Residents and medical students will come to your child’s room from 6:15 am to 7:45 am every day to examine your child and ask about concerns from overnight. Medical team members (attending physicians, fellows, residents, medical students and nurses) will be available during daily rounds to consult with you and answer your questions. They are available after rounds to continue to discuss your child’s progress and plan of care.

Make sure to share all of your phone numbers (home, cell and business) with the charge nurse and bedside nurse. Please let them know if any of your phone numbers change. We suggest that you write your best contact number on the white board in your child’s room to allow the team to contact you if there are questions or to update you on new information.

Family-centered rounds

As a parent, you are an integral part of your child’s medical team, and we encourage you to participate in daily rounds. If you prefer not to participate or are unable to attend, the medical team is available to you throughout the day and night to provide up-to-date information and to answer your questions.

• If a lengthy discussion is needed, a physician will return after rounds are completed to speak with you further.
• Pediatric ward rounds: 8 am to noon each day except for Friday (9 am to noon)
• PICU/PCTICU rounds: 7:30 am to 11:30 am each day except for Friday (7 am to 11:30 am)
• Do you want to be part of rounds? Do you want your child to listen to rounds? Please express your preference to the team.

Goals of daily rounds:

• Medical team reviews child’s progress, medications and lab results and discusses a unified care plan for the day.
• Continue open communication and exchange of information between family and medical team.
• Provide opportunity for family/child to express concerns and questions at the end of the presentation.
• Provide teaching opportunity for family and health care team.
• Support fellow, resident and medical student education.

Communicating with your child’s medical team

Having your child in the hospital is an emotional experience, and at times it can be difficult to think clearly let alone engage in a productive conversation with a team of doctors. Yet, as your child’s guardian and advocate, you know him or her better than anyone else, and are therefore an essential member of his or her medical team. Only you can recognize slight changes in your child, tell what is “normal” or quickly bring up experiences that may be relevant to his or her care. We understand that communicating concerns with your child’s physicians and other members of the medical team can be challenging. To help you organize your thoughts and discuss an immediate concern with the medical staff, we’ve included some sample questions:

• What is the concern or change?
• What are the circumstances that led to this concern or change?
• What do you think the problem is?
• What should we do to correct the problem?

To make the most of your time with your medical team, consider making a bulleted list of questions, observations or concerns ahead of time to discuss with your child’s clinicians.