A friend asked me toward the end of my first week of neurology, "Are you still considering pediatric neurology as a possible career?" The short answer is yes. I was prepared to discover that in fact I did not like trying to coo my way through a neurological exam, or that dealing with the parents of very sick children would be nightmarish.
On the contrary.
Sure, most children aren't as cooperative as an adult, but I take it as a challenge to figure out how to get the information I need. For example, I needed a hide-behind-my-mommy toddler to close his eyes tight to assess facial muscle strength and symmetry. He wouldn't cooperate, no surprise. So I decided to play hide-and-go-seek. "Now close your eyes while I go hide!" Done.
I also noticed that, in general, the sicker the kid the nicer the parents. Knowing me, I will start plotting subjective parent pleasantness versus severity of child illness then calculate the correlation.
Another aspect of pediatric neurology that I like is that my entire approach to the neurological exam will be different depending on the child's stage of development. In one day, I saw a 9-month-old, a 2-year-old, a 5-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 17-year-old. That 17-year-old would think I'm a lunatic if I busted out the finger puppets to assess his eye movements.
I'm excited for these next three weeks to see how my perception of pediatric neurology evolves.
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