The work week that just ended was a definite improvement over the one before. On average there was about one new consult each day, as opposed to three or four. Furthermore, the consults we got did not involve child abuse. Apparently last week's flood of abuse cases was an anomaly that left even the peds attendings shaken. So it wasn't just me!

That's not to say that last week was all puppies and rainbows. We had a pretty steady census of eight patients, six of whom are in intensive care. One of them is now headed toward hospice care. I sat in on the care conference during which the parents realized for the first time that the miracle they'd been hoping for probably wasn't going to happen. When the mom asked, "How do you let go of your child?"... hats off to anybody who can answer that question for a living.