Children's Hospital Tour - A Student's Experience, by Mohith Subbharao

Mohith Subbharao

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to tour the Children’s Hospital Oakland, specifically the Thalassemia
Comprehensive Center. It’s not how I usually spent my Friday afternoons, but it was without a doubt a worthwhile experience. I left the hospital in awe of the hardships that Thalassemia patients go through and inspired by the doctors who have worked to help with these hardships.

I had never heard of Thalassemia before coming to UC Berkeley, and only learned about it by scrolling through the numerous “decals”, courses taught by students, offered at Berkeley this semester. Now I am shocked that I had not heard of this disease, especially since affects so many people around the world in such a harmful and long-term way. Touring the hospital and seeing children and their parents really made me respect everything they are going through. Along with dealing with the daily stresses of common-day life, they also have to learn how to survive with a disease that makes common-day life so much more aching and stressful. With such a complicated disease, there is so much these patients have to worry about: blood transfusions, iron overload, bone deformities, practical health issues, psychosocial problems, and much more.

That is where Children’s Hospital Oakland plays a huge role. It is amazing that the hospital has all the aspects needed to make the lives of Thalassemia-diagnosed patients livable. A patient doesn’t need to run around to several different hospitals to manage all the wide-ranging issues of Thalassemia, especially when those hospitals may not be very informed on the complexities and nuances of the disease. Because the services provided by Children’s Hospital Oakland are disease-specific, the doctors there genuinely care about their patients. If only more hospitals sprang up across the country following this model, we could better combat the disease known as Thalassemia.

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Mohith Subbarao is a student in the Fall 2014 "Thal at Cal" DeCal on thalassemia. This article is his independent project for the course.