Blatant Pandering

On October 19, I will be traveling to Disneyland to participate in the CHOC Walk fundraising event at the Disneyland Resort. Here is the letter I've shared with family and friends about why I am walking. (My sister says I've over-dramatized the second story. I told her to shut-up that's how I remember it happening. In her version, there was more urine and the office staff didn't resist her directions. Fine. It's still a good story. And I do remember very clearly that she told me there was barely any urine to test, she's remembering it wrong.)

We have all heard stories about the wonderful care that sick little ones receive from Children’s hospitals but have you ever wondered where these wonderful people come from? They come from medical schools and residency programs.

 

Our family has been very blessed with healthy children, but we’ve also been blessed to have an amazing “young” physician in our family: My sister spent part of her medical school training at Children’s Hospital of Orange County and her residency at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

 

My sister has an amazing bedside manner with children, be they newly diagnosed with a lifelong or even life-threatening condition or a minor injury like a sprained finger. Recently she was in our home for a birthday party when a very young guest injured himself in just this way. He was inconsolable. My sister jumped into action, with her incredible bedside manner. She was able to distract him and play with him but what he didn’t know was that the games they were playing were allowing her to evaluate his hand. Were there any broken bones? Might he need an x-ray? How could we get this ice on it? She chatted with him so naturally, asking questions along the way, and she very quickly put him at ease.

By the end of the “examination,” the “patient” had his hand on ice but he was smiling and laughing again. His parents looked at my sister in amazement and commented on how impressed they were with the process and her manner. This was my living room and it was a minor injury, but this is the same care and manner my sister has with children facing even bigger and scarier medical monsters.

 

But it’s not just bedside manner that doctors learn and it’s not just hurt fingers she treats: It’s dealing with those scary medical monsters, too. Before children go to Children’s Hospitals, they must have doctors who can diagnose their problems. One time a patient came to her office presenting with the classic symptoms of a urinary tract infection. My sister looked at the young boy and directed the nurses: “Test his urine for ketones.” The office staff protested. “No, we don’t have enough to waste, we need to test for bacteria.” She persisted and despite their repeated protests, they tested his ketones. The young boy had new-onset juvenile diabetes. The next day his brother returned to his school, where it just so happened, my mother was a second grade teacher. The brother reported to his class: “Yesterday, GrandmaChurchLady’s daughter saved my brother’s life.”

 

I asked my sister, “How did you just know to test his keytones? Why not bacteria?” Her response amazed me. She told me “I just looked at him! He had ‘the look’.” How did my sister know what to “look” for? Because of all the medical monsters she’d seen and treated when she trained in Children’s hospitals. It has carried over into her private practice and her patients benefit from that training today, even if they’ve never stepped foot on a Children’s hospital campus.

 

She learned these wonderful techniques from training in hospitals that focus on the hardest patients to treat: Kids. Kids who can’t communicate like adults, who can’t tell the doctors what’s wrong with undeveloped vocabularies. They’re scared and confused. And they can’t reason or rationalize their fears, either. Pediatricians have to be magicians and mind readers, while they treat not only their young patients, but counsel and advise their scared and worried parents, too! For every one child they see, they really have two or three “patients” to treat!

 

Amazing pediatricians come from amazing hospitals like Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Even though my sister’s patients do not receive treatment there, they are still benefiting from the knowledge and experience she gained there.

 

I’m walking for the physicians who care for our most precious gifts. I’m walking for the resources that CHOC offers my community, not just directly, but indirectly. Even if they did not serve residencies at CHOC, medical students from the finest medical schools throughout California and even beyond have the opportunity to glean this knowledge through third and fourth year rotations at CHOC.

I have set a rather ambitious goal for myself of $851.50 I’ve never done anything like this before – talk about getting out of my comfort zone! Every little bit helps! So if you have it in your budget and in your heart to share a tax-deductible contribution, here’s how: Go to this website and enter my first and last name as my registrant ID. If you do not know my first and last name, you can contact me at the e-mail form to the right. Please donate before October 1, 2008.

If you cannot donate, I understand. Please pray for the children and for their doctors.