CLERKSHIP SECOND ROTATION - PEDIATRICS 1/4 - OPD

Pediatrics is divided in 4 rotations. OPD, NICU, ER, WARDS for 2 weeks per rotation and my first rotation was OPD.

OPD is heaven for pedia rotators. You start at 8 in the morning and end at noon. You'll now have to log your census and then go home at 5 pm. On duty you'll get pulled out to ER or wards but that's up to 7 am only then you'll have to go to opd at 8 am again. duty to from duty is very tiring but more so of those in ER and Wards.

In OPD, you have to be fast in history taking in PE, then refer to your resident. If there's anything you do not know, search the net. It is very helpful if you read on common cases the night before. If still you do not know and for time's sake, you may ask your intern. Be ready for residents and junior consultants who would ask questions, do not hesitate to answer.

You'll have plenty of time in OPD so take it as opportunity to study. But yeah, what study. I would fall asleep as soon as I lay on the sofa or my bed haha!

The cases I personally encountered during OPD were:
- pediatric community-acquired pneumonia
- Hand, foot, and mouth disease
- - acute gatroenteritis
- Boils
- Cellulitis
- Otitis externa
- Otitis media
- Valvular heart disease
- Complete heart block in newborn

P.S. From boils down, only I had these cases. I don't know why but yeah. I also had a follow up opd case of acute gastro-enteritis who turned out to have arrhythmia and skipped heart beats.

The funny thing is I hated cardiology because I'm so weak at cardio but then I told God I wanted to be good at cardio and so He sent me these cases. And every time I'm pulled out to ER, I would have a patient to consider cardiac pathology, or costochondritis necessitating ECG which I will have to read. Then I found out that such case in the ER is rare and if there is, the er rotator to cardio patient ratio is even lesser than one is to one when one time I was there I had two and then another time, I had one. HAHA! At least I'm getting good at reading ECG.

GUIDE:
* Take history taking and physical examination seriously.
    - You'll be used to writing everything as normal when if you really did your physical exam, you'll find abnormalities especially arrhythmia.