I arrived promptly at 8am, to learn about the new plethora of patients we would be seeing today. Although there were a smaller amount of walk-in patients, there was a great amount of already scheduled appointments. Most of the morning appointments consisted of physicals, and most of them for toddlers. With younger children, Dr. Dupuy asks that the parents bring their child in more regularly to record their development. These physicals consist of checking the throat, eyes, nose, ears, hips, pulses, and private parts. Of course, the toddlers hated when the stethoscope was placed to their chest, an unfamiliar person and an unfamiliar instrument. However, with Dr. Dupuy’s incredible experience, he knew exactly how to handle these precautious babies. With one particular baby, he allow them to touch the instrument, play with it, and then touch it to himself. Then when Dr. Dupuy went to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, there was minimal squirming.
Most of his patients were within the 2-4 range today, but two patients were less than a week old. After being discharged from the hospital, Dr. Dupuy likes for mothers to bring their child in for a postnatal checkup. These babies were incredible fragile and were incredibly cautious to everything that Dr. Dupuy used; they cried a lot. What I thought was the most interesting was that there was a black, red bulb inside the babies belly button, the umbilical cord. Dr. Dupuy assured the parents that these umbilical cords would fall off within 10-15 days after the babies birth. Including this information, Dr. Dupuy was very thorough in describing everything about this babies journey and what the parents should be expecting. With a particular patient he offered detailed expectations of breastfeeding for the mother. He explained to her how it was normal for the baby to not latch on, have incredible energy, or feed very often in the first few days after birth. This is because the babies system is full of waste and excess liquid, also explaining why babies decrease in weight their first week after birth.
Before and after each patient, Morgan and Doctor Dupuy would look and fill out medical charts. Before the appointment, Doctor Dupuy would scan through past medical records and history of the patient, to familiarize himself. After each appointment, he would fill in the observations, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment for each patient. A picture of the area in which these were completed, is picture below.
I had a great day today, and am continuing to learn more about this field and medicine in general
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