The field of Pediatrics

Before you go and wonder what made me write about my profession in this, my non-professional blog, let me tell you that this is, in many ways, a completely non-professional input. I see several types of parents with their children every day. Each day is a challenge, for parents, like a sample of humanity, come in different shapes and sizes, with each having a cartload of preconceived notions, misbeliefs, pet peeves and desires, unstated questions, different expectations and different sized pockets to pay my fees with! To be able to keep all these people happy so that they return to me again and again requires not just medical knowledge, but an understanding of the way the cogs in human minds turn; what turns an intellectual parent on (a brief discourse on their child's illness with a internet source written on a piece of paper thrown in) will completely turn off someone who isn't so well-lettered ( he/she is more likely to be annoyed at the "lecture" and will often seek a quick exit with the remedies written down in his/her own language and explained patiently not once but twice).

On the other hand, the patient - the child or the infant - is an altogether different nut to crack! As it is, the child cannot mouth (articulate) correctly what is wrong with him/her. On top of that, he/she is more than likely to be irritable, scared, annoyed, ill and hungry. How to reach out to him/her and make him/her tell you what is wrong with him/her with his/her body language and gestures?

Don't you think it would have been better to be a cryptologist or an atomic scientist?