Sir.—As one who used to complain about neonatology in residency, I was inspired to reminisce by Dr Bedrick's editorial. From the perspective of postresidency general practice I would add some other pros and cons.
Neonatology rotations are indeed the worst part of pediatric residency in terms of stress and hours of work. It is also true that house staff are "manpower" more than "students" in this setting. These tiny fragile human beings seem to get suddenly and frequently into serious trouble—"crump" as we used to call it. They die frequently, as Dr Bedrick said, and we torture them inordinately. In a perverted sense this is all very educational.
In addition to this, we learn procedures, such as starting IVs, in the most challenging way. If you can start the umpteenth IV on a baby with bronchopulmonary dysplasia or necrotizing enterocolitis, you can start one on anybody. And we