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by
Jennifer Kowalewski
Carl Backes, D.O.,
received the first phone call at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday regarding
a lethargic 9-month-old infant with a fever. By 3:30 a.m., other
doctors had called the neonatologist about the infant.
As Backes spoke to OU-COM
students Wednesday afternoon in the Irvine lecture hall, he
asked the future doctors what they would have ordered for the
littlest of patients who could not tell doctors what hurt. After
receiving a round of answers from some of the more than 100
medical students in the room, he explained that the infant
suffered from a twisted bowel.
“That is why I do pediatrics,”
said Backes, a former regional assistant dean, during his
presentation Wednesday at Career Medical Specialties Week. “It
doesn’t bother me to stay up all night helping my patients.
Pediatrics is fun.”
For more than a decade, OU-COM
has had practicing specialists — many of whom were alumni —speak
to students about their areas of specialization. The event
focuses on specialized medical practice to provide students a
glimpse into areas they may be interested in practicing.
As the second speaker during
the Career Medical Specialty Week, Backes discussed his
specialization, neonatology, the area of pediatrics that focuses
on the diseases and care of newborns. He talked about his
practice in Columbus, as well a “day in the life” of a
neonatolgist.
Second-year student Amy
Miyoshi has thought about neonatology as an area of
interest, particularly surgery for these little patients.
“I enjoyed learning about
neonatology,” she says. “And I have thought about going into the
field myself.”
Miyoshi appreciated Backes’
interaction with those present and said he really understood the
perspective of medical students.
The director of the Kiddie West
Pediatric Center in Columbus, Backes also is the director of
pediatric residency program and the neonatology fellowship
program at Doctors and Children’s Hospital in Columbus. He is a
1972 graduate of Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine.
When he awoke early Tuesday
morning, he said he headed to Doctors Hospital for rounds,
checking in on the nine infants in the Neonatology Intensive
Care Unit (NICU) and the five babies in the nursery all before 9
a.m. Then, he headed to his office to visit with patients until
noon, after which he took an hour for lunch before teaching at
Children’s Hospital until 5 p.m.
“When I first started practice,
I saw 30 patients that first week,” he says. “Now, I see 30
patients in one day.”
He has worked in neonatology
for 30 years now, working with high-risk mothers and premature
infants. He has seen children in the NICU that have weighed 480
grams to 12 pounds. As he recalled, one Thanksgiving only five
years into his practice, two infants died.
“That was one of the most
disappointing days,” he said. “Both babies died from SIDS
(sudden infant death syndrome). Now I am a pediatrician, and my
patients were dying, but I still don’t know what it is. SIDS is
one of the most frustrating afflictions.”
But on Tuesday, he had one of
the better moments in his long years of practicing. He says he
sent home a three-and-a-half-month girl who was born after 25
weeks and weighted a mere 500 grams.
“She was as close to death as
you could get,” Backes recalled. “But when she went home, she
was normal. She weighed five pounds. That is what is so
rewarding about this field.”
Back by popular demand,
Robert S. Houser, D.O. (’97), will discuss plastic surgery
practice Friday, April 17. Houser addressed students last year,
and many requested his return to learn more about his practice
in Westerville. He is in practice with father, Robert G. Houser,
M.D.
“For the most part, I will talk
about the life of a plastic surgeon,” Houser says. “I want to
focus on the training necessary and to discuss aspects of
plastic surgery students may not be aware and, as the other
presenters, what it’s like day to day in my specialty.”
Although much of his practice
does focus on cosmetic surgery, Houser says he has a passion for
reconstructive surgery. In his third year in practice, he says
he wants to help students understand there are other fields of
medicine available to them. Houser completed a internship at
Doctors Hospital and a residency at Mount Carmel Health System
and the Ohio State University Medical Center.
Cardiologist H. Paul Kim,
D.O. (’94), will close out Career Medical Specialties Week
Wednesday, April 19. After a residency at Riverside Methodist
Hospital, Kim completed a fellowship at Geisinger Medical Center
in Pennsylvania. Kim is board certified and currently practicing
in Columbus.
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