Reflections on OB/GYN

OB/GYN was somewhat of a mess of semi-unpredicted hours, because unless it was a planned c-section, you never really knew when a baby would decide it was ready to come out. Mondays were my preceptor’s call days, so there was a lot of sitting + waiting. (We’d pass the time by fighting off food comas whilst watching Swamp People.)

Reflections on OB/GYN

1. People who love food are the best people.
   ‘Nuff said. I never thought I’d meet someone who loved food as much as I did! :D
   

   This is just a small sampling of all the food I had whilst on this rotation.

   I can totally see how/why my neighbor gained 10 lbs.

2. Don’t take things personally.
   In life, you’re bound to come across some stinkers. On one of my first days in the OR, one of the nurses jabbed a finger in my face and asked me who I was and what I was doing there. I replied that I was a medical student working with my preceptor, and she stalked off, muttering to herself. At the next case, she told me it was common courtesy to introduce myself to everyone in the room and to write my name on the board, but never addressed the two other medical students in the room to do the same thing (neither of them had done that either).

   While I understand the importance of knowing who everyone was in the room/it’s entirely possible that I’ve gotten a little thin-skinned since I’ve become so accustomed to people being super-nice to me, the level of hostility and condescension she exuded was entirely unnecessary.

   I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and later on learned that she’d recently discovered she had major seafood allergies. If I could never eat salmon again, I can imagine being myself pretty bitter about life too. Not that that makes it okay to be so rude, but still.

   

   This was a bachelorette (remember the cake?) party game: “Pin the sperm in the uterus.”

3. This rotation may well be the best form of birth control available to humankind. (Or maybe just for me.)
   No. Just no. If I could magically migrate my uterus out of me without needing to have surgery done, I would be pretty thrilled.

   In medical school, you find out pretty quickly what types of body fluids (etc.) that you’re okay with. And also the ones you’re not. I have never liked anything to do with even the idea of childbirth, so I’d been dreading this rotation the most. (The fact that my preceptor is completely awesome made up for it though.)

   

4. I may not have a soul.
   Not gonna lie, I felt a little bit like I was perhaps missing a soul on this rotation. While everyone was gushing and teary-eyed over how beautiful the newborn babies were…let’s just say that “beautiful” was nothing close to the first thought that came to my mind and leave it at that. I’m not even gonna get started on the placenta.
5. Although I absolutely would not want to do this for a living, it was a still a great learning experience.
   Despite knowing I wanted nothing to do with this, I still asked my preceptor to let me know if he had any interesting cases coming in, and stayed late for all his on-call days just in case something came up. I think the best way to conquer your fears is to just make yourself face them. I’ve gotten way, wayyy better at doing pap smears!

Memorable Cases

• We had a surgery scheduled for a Friday afternoon, and our patient walked in a little before noon…eating a biscuit. Needless to say, that got rescheduled to the following week, and I got a half-day to go study and catch up on errands/life!
• Witnessing a baby “bursting through the perineum like someone stuck a hand grenade in the vagina.” Yes, that was a direct quote. What was that about the “beauty of childbirth” again? o_o
• That dermoid cyst we removed with the teeth and clumps of hair! ._.
• A lady with 4 kids + pregnant with her fifth that I got to know throughout the rotation during her OB visits – her kids were super excited about their to-be baby brother, so I’d let them “help” to listen for his heart rate. :]! Her oldest son tried to take me home with them, hahaha.
• 15yo newly pregnant mother who found out by an STD test that her boyfriend was cheating on her :[
• There was a family who didn’t speak much English, but…they spoke Mandarin! My preceptor was super excited about this because I can speak some (“in life or death situations,” as I like to put it). The dad asked my preceptor something along the lines of, “If one has to die, who chooses?” and my preceptor was somewhat taken aback/bewildered about this, so I explained that in China, there isn’t as much freedom. Apparently, over there, it’s the man’s family that gets to choose whether the mother or the child lives (if it comes to that).

Nope, that’s not a moose with earrings.

Notable Quotes/Conversations

• “You should gain weight, because you’re worth your weight in gold!”
• “You’re far from old. I have jeans older than you.”
• “Farrah got accosted by the ID police today. We’re going to avoid that section of the hospital.”
• Dr. S: “Thanks for having lunch with me. You’re much more interesting to talk with than the average student!”
• “Dr. S just texted me to tell me that he’s impressed by your eating ability, and that he’s glad I finally have a student who can actually eat.”
• “One of you is going to really hate me for this, so before I continue, I just want to ask…does anyone have allergies? A cold? Congestion? Anything that’d make it so you couldn’t really breathe or smell through your nose?” (“…no, but what do you need?”) “I have a patient who’s allergic to deodorant and possibly hasn’t showered for the past week who needs an ultrasound…”
• “You? Need to lose weight? My student has had meals bigger than you, on a fairly regular basis!”

When I got hopelessly lost while trying to pick up lunch for us. :o

• (“I’m so sorry for the delay!”) “Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re barely a wisp, so I just wanted to make sure no one kidnapped you!”

Resources

• UpToDate
• Boards & Wards (Carlos Ayala, Brad Spellberg) – affiliate link!
• Online MedEd
• Question banks (COMBANK + UWORLD)

Read about my other rotations here!