Pediatrics is not always as bright and shiny as Dr. Glaucomflecken’s birthday-hat-unicorn videos make them out to be, but to be honest, it’s pretty close. In pediatrics, you have the unique opportunity to see essentially two patients: the child and the parents/guardians. Additionally, studying for the clerkship can be challenging because all medical education up to this point has only been sprinkled in throughout your first two years of medical school. Nonetheless, this is an essential rotation for almost all future physicians, as many future careers have at least some pediatric components to them – we were all also kids once.

This was a great rotation, even if it is one of your first, because almost everyone on the rotation is nice. This is not to say that everyone in the hospital is rude, but the instructors and attendings at our institution are greatly invested in the education and advancement of learners, both medical students and residents alike. Develop relationships with your attendings and upper levels early, as you may see some of them more than once during your time on pediatrics. Developing longitudinal relationships with your upper levels gives you the chance to show your growth throughout the rotation. This may even lead to good evaluations based on your performance, regardless of where you start out on the spectrum of knowledge of pediatrics. Pediatricians love to see growth, both in their patients and in their medical students! If I could have changed anything about the rotation, I would change our lectures. While it was nice to be able to sit back and relax for a few hours during what can be a busy week, I did not feel like I ever left with anything meaningful. My suggestion would have been to make the lectures more relevant to the shelf (since that is what our current system places so much emphasis on) or encourage students to create and deliver their own lectures or case presentations. Similar to internal medicine (see future-Dr. Canter’s guide for internal medicine), there are a few elective rotations you can choose from on top the regular schedule. There is PICU, pediatric radiology, and NICU. People have various thoughts on the rotations, but in general they are highly dependent on the patients/residents/attendings present during these rotations regarding how much you get the chance to do during your time. For those interested in OBGYN, pediatrics, and surgery, and critical care, choose either NICU or PICU. There are only 3 days on this rotation, so do not sweat it if you do not get your first choice. Remember that you can rotate through any of the above electives during your fourth year at no detriment to your likelihood of matching regardless of specialty of choice. The bread-and-butter rotations you will find yourself on are: pediatric wards, adolescent medicine, newborn nursery, and outpatient clinic. I will not delve into these, as I felt the descriptions on the canvas page and syllabus will adequately prepare you.

Keeping an infant still: INVOLVE PARENTS. Have them hold their child’s head with one hand, and with the other arm, hold their hands and feet to keep from swatting at or kicking you. For your stethoscope and cardiologic examination, what air goes back out must come back in – they take a breath between cries and babbling. During this time, it is usually much easier to hear heart sounds and to assess their inspiration. Additionally, warm your stethoscope with the palm of your hand, as this will decrease the likelihood of baby becoming agitated at your coldness. Recognizing a sick baby: One of the most important things in medicine as a whole is recognizing someone who is sick. Unlike most adults, children are usually able to compensate for their sickness all the way up until they cannot. That is to say, a child may look mostly well for one’s examination, but 10 minutes later they may be the opposite. Keep this in mind especially during your night shifts on wards when you receive admissions. Medical education opportunity: If you are interested in medical education, the medical curriculum education committee (MSEC) is a great and relatively easy way to get involved. It is comprised of the chief residents, the course directors, and your satellite campuses. The committee is first come, first served, so keep this in mind! Notes: Notes are your time to shine. Almost every clinic or team in the hospital has Smart-Phrases that include the milestones so you don’t have to remember them during every patient encounter. Use Angela Houchin’s “WCC” (well child check) smartphrases. Continuity: Given turnaround time, this clinic may be the first time in your medical career that you get to have continuity with patients since you see newborns and they are seen soon after. You may even get to see them be born and transition their care to outpatient and literally see them grow up. What could be better? Thinking about doing surgery on bones all day?

• Go to morning report each morning at 7 if you can. Such good learning opportunities and even chances to stand out among your peers or the residents if a med-student level question is asked. • Save interesting or particularly challenging patients in EPIC or write down their MRN and the attending you were with. Residents and attendings are always looking for a quick addition to their CV, so if you reach out to them and ask if you could write a case report or poster on one of the patients you saw, this is a great way to revisit patients again when you have the time. • It’s good to keep a mental or physical checklist of things you want to learn for when an attending or residents asks, “what do you want to learn while you’re on this rotation?” It shows you are engaged and are interested in learning regardless of your interest in the specialty. • he clerkship is so long here at UK (7-8weeks), and this coupled with almost half the rotation being half-days of clinic, you can almost finish two passes of UWorld (first pass plus misses) or complete the AMBOSS questions on top of UWorld. I did the latter, but either method should be effective. • As of writing this article, Zanki has just released V12 of their tags, which includes about 80% of UWorld Step 2 question IDs. If you do not know something, chances are there are cards related to the question ID located in the Zanki deck. • When on newborn nursery, the residents carry the delivery pager for newborn resuscitation. Always go with them, as this can be an opportunity to help resuscitate or stimulate a newborn. Additionally, this gives you the chance to see how the NICU, Nursery, Respiratory Therapy, and Labor and Delivery teams work in unison and rapidly assess a baby’s status.