The most different thing about today was a lunch meeting. Someone brought pizza for everyone and we all gathered in the lobby for a meeting with Jackie from a program called Reach Out and Read Carolinas. It already has over 300 participating locations in North Carolina, and is currently looking to work with Cary, Apex, and Fuquay-Varina Pediatrics to expand its reach. Reach Out and Read is a program implemented in pediatric centers that provides a free book to patients at every well check from six months to five years old. Dr. Villareal explained to me that providing enough books to all three locations would not be cheap, but that they ultimately decided to implement it for the benefit of their patients. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to both emphasize the importance of reading from a young age and provide families with books who may not otherwise have that opportunity. The meeting gave me some insight about expanding the office and its programs that I did not get otherwise in my daily shadowing of the doctor.
Additionally, I got to see a little more of the mother’s side in the newborn story. There was a mother who came in with a five-week-old girl. There were already some complications with the baby — she had had an infection in one of her tear ducts and had to stay in the hospital for a week. They had just been cleared from the hospital a few days ago and the mother was visibly exhausted. Her baby was crying the whole visit, and she explained that she was probably hungry because she hadn’t had a chance to feed her. When Dr. Villareal asked her how much she nursed per day, the mother pulled out an app on her phone and revealed that it was 8-9 hours daily. On top of that, the baby rarely took naps. She told the doctor that she had been going to a lactation support group but that they only found things wrong with every member and that it made her feel worse. Dr. Villareal assured her that her feeding schedule was perfectly normal and that she should continue doing what she was doing. I saw that pediatricians not only have to care for children, but also their parents. I’m excited to see what my last day at Cary Pediatrics has in store!
