by Philip L. Levin, MD
Traditionally, primary care pediatricians work in their office all day, make hospital rounds in the evening, and then take calls all night. With such an exhausting schedule, burn out and the associated decision errors and family dysfunction often result. In Gulfport, part of that burden has been relieved by a unique position, a pediatric hospitalist.
“It’s an amazing job,” Christie Devlin-Schroll says. Beginning in 2012, Dr. Devlin-Schroll gave up her private pediatric practice to work solely as a hospitalist, that is, a physician whose sole responsibilities are for those pediatric patients admitted to the hospital. Monday through Friday, Dr. Devlin-Schroll examines and writes orders on new patients, makes rounds on those already admitted, and cares for the well newborns at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport.
“I provide extra care for the newborns: IV antibiotics, oxygen, and phototherapy for jaundice,” she says. “I’m usually at the hospital from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., and then home with my family for the evening and night. Sometimes I have to come back for a sicker child, to perform a procedure, or to transfer a patient.”
Some of the procedures she performs include basic I & D surgery, lumbar punctures, or removing extra digits from babies born with six fingers.
Dr. Devlin-Schroll began her career in the military, doing her residency at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi from 1996-99, and spent seven more years in active duty beyond that. Once out of military, with her husband (a pediatric nurse) still on active duty, she did what is called locum tenens for the following four years, which involved covering for other pediatricians in Louisiana and Mississippi. After Katrina in 2005, she joined the children’s clinic in Long Beach.
“I found, regardless of what I did, I was always happiest at the hospital, which naturally led me into hospital medicine,” she says. “We were ready for one at the time on the Coast, so it was a perfect fit.”
The role of pediatric hospitalist was unique to the Mississippi Gulf Coast then, and now she remains the only one in Hancock and Harrison counties. Singing River Hospital recently hired their first pediatric hospitalist, Dr. Tyler Sexton.
“There are several advantages of having a doctor who concentrates on inpatient children,” Dr. Devlin-Schroll says.
“Outpatient doctors don’t have to worry about what are the most current antibiotics or treatments for infections and asthma. I can concentrate on the types of issues a kid in a hospital has, so the system provides better care for the children seen at the clinic as well as those hospitalized.”
Dr. Devlin-Schroll grew up in Warner-Robbins, Georgia, the home of Robbins Air Force Base. She attended college and medical school in Macon, Georgia, the latter as a beneficiary of an Air Force scholarship.
“I didn’t know I was going to go into pediatrics until I did my third-year rotations; before that I considered pediatrics near the bottom of my list of choices,” she says. “But once I started that rotation, I discovered no matter what time I had to be at the hospital, day, nights, weekends, I enjoyed caring for the children so much. I knew pediatrics was going to be my field.”
The Mississippi Coast has a preponderance of pediatric diseases based on our culture. Dr. Devlin-Schroll reports that instead of child abuse, the more common complaint is child neglect. “These are emotionally hard cases, to see babies suffering because adults didn’t recognize what was going on, either by accident or on purpose.”
Another issue found on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is obesity, a condition that predisposes to diabetes and hypertension later in life. In children, the problem is exacerbated by lack of exercise.
“Unfortunately, our schools no longer have daily gym class,” Dr. Devlin-Schroll says. “The children sit in school all day, sit down for homework in the afternoons, and in the evenings sit down in front of the television or their computers. A lack of exercise ties in with obesity to create the biggest health issues on our Coast.”
Dr. Devlin-Schroll fills a needed place in pediatric care here on the Coast. Both the parents of our children and the local pediatricians benefit from her specialized training and experience. As she says, “I love hospital medicine, and I’m glad to be here for the kiddies.”