Also have two IV's. It was difficult seeing such a sweet little guy hooked up to all that. While I was at lunch, he has a seizure over 7 minutes long and was rushed to PICU. I didn't even get to say good-bye. I was upset. I hope he is okay. The doctor was leaning more towards Epilepsy now, due to fact that his temperature was being maintained at 99 for last 3 days. How sad. His mother was a wreck.

My second pt was an 8 month old baby girl who was in for a UTI. She had high fever, N&V, and wasn't eating, severely dehydrated. It is a DYFS case, open investigating. Mom is a known drug attic and is on Methadone. She acted very "off" and erratic the whole time she was there. Heavily tattooed and pierced. The staff didn't treat her very kindly, so I tried. She was actually very nice. She was very caring of the child and rocked her and sang to her even while I was in the room. I offered to hold child for a few so mom could get a break and she refused. Didn't want to leave her alone. She was a doll, so cute. I can totally see myself working this unit someday.

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