All of us at the Developmental Paediatrics department felt delighted yesterday when we had the visits from three post graduates from Paediatrics, two of them leaving after their training and the other one now for his final year of training. The two who were leaving were the two whom we used to contact when we needed the Paediatrician's help for children who visit us.
I remember one occasion when these two trainees offered to find clothes for a child who was admitted with seizure disorder. His family had financial constraints and they two took the initiative to help that financially financially and otherwise.
Their willingness to go out of their way to feel for the family reminded me of Professor Malathi Jadhav, under whom I worked for two years(198-1982) at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. One morning during the rounds after the resident presented a child who was admitted with pneumothorax following Bronchiolitis, who needed resuscitation following a cardio-respiratory arrest. The child looked comfortable and was breathing spontaneously after the chest tube was draining the air.
Turning to me, she asked me whether the child's mother had her breakfast! Then she enquired from the nurse, who was caring for her two younger children at home! Knowing her limited resources Dr Malathi asked to arrange for her free treatment from the hospital's Patient to Patient fund.
That sense of consciousness of Child Care beyond the immediate illness has stayed with me since then as a mission for all those training to be Paediatricians and practicing the discipline. It was that spirit these two paediatrics trainees demonstrated while taking care of a child who had refractory seizure with epileptic encephalopathy.
To meet with three of them, two leaving after the training and the other in the last year of his training brought nostalgia about my my paediatrics training. Prof S S Deshmukh who was my post graduate guide at the Government Medical College, Nagpur, for the research work required for the desertion, was an astute clinician. She was a learner by observing the behaviour of children and parents. A child was brought in a semiconscious condition and Dr Deshmukh noticed that the child's pupil was pin-point and not reacting to light. She became suspicious that the child was given some sedative. After the revival of the child Dr Deshmukh had a long conversation with the mother. The mother having lost her husband was the only earning member of her family, who used to go to work in the farm by giving a herbal medicine to make the child sleep till she returned from work. The child had an overdose one day, which was what made the child unconscious. At the end of the two days of conversations with the mother while the child was recovering, Dr Deshmukh was able to lead her out of a depressive orientation. She arranged for day care for her child so that she could go to work during the day.
As I look back over such critical and formative events during my training years, I wonder whether trainees in post graduate disciplines have well rounded clinicians as their mentors!
To entrust a vision for child care and their development ought to be the motto of all teachers who train specialists to look after children!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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