ABSTRACT
Inpatient Rounding: Why Are We Doing This? They arrive at the doors of our hospital afflicted by infection, tumor, and trauma. Often they come to us cradled in the arms of their parents, whose fear of what will occur next is surpassed only by their love for their child. Parents instinctively hope that within the walls of this hospital lie the expertise and medical machinery to cure; and when disease has exceeded their abilities as parents, they entrust that child to us. Yet a hospital remains an unfamiliar landscape replete with a new language, razor-sharp needles, pulsating magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, and hordes of white-coated personnel scurrying from here to there in a seemingly uninterpretable dance. A child’s cure often lies at the end of a course difficult to navigate or endure. Tubes will be placed into their bodies, and difficult-topronounce medications will be injected into their bloodstream. We may further ask that radioactive tracer dye is swallowed, that blood be siphoned daily for testing, or that they be made temporarily unconscious for a painful procedure during which multiple sharp objects will be brought to bear.
