Hi, my name is Jessica Gardner and I am a resident physician at
Cincinnati Children's. Being a resident physician means that at
the hospital, what I'm responsible for is the day to day care of
patients. That means making decisions about how to move forward
with making them well or keeping them well. And the resident part
of that means that I have a supervising physician who's done with
all of their schooling and all their training, who is there to
help me make those decisions and to support me, should I need any
help in any other way. By far, the best two parts of my job are
number one, getting to work with patients and their families. I
think particularly when you're going into something like
pediatrics, you know, where the people you're caring for, so
children, you know, aren't making a lot of their own medical
decisions and aren't alone and being responsible for their care,
you have to be comfortable and excited to work in a team, because
that's what it is when you're working as a doctor with a team,
which is the patient's family and the patient themselves that is
the thing I'm usually most excited about in a day, because it's
all the more people who are going to be helping to make that that
individual patient well, to make their family well, so they can
go home, because that's the number one by far is getting to work
in that kind of group setting. The second thing that I love, and
I'm particularly working at Cincinnati Children's is the people
that I get to work with, so my colleagues. I think that when you
have a job like being a physician, in particular, being a
resident physician, where your hours can be pretty long, the
thing that is the most helpful, and the thing that really helps
you enjoy your job, even more is working in a supportive
environment, and getting to share both the hard parts of the day
and the successes of the day with people who are going through
the same things. And for me, I get to work with an amazing team
of you know, fellow residents and attendings, and nurses and
other staff who are just absolutely amazing and we are all geared
towards one goal and that's helping patients and families get
well and be able to live their best and most high quality life
outside of the hospital. My identity from a societal level
became much more impactful in what I decided to do coming out of
residency, which is that I plan to go into general pediatrics.
Part of why I pursued that is that I love that exact interaction
of being able to walk into a room with a family and having them
be like surprised in a pleasant way. Because they actually have a
physician that looks like them, you know, which seems like a very
small thing, you know, when it's not something that you've
experienced, but it actually is a very big thing, feeling secure,
that someone's not going to make negative stereotypes about you
and use those negative stereotypes in the way they approach you
in the way that they talk about your care make decisions about
your care. And that is something that I actually have even
sometimes received active feedback about from families. And
that's really huge is them having that sense of security and that
sense of safety, because that needs to be there in order to build
a relationship with families that allows you to take part in
their care. Any pain, when I just touch, Okay. Any pain on this
side, no. One of the things I've enjoyed most about working at
Cincinnati Children's is yes, it's this, you know, gigantic
health institution where there are all these moving parts. But at
the end of the day, I know that a part of my training and to any
extent that I would like if I want to do more time in these
environments, and in these spaces, I can be a part of helping to
address those barriers of care those gaps in care, and those just
straight up inequalities. Being able to go through the gigantic
hurdle of making it to the visit in the first place, and knowing
that once they make it to the visit, they will have access to the
care and the resources they need, which includes both direct
medicine be that me listening to their heart and their lungs and
prescribe medications, or be that all the things that are or are
related to impede into health. So that would be things like
nutrition, that would be things like making sure they actually
have a pharmacy, they can walk across the street to even if they
don't have one directly in their neighborhood. All of those
things I know that I can give them through my work here. I think
that's the biggest way that each of us, by being a part of this
institution are able to provide families through whatever way we
are contributing to the institution of Cincinnati Children's. The
difference between I think what people think we do (laughs), what
we actually do on a day is is that feeling. I think that there's
the days a lot more chaotic that I think people maybe realize
when I think about what doctors and nurses do, but I think what
sticks with us the most is those interactions with patients and
families. And those are the things that we take away and that
warm our hearts when we're like busy and overwhelmed and tired.
And so I think that sometimes families don't realize and patients
patients don't realize how much they are fuel sometimes, all that
you can do is put your best foot forward and have your heart in
the right place from a like a compassionate empathy standpoint.
And to go from there. My name is Jessica Gardner and I am a
resident physician at Cincinnati Children's.