Happy Monday, and welcome to Medical Mondays! Considering my complete lack of interest in obstetrics, it may come as a surprise that I’m actually really interested in women’s health (clearly not as much as with working with under-served populations + sports medicine, but still)!
Day in the Life: Women’s Health
I am a major advocate of medically/scientifically accurate sex education and providing women with all options when it comes to pregnancy/birth control, so this has definitely been one of my favorite rotations this year!
I’d work at Planned Parenthood with one of my attendings once a week on Mondays, where I learned to counsel on pregnancy options and do transabdominal ultrasounds + MVAs. If you’ve never seen my birth control options post, that’s definitely something I gained a whole bunch of experience with talking about over the course of my 4-week rotation!
Lidocaine for paracervical blocks!
I also had sessions scheduled with my women’s health attendings, at the breast clinic, and at urogynecology throughout the rest of the week.
Aside from Mondays, where my hours were 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (followed by dance practice with my performance group from 6-8p.m. + 2 hours of other-dance [salsa] practice from 9-11 p.m.), my days typically started at 7:40 a.m.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’d see patients with my women’s health attendings in the morning or evening and would either see my own patients at the office or go to the breast surgery outpatient clinic for the other half of the day.
On Wednesdays, we’d have morning report from 7-8 a.m. followed by either me seeing my own patients for the rest of the day. On Fridays, I’d go to morning report from 7-8 a.m., then to the urogyn clinic in the morning, and then to didactics (lectures) in the afternoon.
I got to do a bunch of procedures during this rotation, which was definitely welcomed as well, because I haven’t quite been doing as many of them as I’d like, and these are things I’d like to be comfortable with doing by the time I graduate (“these” meaning IUD/implant placement/removal and potentially MVAs as well).
(This is just a sample kit–don’t worry!)
Things I got to do during this rotation included:
- IUD placements/removals
- Implant placements/removals
- Transabdominal/transvaginal ultrasounds
- Endometrial biopsies
- Colposcopies
- Abnormal pap counseling
- Early pregnancy loss (options/counseling/management including MVAs)
- Pessary fittings
For one afternoon during “Sex Week” at the medical school, I went over to help with facilitating their small-group “pregnancy options counseling workshop.” The medical school building is actually where all my classes used to be back when I was here for grad school, so it was kinda surreal being back there!
All the hands-on learning definitely helped to cement the things I read about, and I’m considering doing this as an elective next year if they decide to put a cap on how many sports medicine electives I can do. :P
- What’s a typical day/week like for you?
- Is it spring-like at all where you are?
- Check out my past “Day in the Life‘s!”
12 comments
Skip to comment form
Oh how interesting! I’m glad you enjoyed working with women’s health. But woah, your night with dance classes is SO LONG! lol I have dance on Fridays, but it’s only two hours just about.
Anyway, thanks for sharing all of this. That’s great you got some more hands-on-experience.
-Lauren
ShootingStarsMag recently posted…Love, Simon: The Fans Say…
haha, I don’t know why all my dance clubs/groups like to meet on the same day! (At least it’s not all at the same time though!)
It was definitely a lot of fun! :]!
Farrah recently posted…Day in the Life: Women’s Health
Definitely important work you’ve done there. I know saving lives is also important, but being able to assist other women with their choices and educating them is very impressive overall. Glad you are able to have that opportunity.
Ask me again next month for a week in the life, because my department went a little nuts with the whole WIOA thing this past month, haha. My original week consisted of 1-on-1 client meetings to determine work related services, meetings with workforce groups and event planning, serving as the point person for the City and County of San Francisco’s ACE program, and possibly job develop here and there.
But who knows now, haha. Hopefully I can get it cleared up this week, because many things are put on pause while the department starts to focus on student services.
But the sun is out and it’s raining lightly here and there. Guess spring finally showed up in the bay area.
I dunno how I missed responding to all the comments here (blaming residency, har har), but I hope things are going better!
I wouldn’t mind spring coming back since it means winter would be wayy farther away! *-*
Farrah recently posted…The Compassionate Chick’s Guide to DIY Beauty
Happy Monday Farrah! My friend just had a baby yesterday so this post is perfect :) Most of my friends have IUDs so it’s a lot of fun to see what they look like before inserted. I bet the Early pregnancy loss was challenging, but I’m sure you did a great job.
Sorry for the super late reply, but thank you! I recently got a maternity care patient who ended up having a miscarriage so what I learned from this rotation was definitely helpful in managing that!
I always enjoy learning about your experiences!
Coco recently posted…Spring Snow Day
Thanks! I’m so behind on writing about em’!
This would be such a fascinating rotation!
Girl, your days are so busy and long! I don’t know how you do it!
Kristy from Southern In Law recently posted…Recipe: Gluten Free Ham & Cheese Impossible Pies
hehehe, I feel like I’ve gotten way too used to long days–short ones feel kinda weird now (although I definitely still welcome them)!
Farrah recently posted…The Compassionate Chick’s Guide to DIY Beauty
This is a great work on learning! It is very important to tell the girls about their health, sex and pregnancy. This can protect them from an unplanned pregnancy.
Author
Agreed!