Current Events > Fuckin pediatric ICU man

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today has been so depressing.

two kids (4 and 6 yo) with multiple gun shot sounds from gangs in the area, one kid drowned in a pool and got about 45+ min CPR, brain is fried, just had to declare brain death, asthmatic got put on a ventilator and is progressing toward needing lung bypass, and my little baby that i was taking care of in the neonatal ICU died from a rare genetic heart condition that was non durable and nonoperable.

Sigh. Im used to adults dying but the kids are always...so much worse
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I don't think I could handle being in a ward like that.

I remember waiting in the waiting room in an ICU once. There was a family there. They were crying and upset. Then another family member would come in and hug them and cry. Then another. Then another. And so on. Even though I had no idea what was going on just being around some sort of grief was devastating. There was also some police who talked to a young Asian couple about some sort of car crash.

Meanwhile I'm there by myself (my wife and her Mom were with my father-in-law who just had emergency surgery) playing ARMS on my Switch trying not to get sucked into the grief.

That story is tame and that was hard enough for me.
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Drowning victims mom is just devastated, i wish there was something i could do, theres just not. As a provider its just one of those things that you just kind of shove down deep and keep trucking for the families sake, but when you go home you just feel like shit.

I had a rough go after my cousin was murdered because grieving families would just bring back memories of my own family and things that i just emotionally never had time to deal with. Every job has its pitfalls i suppose.
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This is precisely why I chose Internal Medicine. I just couldn't do peds.
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Whelp, I'm definitely not going into medicine.
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The hypoplastic left heart syndrome babies and children always made me feel so sad.
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I think working as a coroner is worse.
Performing an a autopsy, especially on dead kids must be nightmare enducing...
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Coffeebeanz posted...

The hypoplastic left heart syndrome babies and children always made me feel so sad.

We have a pretty good peds cardiothoracic surg and congenital heart program here, so our hypoplasts tend to do fairly well but they pretty much live here for most of their infancy.

Darkrobotisback posted...

I think working as a coroner is worse.
Performing an a autopsy, especially on dead kids must be nightmare enducing...

Its a real fucked up job tbh. Ive done multiple human cadaver dissections for undergrad/Med school, but nothing compares to autopsies. I sat through one on one of my patients early in my career....never again. Totally changes it when you know the person, just mortifying
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I'm never gonna work with sick kids. I can't handle that.
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Do they offer free therapy for that? That's gotta be tough.
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Tyrannosaurus posted...

Do they offer free therapy for that? That's gotta be tough.

They do offer free counseling to the residents if a frequent flier child dies since typically we all know them well and get attached. The attendings i think are expected to manage their own mental health
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That sucks. I actually really wanted to work in pediatric/neonatal ICU, but I think it could potentially make me worse off mentally. Gotta care for yourself in order to provide the best care to others.
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I used to work at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital at the NICU. Saw some shit there that I'll never forget.
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When I was in about 6th grade, I wanted to be a doctor. I decided I'd like to be a neonatologist, because I was good with babies (I always say that I amuse them), and I was a pretty good babysitter.

Then I thought about it some more, and realized I'd certainly have to be able to handle dealing with dying and dead babies, and quickly abandoned the idea.
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i can agree with TC that it's depressing i can understand how others feel. it's really painful to lose a family member. but bad things happen that is out of our control to repair :(.

guess the heart condition one got me, only solace is he/she isn't in pain anymore.
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