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This is a guest post from Dawn Sweeney, an Associate Faculty Member from the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York. She works with Faculty Member Suzanne Karan, and they are members of the ‘Airway/Respiratory Physiology’ Section in Anesthesiology and Pain Management.

Here, Dawn tells us about a poem published in Anesthesiology that makes her think more about her daily work in congenital cardiac anesthesia.

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When looking for articles to review for F1000, my attention was immediately drawn to the poem “Little Child” by Lesley Silver in the Anesthesiology journal.

An excerpt of the poem:

Now little child,
you arrive to me
For this week’s chemotherapy –
Gone are your curly
locks of hair
like the fur worn on your
Teddy bear
With experience

I am a Pediatric Anesthesiologist who specializes in Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia. I truly enjoyed this selection, as I often care for seriously ill children in my practice. While the entire world may not be coming to end, it often does seem to feel that way when dealing with critically ill pediatric patients and their families. Whatever their world was like prior to their child being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness or congenital defect, it will never be the same for them again. Sometimes these families have a long time of contemplation, as mentioned in the poem, and other times the end is swift with little time to think.

Even very young children know when things are not right. They did not need to see the doctor every week before, and now they do. They used to have a regular routine, and now it is disrupted. As physicians, doing cases can become routine for us, and we can sometimes question why parents are so upset when the case/procedure seems like something small or routine to us. After all, the cure rates for childhood leukemia are very high, and having anesthesia/sedation for intrathecal chemo is associated with minimal risk. However, for parents, every surgery is major surgery and cause for concern. We often need to be reminded of this fact, and I think this poem serves as an excellent reminder.