Six Weeks Later

Six weeks later, and I still like my job.

These past 2 weeks I've been working in the Childrens Health Clinic (CHC), which means seeing scheduled appointments and walk-ins from 8 to 5 each day. I have thoroughly enjoyed the 7+ hours of sleep and time to go to the gym (not that I went to the gym, but surely the option was there!).

But I don't really like the Health Clinic. It serves the children in DC who don't have the resources, parental motivation, insurance, etc. to see a private practice pediatrician; it turns no child away. So our kids come in for well-child visits (annual check-ups) on a walk-in basis. Now think about this: when have you ever gone for an annual check-up without making an appointment?

Normally, walk-ins have a 15-minute appointment slot. They're supposed to be for quick acute problems of known established patients - fever, sore throat, ear infection, rash - that kind of thing. Well-child visits are supposed to be, at minimum, 30-minute appointments - at a well-child visit, you have to go through growth and development, nutrition, school performance, behavior, exercise/activity, etc on top of the usual health stuff. And give shots, and do hearing and vision screens. Etc. That's 30 minutes, when the visit is straightforward.

Alas, the patient population at the CHC is not straightforward. Many of them come from complex families with difficult social situations; many are in and out of homeless shelters, a frighteningly large number have been abused, many have behavioral problems, most are not eating or exercising the way they should. Everyone has asthma. Nobody has their shots up to date.

It is, in short, a clusterfart. The visits take way too long because of the complexity of each child's situation. Often, multiple siblings are brought in for one visit in one walk-in time slot. So the patients pile up in the waiting room as your 30-min appointment turns into 2 hours of sheer frustration, their parents growing angrier by the second. And as much as you want to tell them they should make appointments if they don't want to wait for a next available doctor, you can't. You have to empathize with the lot they've been handed in life and apologize for the wait, and look somber and apologetic as you thank them for their patience.

And pray that their kids somehow break through the cycle, and that their kids' kids will someday be seen every year by the same doctor, by appointment, in some private peds office somewhere better than here.


In other news - we're in a bocce league, and we're pretty awful but who cares!?
And babies are cute,
and pediatricians really are the nicest of them all,
and tomorrow is my last day of CHC,
and then I have 2 weeks of nights,
and all is good.

XO!