The past three days were my "week" on outpatient pediatrics. Our hospital offers two types of outpatient experiences; there is a clinic at the hospital I've been working at and there are various pediatricians' offices around the county. I did my time in an office in Yonkers with an amazing pediatrician who somehow tried to tutor my classmate and I in the entirety of pediatric medicine in the three days he had with us. While trying to soak up the onslaught of knowledge I needed to wring out my brain every night and blogging went by the wayside. But below are some of the more interesting factoids.
MondayIL: A pilonidal cyst is a boil that forms on the tailbone. Usually it can be treated with antibiotics but if the infection gets too severe, a small surgical procedure can be done to drain the abscess.
TuesdayIL: If a baby turns blue after birth but turns pink again when crying, they probably have choanal atresia, the congenital blockage of the back of the nose. Normally, babies breath exclusively through their nose, but when they cry, they have to breath through their mouth. If the nose is blocked, they turn blue from essentially not breathing.
WednesdayIL: If a week-old vaginally-delivered baby has red, inflamed eyes and a cough... they probably have chlamydia. Yes, that chlamydia. Amusingly, while that may seem like a stretch at first, I'm sure any classmates of mine reading this are like, "Well, obviously." Every baby born in a US hospital gets a prophylactic dose of erythromycin squirted in their eyes right after birth. The reason for this is that chlamydia and gonorrhea are quite widespread and can transfer from the mom's birth canal to the baby's eyes during birth. In babies, the main complication of a chlamydia infection is a mild pneumonia or bronchitis.
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