The Den: Children's Outpatients
The Den provides care for children and their families in a range of paediatric clinics.
In addition to general paediatric clinics, the department provides a range of Specialist Clinics, including Cardiology, Endocrine, C.F., Diabetes, Continence, Orthopaedic, Plastic Surgery, Renal, Rheumatology and Surgery, Allergy and Oncology.
Students work with multi agencies and different therapists during their time here. Usually they stay in the Den but depending upon their interests we might move them to see home visits or teaching.
Children's Outpatients Department - Orthopaedic Clinic
The paediatric orthopaedic clinic is one a week and every two weeks is an all day clinic. There is usually a Consultant, Registrar, Physiotherapist, Radiographer, Nurse and Health Care Assistant all working together to maintaion patient care and the running of the clinic.
Within the clinic patients can be from babies that haven't been born yet up to 18 year olds. The patients do not require weighing and measuring for this clinic, as their clinical condition may alter their measurements. The patients are sometimes sent for X-Rays earlier in the day of their appointment or on a day previous to their appointment.
Blood Sampling
Why do we take blood samples?
We take blood samples so that we can find out what is going on inside the human body; this could be to look at the health of organs, to diagnose conditions or to look at the genetic make - up of our bodies.
What is blood?
An average adult has approximately 4 to 7 litres of blood; a child of average weight has 1/2 of an adults amount. Blood is made up of;
Red blood cells - these transport oxygen around the body removing carbon dioxide and any other waste that is in the blood.
White blood cells - these are your arms and these are produced to fight infections.
Plasma - this is what helps us to stop bleeding out, it forms clots.
Blood is 60% plasma and 40% blood cells.
Blood Groups
Blood tests can tell us what blood group we belong to.
There are 4 main blood groups and these are A, B, AB and O.
These blood groups can then be split into 2 groups - Negative and Positive. These are known as RhD, this means if you have antigens in your blood then you are RhD positive and if you don't have antigens then you are RhD negative.
How do we take blood from children?
Taking bloods from a child/baby is different in not only where we take it from, but who we take it and what we use. We can take blood samples from a child's fingers, heel, feet, hands or in the auxiliary. We can use different equipment to take it from these different places.
Please use the links below for more information.
Taking blood from hands, feet and arms
What type of blood bottles are there?
Frequently carried out blood tests