Yesterday I received confirmation that my fourth and final affiliation will be at an outpatient affiliate location of the Texas Children's Hostpital in the Woodlands area of Houston, Texas. Pediatrics! Who would have thunk?
I am ridiculously excited. The offer of four available slots was only presented to our class on Monday, with the requirement that we had until Wednesday to confirm. With this uber speedy turnaround, I spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday's free time looking up resources, options, rooms, and races (I know, I'm ridiculous like that). I've been bouncing off the walls since I realized on Monday that this was a possibility.
P.S. A large public thank you to Nathan and my Mom, who each tolerated a mid-workday phone call wherein hyped up, speed talking me careened a heck of a proposal on them without any warning. They each managed, within two minutes, to hear me out (I talk lightning fast when excited) and to make logical, reasonable arguments that supported going for it. Oversight with a shotgun pull of a life change is a good thing.
If pediatrics (or for short: Peds, so that it rhymes with seeds) in the alien nation that is the Lone Star State is anything like Peds in the northeast, I will be treating little kiddos with neurological disorders (cerebral palsy, autism, stroke, brachial plexus injury), genetic disorders (Trisomy 21, osteogenesis imperfecta), musculoskeletal disorders (torticollis, scoliosis), or other developmental delays related to gross motor function.
Originally I anticipated a neurological inpatient rehab setting for my last affil. Last summer's outpatient neuro affil changed things, since I came away with a much greater breadth of knowledge than I anticipated. While getting a neuro rehab affil may easily work out, guaranteeing an affil placement that would challenge the Dicken's out of me in ways didactic training and my previous neuro affil could not (e.g. a clinic that practices constraint induced therapy) place me onto a sub-specialized floor such as traumatic brain injury would be unlikely. Increasingly I knew of neuro's crossover with Peds, especially because of the neuro involvement (be it mainstream neuro stuff or a genetic condition causing neuro stuff) and -- AND! -- the fact that orthopedic and musculoskeletal issues are very interesting, more involved conditions. What I mean to say is that normal adult orthopedics would bore me to death within 4 months' time, no matter how much one can (and needs to) hone manual therapy skills regardless of specialization. I don't mean to dis ortho. I just need more than that. My brain turns off to ortho after that many years of dancing/running/yoga where you deal with typical injuries over and over again.
And when the patient population is young and holds their own agenda, there's never a dull moment. Now to start my research on snake/rattlesnake behavior....
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