Babies

I am into the second week of my holidays now. I have been getting on with my revision but I find it difficult to stay focussed for too long especially towards the end of last week. I find my mind drifting off thinking about other things. Revision is also the time I get to catch up with TV that I have missed and watch some movies. When I take a break in between study time I like to do something completely different to take my mind off revision as otherwise that’s what my mind is thinking about all the time and I start to worry that I haven’t done enough or that I still have loads to do. Since Christmas I have had three modules. The first one was on the first and second trimesters of pregnancy including embryology and fetal development. The second module was on the third trimester of pregnancy and birth. The third module was on early child development and growth. That includes developmental milestones reached by children. This is quite a huge range of topics and as I have not done anything to do with pregnancy or child development until starting university, this was all fairly new to me. I find it fascinating especially the embryology parts. At first glance it seems impossible to make sense of. It’s hard to believe and comprehend the complexity and specificity of development that does on in pregnancy. And the fact that it is all so well co ordinated and organised. For me it seems an absolute miracle especially when most of the time when babies are born everything seems to be working okay. Sometimes things do go wrong and that’s where the obstetrician and paediatrician come in. But to me birth seems to be an absolute miracle. It is at times like this when I study the complexity and intricacy of the human body and reflect that life is so miraculous that I remember why I chose to study medicine.

Babies have always fascinated me. From the embryology to the complex stages of social and psychological development of children, so much goes into the making of a human body. Some people say that all people are born equal and that we all have equal opportunities and can be anything we want to be. Maybe this is true. When a child is born maybe for that few seconds when they come into the world and take their first breath and their cry pierces the air bringing joy and happiness to their parents. Maybe it seems as if anything can happen. But once the baby is handed to his/her parents everything changes. This is where environmental factors play a part in child development. That is what we have been studying. They want us to understand the complex set of factors that can make a person and determine the choices that they make. I guess trying to understand and appreciate this can help us understand the person as a whole and therefore we can treat them holistically and not judge them for the choices they make.

In medicine, it’s not about just passing exams. Sometimes, that’s what we think about. Passing one year and hoping to move on to the next but at the end of university we have to go out into the world and use everything that we have learnt over the course of life to treat people and make a difference. That sounds daunting right? I guess right now I will focus on trying to pass first year.