Tucker Hughes ’27: Pediatric Associates of Brockton
On my first day interning with Erin Springhorn, she said, “Pediatrics is one of the hardest fields in medicine.” After shadowing her for four weeks, I can confidently attest to that notion.
In the first two weeks of my internship, I predominantly shadowed Dr. Springhorn to get a feel for pediatrics and primary care. In weeks three and four, however, I shadowed other pediatricians and saw urgent care, with patients suffering from head injuries, persistent sicknesses, and more. I also created a flyer about the importance of children’s literacy, so another task during my time at the office was to visit local libraries to collect information about their recurring programs to recommend in the flyer.
Because newborns need frequent monitoring, they typically come in weekly when they’re born, and I got to observe Dr. Springhorn treating the same baby four times. Seeing how much the baby had changed in four weeks helped me realize that Dr. Springhorn was not wrong in saying that pediatrics is so hard, because every single visit, your patients are so different from the last. Another part of my experience that I appreciated was interacting with patients from Haitian and Cape Verdean cultures, which helped me step out of my usual community.
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