The Pediatrician’s Most Awkward Task
When Carrie Quinn was training to be a pediatrician, she dutifully memorized the list of symptoms for meningitis. “What I was actually faced with wasn’t seriously sick children,” Quinn, who’s now the executive director of the Mount Sinai Parenting Center, said on a panel at Aspen Ideas: Health, which is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic. Ben Danielson, another panelist and the medical director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic, in Seattle, jumped in: “You made the joke the other day that, so often, a [doctor] who finishes pediatric residency would way rather intubate a baby than talk about breastfeeding.” Talking about how to parent might be one of the hardest parts of being a pediatrician.
