Two weeks down...
The belief that Ob/Gyn is the most time-intensive and busiest of the third year rotations is a myth. Friday I got to leave the hospital at 10:00 am, and (aside from the on-call day) have never left later than 4:00. Of the three hospitals students from my school rotate through for Ob/Gyn, this hospital is supposedly the busiest—another myth. The students at the two other hospitals seem to have much busier schedules than we do. Here, there is a lot of down time. After we round on our patients from about 5:45 to 6:30, except for the two students in L&D, we have nothing to do until clinic starts at nine or until there is a surgery (there isn’t always).
This week not much has happened. I’ve seen a couple OB patients in clinic, asked them all the same questions. I’ve been in two other surgeries, one removal of fibroids and one hysterectomy. I was in clinic for four hours one day, only saw two patients, and had to leave for the pelvic exam because the patient didn’t want a male in the room—I can completely understand this, and would probably feel the same were I a woman, but having said that it is a little frustrating since this is the one point in my career I will have to learn how to properly do a pelvic exam—if I don’t learn it here, that does not bode well for the women I will see as a physician who need pelvic exams (rare as they will be if I go into surgery). The thing I was mostly frustrated by was that this is a free clinic and patients have to agree to allow students and males to treat them in order to be accepted—they shouldn’t agree to be seen by males if they’re not going to actually allow it when they have been accepted to the clinic.
Today, I did actually get to help deliver a baby—I actually had my hands on the head and was pulling. That was a good experience. And it was nice to actually do something after literally sitting around doing nothing but study for ten hours straight.
This week not much has happened. I’ve seen a couple OB patients in clinic, asked them all the same questions. I’ve been in two other surgeries, one removal of fibroids and one hysterectomy. I was in clinic for four hours one day, only saw two patients, and had to leave for the pelvic exam because the patient didn’t want a male in the room—I can completely understand this, and would probably feel the same were I a woman, but having said that it is a little frustrating since this is the one point in my career I will have to learn how to properly do a pelvic exam—if I don’t learn it here, that does not bode well for the women I will see as a physician who need pelvic exams (rare as they will be if I go into surgery). The thing I was mostly frustrated by was that this is a free clinic and patients have to agree to allow students and males to treat them in order to be accepted—they shouldn’t agree to be seen by males if they’re not going to actually allow it when they have been accepted to the clinic.
Today, I did actually get to help deliver a baby—I actually had my hands on the head and was pulling. That was a good experience. And it was nice to actually do something after literally sitting around doing nothing but study for ten hours straight.
posted by Chris Emlyn at 4:23 PM
1 Comments:
Don't feel too bad, Chris. I can't tell you the number of times that I, as a female medical student, have had to leave the room, or not participate in the exam. I tell myself that the patient always has the right to object to students; in a year and a half, you'll be the doctor, and patients can't get rid of the resident, even if they want to.
Post a Comment
<< Home