I can't really think of a suitable title for this one...

When you tell people you're doing a Paediatrics firm, people often say "Sick kids....that must be hard."

These are (mostly) non-medics, who've been watching Children's Hospital. They're thinking about kids with cancer on chemo, kids desparately awaiting heart transplants, kids who are marked for life by a missing amino acid, through the random misfortunate combination of their parents' genes.

My Paeds rotation wasn't like that. I saw mostly gastroenteritis, asthma attacks, and the odd tonsilitis. Mostly things that could be fixed easily and that I could leave behind when I walked out the door at the end of the day.

But having spent some time in Child Psych clinic, that I'm finding hard. Seven year olds who run in front of cars because they want to join their dead sibling. Sixteen year olds on their fourth admission for psychosis, with who knows what life ahead of them. Parental neglect. Parental abuse. Every thing you could think of, it happens. It breaks my heart to hear it.

Kids on medication (often multiple). I watched a video (albeit American) where a doctor was telling the parents of an 11 year old with ADHD whose parents weren't keen on medication "The best you can hope for is that she'll smoke [if she's not medicated]. Otherwise, she'll self-medicate, with cannabis, cocaine, opioids, basically every type of drug except the hallucinogens."

OK, that was an American video. But I've seen a 6 year old on olanzepine, a 14 year old on lithium. A 13 year old with a personality disorder (aren't we all a bit personality disordered at 13?). A suicide attempt in a twelve year old. And I think: I can't stand this. I can't do this. It's just too hard.


After one particularly draining session, I went out and bought some CDs to make me feel a bit better. Which was probably the best I could have hoped for. Well, at least it wasn't crack cocaine.