OB, the worst 4 weeks of medschool

[strawberryfield]

we all have our likes and dislikes. I personally loved OB and surg and pretty much despised IM...

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[ToldYouSo]

i actually had a pretty good time in ob/gyn because my attending was great. A tiny little asian man who constantly made bad jokes but let me first assist on pretty much everything. Yes, my main job was to use the retractors or "drive the uterus" but i think he made it worth it. I did, however, have a bad experience with another doctor who attempted every day to belittle me with sidelong comments and harsh criticism. Since he had no control over my grade i got him back one day:

Doctor: (asking some pointless pimp question)
me: "i don't know...its not x...but i really can't remember..."
doctor: "ooooooooooooooo, not x huh?? Tell me about x...where does x come from, huh? What is the nerve supply of x? Man you must like getting stuff wrong don't you??"
me: "doesn't really bother me, that is why i am standing here because i don't know everything."
doctor: "where would you be standing if you knew everything then??"
me: "well, where you are. Don't you know everything?"
doctor: (no response)
my attending: (laughing his ass off).

...............rofl!

 

[jakstat]

I just started OB. I think I can deal with it as long as I'm learning stuff. Its the pts that come in that bother the hell out of me. Mothers who smoke, shoot up, 21yr olds with 5 kids already with no fathers...

 

[RoboChicken]

wow.... First my doctor tries to shatter my hopes of becoming an OBGYN surgeon by telling me that she couldn't handle the smell (which of course I hadn't previously even thought much about...), and now almost everyone posting here refers to the rotation as "hell." This is great.

 

[smq123]

wow.... First my doctor tries to shatter my hopes of becoming an OBGYN surgeon by telling me that she couldn't handle the smell (which of course I hadn't previously even thought much about...), and now almost everyone posting here refers to the rotation as "hell." This is great.

- There are bad smells in all fields of medicine, not just OB. Different things bother different people. The smells in OB/gyn don't bother me, but the smells of old men, diabetic feet, and old urine bother me A LOT.

- Not everyone has a bad OB/gyn rotation. I didn't. I've had lots of classmates who didn't.

(Although I wouldn't put the words "OBGYN" and "surgeon" together in the same sentence when you're around general surgeons! )

 

[theraball]

Gosh. I'm over a year away from an OB/GYN rotation so it's kind of weird and depressing to read these stories.

As a father who's been in the delivery room (30 hours labor followed by C-section), the nurses were amazing, and the docs were very professional. Our own OB happened to be on call when it became clear a C-section was necessary, so she did it, and it was just all around a very professional and high quality experience. This was at a Harvard teaching hospital, by the way.

The only weird part was this male medical student who would occasionally wander into our room, smile at us, leaf through the chart for a few minutes, and leave--all without talking to us. I never heard his voice. I only knew he was a student because a nurse told me so. Not real interested in the field, I would suppose.

The delivery of a baby is an extraordinary experience; so far it's the most amazing thing I've ever been witness to, and I've been around some. It makes me sad that some of the people involved in the training aspects are so lacking in humanity. Why would they go into this field if they don't like it? I guess it's gotten to be so thankless and lawsuit-driven that it's spoiled all the fun. Luckily we didn't have to see the ugly side when we had our baby girl.

 

[michaelrack]

- There are bad smells in all fields of medicine, not just OB. Different things bother different people. The smells in OB/gyn don't bother me, but the smells of old men, diabetic feet, and old urine bother me A LOT.
)

I had to rotate on a GI ward for several weeks as a medical student

The smell was horrible

 

[Fat Black Dude]

why should i as a medical student have to do OB?

I know I am never going to do OB/GYN nor do I want to deal with the lawsuits of the field.

Don't waste my time is how I feel.

 

[DrWBD]

why should i as a medical student have to do OB?

I know I am never going to do OB/GYN nor do I want to deal with the lawsuits of the field.

Don't waste my time is how I feel.

Because your school, wisely, feels that everyone with the title of "Doctor" should have caught at least one kid in their medical training. You aren't training to be a technician, you're a future physician. I wasn't a fan of OB/GYN either, but realize that your clerkship rotation is probably the only time you'll ever be exposed to the field in your life.

 

[AmyO]

why should i as a medical student have to do OB?

I know I am never going to do OB/GYN nor do I want to deal with the lawsuits of the field.

Don't waste my time is how I feel.

Because you are training to become a well-rounded physician....Regardless of whether you plan to go into OB/GYN or not, it is important to have at least delivered a few babies, performed several pelvic exams, etc. I doubt as a medical student you will be "dealing with the lawsuits of the field"....that's why you have preceptors & supervising residents. If you're not getting something out of your rotations, you are wasting the preceptor's time....not the other way around. I can understand if you didn't like your OB/GYN rotation, but what bothers me is that you assume because you want to do x, y, or z that doing one OB/GYN rotation is a waste of your time.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

The issue is, however, where do you draw the line about what specialties do you need to be well rounded?

I saw a lot of chronic knee and hip pain on Family Medicine, as well as kids who had recently broken bones or injured joints. However, my school does not require an Ortho rotation.

My school does not require an Anesthesia rotation or a radiology rotation. But how many patients are we going to have who need surgery but are worried about anesthesia risks. How many CTs and MRIs and USs will the average clinician order and have no formal education on when to order what?

Now, I'm somewhat facetious here because there are a lot of fields where a good understanding of OB/GYN is fundamental and I think every student should spend SIME time rotating through it. But I also think it has somewhat of a "sacred cow" status among many schools with students spending far too much time on OB/GYN relative to spending NO time on other equally important fields.

 

[smq123]

The issue is, however, where do you draw the line about what specialties do you need to be well rounded?

I saw a lot of chronic knee and hip pain on Family Medicine, as well as kids who had recently broken bones or injured joints. However, my school does not require an Ortho rotation.

My school does not require an Anesthesia rotation or a radiology rotation. But how many patients are we going to have who need surgery but are worried about anesthesia risks. How many CTs and MRIs and USs will the average clinician order and have no formal education on when to order what?

Now, I'm somewhat facetious here because there are a lot of fields where a good understanding of OB/GYN is fundamental and I think every student should spend SIME time rotating through it. But I also think it has somewhat of a "sacred cow" status among many schools with students spending far too much time on OB/GYN relative to spending NO time on other equally important fields.

That's a fair point. Although, you're right in that you could make a similar argument for every other "esoteric" field in medicine - ophtho, derm, urology, pathology/cytology, etc.

But a lot of the stuff that you mentioned - learning about anesthesia risks, when to order what type of radiological study, etc., can easily be addressed by a 1-2 week crash course as a resident (which is often what happens). I don't think you need a whole rotation for that.

But learning how to do a good pelvic exam, and learning the fundamentals of what to look for when you have a pregnant patient, can't really be picked up in any other way. It's not like, as an IM resident, you do a 1 week course in GYN outpatient. And the basic management of things like vaginal bleeding, etc., come up all the time on IM services.

I think that some Ob/gyn rotations DO focus too much on the L&D and surgery parts of the field, and none on the outpatient stuff - so people don't really get to do a lot of speculum and pelvic exams. And those are the things that they'll actually NEED to know, even as an IM/FM/EM/peds resident. (Even 14 year olds get yeast infections!) Even as an MS4, I feel that I'm more comfortable doing pelvics than any IM resident, many of whom have only done pelvics on standardized patients/mannequins.

 

[QofQuimica]

I think that some Ob/gyn rotations DO focus too much on the L&D and surgery parts of the field, and none on the outpatient stuff - so people don't really get to do a lot of speculum and pelvic exams. And those are the things that they'll actually NEED to know, even as an IM/FM/EM/peds resident. (Even 14 year olds get yeast infections!) Even as an MS4, I feel that I'm more comfortable doing pelvics than any IM resident, many of whom have only done pelvics on standardized patients/mannequins.

Part of the problem is that rotations are not standardized even among students rotating at the same hospital, let alone at different hospitals or at different medical schools. To use your example, I did more Paps during my family medicine rotation than a lot of people at my school do during a gyn rotation, and I would be perfectly happy to never do another one for the rest of my life. It was just my luck of the draw to get several attendings who do a lot of women's health. But like you said, other people may get through these rotations without doing any Paps. In fact, some of my classmates on gyn, especially the guys, were asked to leave the room by patients during female exams. This has never happened to me.

I agree that everyone should have a month of OB/gyn. This is in part because medical school is an undergraduate education, and you're supposed to come out of it with a well-rounded medical education. You have the rest of your career to specialize in whatever you like best. But it's also important to do rotations like OB/gyn because you can't know before you try it how you will feel about that field. There have been some specialties that I liked more than I had expected, and others that I expected to like and realized pretty quickly that they weren't for me. Women's health definitely falls into the latter category.

 

[Blesbok]

I personally enjoyed it. Catching babies was fun even though I have no desire to go into it as a career.

 

[ubcredfox]

I just finished my four weeks of Obs/Gyn so I think I can offer a comment.

L&D is honestly one of the most disgusting things that I've ever seen; I'm not usually squeamish but when I witnessed the "beauty" of my first birth I almost vomited. A kaleidoscope of the smells of fresh feces, urine and blood filled my nostrils, providing the background for a piece of meconium arching through the air, freshly delivered per vagina, and skidding across that mess of fluid into the nearest wall. Screams of agony, whaling baby and general chaos completed the picture.

In contrast, the practice of Obs I found to be quite rewarding. The differentials are short and simple. The patients are motivated, compliant and generally satisfied with our surgeries; the procedures can be quite interesting and generally solve problems. I also thought that the pathology I saw was fascinating. I mean, how often do you see a fungating vulvar carcinoma?

 

[BigRedBeta]

While the issue is about becoming a well rounded physician, it is NOT about catching babies. Far from the actual act of delivery, the real reason it's required lies in the fact that no matter your field (unless it's Andrology or Geriatrics) you're likely going to care for a number of pregnant women in your career. THAT'S the crux of it.

Obviously it goes without saying but pregnancy represents a state that alters how we deliver health care and it even effects the non-patient contact fields of radiology and pathology probably more than any other factor I can think of at the moment (what's the risk of radiation to the fetus? how does the hormonal milieu affect microscopic findings?)

And given the (sometimes drastic) changes in treatment that it causes, it becomes important for ALL of us to be aware of the emergencies associated with it.

And even if you learned absolutely nothing else in your 4-8 weeks on OB/Gyn, hopefully you'll remember to order a urine pregnancy test on every one of your patients who is a female of reproductive age...

 

[Thanatos]

L&D is honestly one of the most disgusting things that I've ever seen; I'm not usually squeamish but when I witnessed the "beauty" of my first birth I almost vomited. A kaleidoscope of the smells of fresh feces, urine and blood filled my nostrils, providing the background for a piece of meconium arching through the air, freshly delivered per vagina, and skidding across that mess of fluid into the nearest wall. Screams of agony, whaling baby and general chaos completed the picture.

Ahh the memories....

I spent most of my time on OB paging urology.

 

[DarthNeurology]

While the issue is about becoming a well rounded physician, it is NOT about catching babies. Far from the actual act of delivery, the real reason it's required lies in the fact that no matter your field (unless it's Andrology or Geriatrics) you're likely going to care for a number of pregnant women in your career. THAT'S the crux of it.

And given the (sometimes drastic) changes in treatment that it causes, it becomes important for ALL of us to be aware of the emergencies associated with it.

And even if you learned absolutely nothing else in your 4-8 weeks on OB/Gyn, hopefully you'll remember to order a urine pregnancy test on every one of your patients who is a female of reproductive age...

I couldn't agree more!

I think that the medicine, the real clinical medicine of Ob/Gyn, i.e. in terms of care for pregnant patients or even paitents who *might be pregnant* is something that is important for any doctor, from surgery to internal medicine to pediatrics. It is important if you do an ob/gyn consult that you know how to present the information to the ob/gyn service. Also, you will on a weekly basis come into contact with ob/gyn related health issues, even in pediatrics.

I really enjoyed the pathophysiology of ob/gyn, and thought about practicing as an ob/gyn, doing some work even in a third world country setting as an ob/gyn. So, I don't think I had a "lack of interest."

My Ob/Gyn rotation was horrible. I think if you are a male, as I am, that maybe you will be targeted more. I really loathe Ob/Gyn attendings who were extremely mean to me.

My conclusion is that while the clinical medicine of Ob/Gyn is crucial and important, today's cadre of Ob/Gyn attendings as a whole are doing a deplorable job of educating medical students and routinely haze and harass medical students. As a nation, we are doing a horrible job in terms of infant mortality and other markers of care for women who are pregnant. I lay a large amount of the this blame at the feet of the large number of Ob/Gyn attendings and residents who don't really care to teach and feel it is their job to be plain out and out mean to medical students.

This does impact how hospitals works. Many internal medicine residents had such a bad experience during medical school on the ob/gyn service that they will basically refuse to deal with ob/gyn issues and "turf" such patients to the ob/gyn service with crude remarks. This is to the diservice of patients everywhere.

 

[howelljolly]

Exactly. Even if you go into anesthesiology... you'll have that emergent ex-lap on a pregnant patient, and you'll have to keep mother and baby alive. And if the gynecologist knows more about the anesthesia than you do....

But as the above poster mentioned... with a few exeptions, whatever field you go into, you'll have pregnant patients.... including pediatrics.

You can even make a niche for yourself in another specialty in combination with pregnancy. Rheumetological disease in pregnancy, renal disease in pregnancy.....etc.

 

[FutureInternist]

But as the above poster mentioned... with a few exeptions, whatever field you go into, you'll have pregnant patients.... including pediatrics.

That's the scary part.......The youngest one I saw was 14 yrs.

 

[45408]

Just started gyn today. Drove the uterus around the block a few times. OB doesn't start for 3 more weeks, but I've got OB call tomorrow.

True to form, both of my chief residents are quite pregnant

 

[indo]

Just started gyn today. Drove the uterus around the block a few times. OB doesn't start for 3 more weeks, but I've got OB call tomorrow.

True to form, both of my chief residents are quite pregnant

Yeah...you're laughing now...


When I did the vag rotation the male residents acted pregnant too.

 

[JustPlainBill]

I'm in week 2/6 of OB/GYN and I'm finding it generally sucks except when you're working and then it really sucks.....

It probably wouldn't be so bad if someone who knew what the hell they were doing would take charge and organize the clerkship for incoming students. Our lecture on childbirth was done by a midwife who hated the fact that she wasn't a physician and didn't have physicians privileges so she dogged them every chance she got during the lecture. Everything a physician did went 'against nature' and there was 'no reason' to ever have
a child in the hospital, period, end of story.

Another point -- when I'm new to the rotation in a field that is significantly different -- like OB -- please buy a clue and tell me how you want the PE and SOAP note done. Please don't assume I know what the heck an SVE is nor that I know how to do one. I'm really not squeamish about sticking my hands into body orifices but I am a little squeamish about jamming a plastic hook into an area I can't see down into and maybe driving it, just by chance, through a fontanelle into, oh, maybe a lateral ventricle?

If you want me to deliver a placenta, it's all good. but don't jump my ass about not getting it out fast enough when you've just lectured me in a very condescending fashion about uterine prolapse or breaking the cord, K?

And also, I'm not telepathic. I don't know the schedule and your lame, circumlocutous explanation that jumped from Monday to wednesday, back to monday, pit-stopped at thursday and then trailed off into the joys of ultrasound didn't do it.

Oh, by the way, don't get pissed off if no students scrub in on a c-section. You never tell us when one is going back until they're opening the doors of the OR and you get pissed if we camp out in the hallway waiting on a C. Hint: If you treat and include us like members of the team, we'll generally act like it. We really want to learn some of this but you d*(*heads make it impossible.....

 

[roflcakes887]

I'm in week 2/6 of OB/GYN and I'm finding it generally sucks except when you're working and then it really sucks.....

It probably wouldn't be so bad if someone who knew what the hell they were doing would take charge and organize the clerkship for incoming students. Our lecture on childbirth was done by a midwife who hated the fact that she wasn't a physician and didn't have physicians privileges so she dogged them every chance she got during the lecture. Everything a physician did went 'against nature' and there was 'no reason' to ever have
a child in the hospital, period, end of story.

Another point -- when I'm new to the rotation in a field that is significantly different -- like OB -- please buy a clue and tell me how you want the PE and SOAP note done. Please don't assume I know what the heck an SVE is nor that I know how to do one. I'm really not squeamish about sticking my hands into body orifices but I am a little squeamish about jamming a plastic hook into an area I can't see down into and maybe driving it, just by chance, through a fontanelle into, oh, maybe a lateral ventricle?

If you want me to deliver a placenta, it's all good. but don't jump my ass about not getting it out fast enough when you've just lectured me in a very condescending fashion about uterine prolapse or breaking the cord, K?

And also, I'm not telepathic. I don't know the schedule and your lame, circumlocutous explanation that jumped from Monday to wednesday, back to monday, pit-stopped at thursday and then trailed off into the joys of ultrasound didn't do it.

Oh, by the way, don't get pissed off if no students scrub in on a c-section. You never tell us when one is going back until they're opening the doors of the OR and you get pissed if we camp out in the hallway waiting on a C. Hint: If you treat and include us like members of the team, we'll generally act like it. We really want to learn some of this but you d*(*heads make it impossible.....

I have found that medical school goes by alot easier when you honestly just don't give a f*ck. I began this mindset after gross anatomy.

I will also not give a f*ck in my clerkships. Oh no, I got a P instead of H in a rotation I will never do ever in my life!!!! Oh no!!!

Listen to Hoover at medschoolhell.com

He is spot on 100%.

 

[roflcakes887]

Part of the problem is that rotations are not standardized even among students rotating at the same hospital, let alone at different hospitals or at different medical schools. To use your example, I did more Paps during my family medicine rotation than a lot of people at my school do during a gyn rotation, and I would be perfectly happy to never do another one for the rest of my life. It was just my luck of the draw to get several attendings who do a lot of women's health. But like you said, other people may get through these rotations without doing any Paps. In fact, some of my classmates on gyn, especially the guys, were asked to leave the room by patients during female exams. This has never happened to me.

I agree that everyone should have a month of OB/gyn. This is in part because medical school is an undergraduate education, and you're supposed to come out of it with a well-rounded medical education. You have the rest of your career to specialize in whatever you like best. But it's also important to do rotations like OB/gyn because you can't know before you try it how you will feel about that field. There have been some specialties that I liked more than I had expected, and others that I expected to like and realized pretty quickly that they weren't for me. Women's health definitely falls into the latter category.

I would disagree 100%.

If I know I will be a radiologist, then I should not have to do anything other than Radiology, since I will never be doing anything else.

The 3rd year of med school should be optional. For example, if you know you want to do Pathology, you should do an entire year (your 3rd year) doing Path electives and Path training and be able to enter PGY-1 path residency instead of doing 4th year.

 

[SoCuteMD]

I have found that medical school goes by alot easier when you honestly just don't give a f*ck. I began this mindset after gross anatomy.

I will also not give a f*ck in my clerkships. Oh no, I got a P instead of H in a rotation I will never do ever in my life!!!! Oh no!!!

Listen to Hoover at medschoolhell.com

He is spot on 100%.

Funny, you speak as if clerkships are in the future. But you supposedly are a 2nd year at Duke - which SHOULD mean that you are almost done with a year of clerkships.

I would disagree 100%.

If I know I will be a radiologist, then I should not have to do anything other than Radiology, since I will never be doing anything else.

The 3rd year of med school should be optional. For example, if you know you want to do Pathology, you should do an entire year (your 3rd year) doing Path electives and Path training and be able to enter PGY-1 path residency instead of doing 4th year.

Hate to break it to you, but knowing medicine and surgery are incredibly important when going into rads.

 

[RxnMan]

...The 3rd year of med school should be optional. For example, if you know you want to do Pathology, you should do an entire year (your 3rd year) doing Path electives and Path training and be able to enter PGY-1 path residency instead of doing 4th year.

Actually, they have something like this already - it's called "residency."

Medical school is meant to prepare you for residency. This requires a broad base of knowledge, and that includes knowledge in how most services work.

...If I know I will be a radiologist, then I should not have to do anything other than Radiology, since I will never be doing anything else.

There's a student at my school who supposedly said something similar on his gyn rotation. The OBs tore him a new one on his evals. He went all the way to the deans of the school, but he couldn't get them erased. Did not match in rads.

My point? You're not a radiologist yet.

 

[RxnMan]

...When I did the vag rotation the male residents acted pregnant too.

It's a defense mechanism - they blend in to avoid and confuse predators.

 

[roflcakes887]

Funny, you speak as if clerkships are in the future. But you supposedly are a 2nd year at Duke - which SHOULD mean that you are almost done with a year of clerkships.

We do a research year during our 2nd year here....

Way to have no idea what you're talking about

 

[SoCuteMD]

We do a research year during our 2nd year here....

Way to have no idea what you're talking about

Um...except that you do clinical rotations in 2nd year and research year during the third year - as per your Office of Curriculum.

Way to prove there's no way you go to Duke!

 

[45408]

It's a defense mechanism - they blend in to avoid and confuse predators.

that's awesome

 

[QofQuimica]

Hate to break it to you, but knowing medicine and surgery are incredibly important when going into rads.

I agree. The radiologists I have come into contact with have an astounding level of anatomical knowledge that I will never possess even if I study anatomy for the rest of my life. They also want a tentative diagnosis before interpreting the film, so they're definitely incorporating clinical info into their decision-making process.

 

[Jamers]

I would disagree 100%.

If I know I will be a radiologist, then I should not have to do anything other than Radiology, since I will never be doing anything else.

The 3rd year of med school should be optional. For example, if you know you want to do Pathology, you should do an entire year (your 3rd year) doing Path electives and Path training and be able to enter PGY-1 path residency instead of doing 4th year.

Thinking like this creates a society of specialists that cannot communicate with each other which results in poor patient care. In addition, what if you spend the entire 3rd year doing Path rotations and...oh no, you don't get into Path?

 

[QofQuimica]

Thinking like this creates a society of specialists that cannot communicate with each other which results in poor patient care. In addition, what if you spend the entire 3rd year doing Path rotations and...oh no, you don't get into Path?

Jamers, that guy has been banned as a troll, so there's no need to keep arguing with him anymore.

All kidding aside, I don't think that any of us would disagree with you. Like you said, it's important to rotate through multiple specialties, because there's no way you can hope to be a competent physician in any specialty if you don't have a good grasp of what your colleagues in other specialties are doing.

 

[binko]

So I have read through this entire thread but I still don't understand what it is that makes OB/GYN such a widely-hated rotation? It's been my lifelong dream to go into OB/GYN and I want to make sure I'm not in for a rude awakening!

 

[howelljolly]

So I have read through this entire thread but I still don't understand what it is that makes OB/GYN such a widely-hated rotation? It's been my lifelong dream to go into OB/GYN and I want to make sure I'm not in for a rude awakening!

Dont let this thread stop you.

Academically/scientifically, some people just arent into OB/gyn... if you are, than dont worry about that.

Aside from that, some common gripes about OB/Gyn might be

-the personalities of residents/attendings
-the long hours
-the periods of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by sheer terror
-the highest highs, and the lowest lows (dead babies)
-the secretions

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

Four weeks? I had it for six. Its usually us and one other school there. This was in December so it was just us. On top of that, one of our classmates claimed she was "dying" and bailed on us. That left five of us, three of which were totally incompetent (they didn't match either). Worst six weeks of my life. Oh, and then half way through I got jumped, took a Corona bottle through the face...that is ALL the way through my cheek, got a 14k hospital bill, and then a week after that I got pneumonia. AWESOMMMMEEE. Oh wait, one more thing, the chief told me that my medical knowledge was far below average. Thats funny because I scored well above the mean in the USMLE and the COMLEX. Whatever, *****.

 

[Jamers]

Jamers, that guy has been banned as a troll, so there's no need to keep arguing with him anymore.

All kidding aside, I don't think that any of us would disagree with you. Like you said, it's important to rotate through multiple specialties, because there's no way you can hope to be a competent physician in any specialty if you don't have a good grasp of what your colleagues in other specialties are doing.

Eh, I find it best to kick them while they are down

 

[cyclohexanol]

Our OB rotation is 6 weeks and I go from loathing it some days to 'somewhat kinda excited to be there' others. Most days I just find myself going through the motions. I was on an upswing, but a I recently had a patient who brought me down again.

30 y/o G11P1-0-10-1

When I asked if any of those 10 were miscarriages or ectopics she said no, so I asked if there were any medical indications for any of the abortions, and she said no again...werd?

I've actually had a positive experience with the housestaff, attendings, and most of the OB nurses during the last 4 weeks. Having said that, I always thought that the almost mythical abuse within the OB/Gyn world that we hear about as students stemmed from overworked attendings ****ting all over everyone else. Now I have a new theory: It isn't a **** waterfall per se, but rather that everyone is in a bad mood starting off because they all often have to work with epic patients who, as per the above example, think that D&C == birth control or make other ridiculously poor choices (over and over and over again).

11 more days to go...

 

[ShyRem]

I've had a rather shockingly fun time. Interesting because most of my classmates have NOT enjoyed OBGyn (including the former president of the OBGyn club on campus - such a horrible experience for her that OBGyn is totally off the table as a residency choice). We all rotated the same places with the same docs, the same residents, the same nurses. Yet somehow I lucked out. However, there are always one or two people that are not very pleasant or nice. ("Not that I'm saying med students don't count, but when was the last time someone real actually checked her?" I love you too.)

I will say that doing a delivery with just me and the nurses (the doc didn't make it in time) was a heck of a lot of fun. He made it to deliver the placenta.

 

[Snuffbox]

For me, it was my own personal 7th circle of hell

 

[tacrum43]

We do 8 weeks at my school.

I'm just finishing up week 1/8. It's OK so far IMHO.

Tacrum, that might be the nicest thing I've ever heard anyone say about an OB rotation.

Well, I've only had one week of gynecology so far...so...

I have night float starting tonight. We'll see how that goes.

So I've finished OB now. Even managed to get honors.

It really wasn't that bad. You had to work hard, but no harder than Surgery or Medicine. As a male, I just laid low and let the estrogen fly. That being said, the first vaginal birth I saw was probably the grossest thing I've seen in med school. It's oddly cool though too.

My worst 4 weeks of med school were actually during Psych of all things. But that was because of personal reasons.

 

[Llenroc]

Because you are training to become a well-rounded physician....Regardless of whether you plan to go into OB/GYN or not, it is important to have at least delivered a few babies, performed several pelvic exams, etc. I doubt as a medical student you will be "dealing with the lawsuits of the field"....that's why you have preceptors & supervising residents. If you're not getting something out of your rotations, you are wasting the preceptor's time....not the other way around. I can understand if you didn't like your OB/GYN rotation, but what bothers me is that you assume because you want to do x, y, or z that doing one OB/GYN rotation is a waste of your time.

I'm done with medical school.

The rotations that they make you do are completely arbitrary, perhaps based more on historic tradition than any real medical reality. What does the average medical student get out of surgery? Yeah, not much either. OB/GYN is a pretty worthless experience for most folks, and doesn't really teach any core skills or knowledge that you'd utilize for most fields. Honestly, people would probably get a lot more out of rotations like Allergy, Dermatology, etc. which right now are electives, but which in one month typically teach you a great deal about diagnosing and treating real common problems that you'd see in most branches of medicine.

 

[45408]

ugh, just finished a God-awful day on OB. there were too many gyn cases for the gyn students to cover, so I got pulled from OB clinic to cover it (God forbid a tech have to drive the uterus). of course, I got handed the case that nobody else wanted because it was a giant clusterf*&)(. The patient was from across the country because the specialist is here. After 8.5 hours in the OR, about half of which were unnecessary, it was finally over. the only thing that redeemed it was the general surgeon who helped with the first part, and once he found out I wanted to do gen surg, he made that portion a fairly worthwhile learning experience.

 

[Slack3r]

Why is it remotely appropriate for attendings to act like children? "Don't like my rotation?! Well NANNY-NANNY-BOO-BOO, YOU FAIL!" You'd think highly educated individuals would be a little more mature than this. Similarly with all the yelling, belittling, and temper tantrums I seem to hear so much about. Why is this necessary? Not only that, how is this even allowed? That kinda **** in any other profession lands you in some trouble, but apparently in medicine it's a staple of a "good education". I guess I just don't understand all the malignancy, or how it's argued as conducive to productive education of futue physicians.

 

[ThinkTooMuch]

ok why is OB bad?

 

[howelljolly]

ok why is OB bad?

did you read the thread?

 

[cpants]

Well, in English, the indefinite is feminine, so he is correct.

Call your college. Get your money back. That reminds me of the really radical professors who thought that we should change the spelling of women to womyn, because it was sexist to have 'men' in the word. When will these womyn realize that grammar and spelling are not sexist. There are bigger fish to fry.

 

[ThinkTooMuch]

did you read the thread?

yeah i did. nothing really stands out as a proper explanation as to why its so bad.

 

[Slack3r]

yeah i did. nothing really stands out as a proper explanation as to why its so bad.

Cus you look at icky vaginas all day and the creatures inevitably attached to them.