Today was my first day in the Cary Pediatric Office with Dr. Hope Seidel. I got to the office at 8:25 and her first appointment was at 8:30. We jumped right into the appointments for the morning. I was able to go into all the appointment rooms and observe Dr. Seidel’s interaction between different ages and personalities. I didn’t fully understand the meaning of age range for for the office until today! In the morning along we saw ages ranging from 21 month olds to a 21 year old. Their reasons for coming into see Dr. Seidel all varied as well. Whether it was an annual check up for a 6 month old or if it was for a child that had been in a car crash only a couple of days ago and needed to check in with their doctor. I got to witness it all! I also got to know many of the nurses that work within the office. Dr. Seidel’s nurse is named Hayley, and she is very funny. I got to watch her complete a strep test, and it was surprisingly easy. First, a sample was taken by Dr. Seidel with a cotton swab and given the Hayley. All Hayley had to do was put two different reactants in with the test, and after two minutes the swab was taken out and a piece of paper that looked like a pH test was put in and the test did come out negative for the little girl that was being tested. I got to shadow Dr. Seidel for several interesting cases. They were all extremely different in nature even if they were for the same purpose of a yearly check up. I didn’t realize that this would be the case. I originally thought that most of the appointments would all encompass the same thing and wouldn’t have much diversity. I was proven wrong after all the morning appointments. People have such different personalities and backgrounds that allow them to all have different needs for the same things such as a check up. The parents also play a huge role in the way the appointment is structured as well. These maybe obvious things but I hadn’t truly thought them through till I was experiencing them first hand from Dr. Seidel’s shoes. She told me later that there is a different way to handle certain parents. The first thing she told me to watch was the different interactions she had with different patients. She doesn’t treat any appointments the same way because they are all different people with different needs. Overall my first day was a blast and I have already learnt so much and I cannot wait for the rest of the time here at Cary Pediatrics!
