Elective In Pediatrics (Rural Setting)

[bluejays99]

Hello, 

 

I'm interested in doing an elective in a rural setting in paediatrics and I'm wondering what is the exposure like if you go to an hospital where there's only 5-6 peadiatricians or even less. 

 

I fear I might not see enough patients, 

 

what are your thoughts on that? 

 

 

thanks

[Lactic Folly]

5-6 pediatricians sounds like a pretty good number, actually... Think of it this way, assuming that a physician is working full-time, there has to be enough of a patient load to fill their day. I wouldn't expect additional physicians to be working in the same field unless there was enough caseload for more than one person. Since you can only work with one person at a time, you would see all the patients they see in a day.

[ploughboy]

Re: only 5-6 pediatricians - Any community hospital is probably only going to have one peds ward, and it's probably only going to have 20-25 beds tops -- less, depending on the size of the hospital.  Totally manageable for a single staff to look after for a week.  So if a single staff can look after that for a week, and if your rota cycles every four to six weeks, even at a big hospital you might only have half a dozen paediatricians attending on the inpatient service.

 

Re: "I might not see enough patients" -- if you're in a big enough centre that there is inpatient peds, but it's small enogh to still be considered a "rural" setting, I suspect you'll be doing a combination of inpatient and clinic.  And I'll bet your clinic days will be ridiculously busy.  That's a constant no matter where you practice medicine, be it Fort Rubber Boot or Sick Kids  

 

Now most of that business might be reassuring parents that their kid is just fine, but that's probably 90% of paediatric practice anywhere.  The other 10% will be genuinely sick kiddies, plus weird and wonderful paediatric diseases (a bonus of practicing in some rural areas is the delightful combination of founder effect and consanguinity)

 

I think you'll be fine.