Please don't act like this
So every medical student encounters "difficult patients." Well, in pediatrics, it's mostly difficult parents. Sometimes there are parents who don't know any of the doses of their child's medications; sometimes there are parents who don't even know the history of their child's diagnoses; sometimes there are parents who are just completely negligent and irresponsible whether it be because of financial problems or mental deficiencies or whatever.
Yesterday, it was 6:15pm and there was still one last patient to see in clinic. Luckily, my attending suggested that we see the patient together to speed things along. We walked into the Other Type of difficult parent... stereotypically well-off and from the suburbs. The kid had PFAPA. I can't provide a link because it's so rare that there aren't even many sites on the entire internet that talk about it. It stands for Periodic Fevers Apthous Stomatitis, Pharyngitis, and Adenitis. What the heck?!?
Anyway, obviously this is a frustrating diagnosis for the family but OMG. The mom had this hugeass binder of every single time the kid had ever had a fever and it was all elaborately color-coded. She had the binder split up into about 5 sections. Everything was neatly typed up and had detailed descriptions of the fevers, what time of day, what accompanying symptoms, what the vomit looked like, etc.
She had no less than a million questions, especially regarding whether or not she should take her kid to see an ENT, neurologist, sleep disorder doctor, blah blah blah. We were literally in the room for almost an hour. I almost died. and then I started getting these pages from Armand "Are you okay? Where are you? I'm really worried" and "Please call 773-xxx-xxx" etc. It was terrible. and then as I was finally leaving, I forgot to take my nalgene from the clinic and I only go there once a week so it's probably going to be lost for good AND I lost my parking ticket and had to pay the full amount. I have the option of going to that hospital again later this week and I think I will have to decline... I'd rather stay at our own hospital.
Public service announcement: The Chicago Ave exit off Lake Shore Drive North is apparently closed every morning during peak traffic hours. I didn't know this and when I went to drop Armand off for his Northwestern interview today, we had to go all the way to North. Annoying.
Yesterday, it was 6:15pm and there was still one last patient to see in clinic. Luckily, my attending suggested that we see the patient together to speed things along. We walked into the Other Type of difficult parent... stereotypically well-off and from the suburbs. The kid had PFAPA. I can't provide a link because it's so rare that there aren't even many sites on the entire internet that talk about it. It stands for Periodic Fevers Apthous Stomatitis, Pharyngitis, and Adenitis. What the heck?!?
Anyway, obviously this is a frustrating diagnosis for the family but OMG. The mom had this hugeass binder of every single time the kid had ever had a fever and it was all elaborately color-coded. She had the binder split up into about 5 sections. Everything was neatly typed up and had detailed descriptions of the fevers, what time of day, what accompanying symptoms, what the vomit looked like, etc.
She had no less than a million questions, especially regarding whether or not she should take her kid to see an ENT, neurologist, sleep disorder doctor, blah blah blah. We were literally in the room for almost an hour. I almost died. and then I started getting these pages from Armand "Are you okay? Where are you? I'm really worried" and "Please call 773-xxx-xxx" etc. It was terrible. and then as I was finally leaving, I forgot to take my nalgene from the clinic and I only go there once a week so it's probably going to be lost for good AND I lost my parking ticket and had to pay the full amount. I have the option of going to that hospital again later this week and I think I will have to decline... I'd rather stay at our own hospital.
Public service announcement: The Chicago Ave exit off Lake Shore Drive North is apparently closed every morning during peak traffic hours. I didn't know this and when I went to drop Armand off for his Northwestern interview today, we had to go all the way to North. Annoying.
posted by Vivian | 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
My oldest child (3 years old) has PFAPA. You will find that many parents with children with PFAPA keep good medical records. This is done in part due to frustrations before that diagnoses and in case the child has something worse. PFAPA should be the diagnoses after everything else is ruled out. There are a few genetic disorders that are similar and can be tested for.
It is a condition that most children grow out of. NIH does have a study for those children diagnosed with PFAPA. They do genetic testing and everything to confirm that diagnoses. The one draw back is getting to Maryland and the long waiting list to get in the study. It is well worth it.
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