Is it too risky to only want to be a Doctor because of Obstetrics?

[choirboy1]

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Hello all,

I am a 27, nearly 28 year old Male, and I am currently in a quarter-life crisis when it comes to what I want to do with my life, career wise. Bear with me, but I'll try to keep this brief. I have a BA in Economics (no interest in it at all), and for the past couple years, I've been doing data entry and payroll jobs and have found them to be incredibly soul-crushing. I loathe going to work every day. I am currently brainstorming and thinking about what I may want to do. The only problem is that I have very few passions, skills, and of the few passions I do have, I have no idea how I will be able to make a career out of it. To be quite honest, I don't even know if I have what it takes to get accepted into Med School so this might even be a moot question, but I can't help but keep thinking about it at the back of my mind.

Anyways, I have very few hobbies/interests in life, namely they are playing video games, or watching TV/movies. Although I would love a career in the video game, or TV, or movie industry, I have never, in my free time, had any interest in learning any skills that are used to create those things (ie. I never learned animation, or drawing/art, or filming or video editing. Dabbled a bit in programming in school but wasn't my thing either). I am not too convinced at the moment that I would be able to get a career in these fields.

Now what I do find interesting enough that I actually do research online in order to learn more about it in my free time, is the whole human reproductive system, pregnancy, and birth. I don't know why, but I feel so drawn to it, and I am very fascinated about the whole process. I read articles, as well as watch videos online. I think it would be wonderful if I were able to help women throughout their pregnancies, and also help to deliver their babies.

The thing is though, I really don't have any interest in any other fields of medicine (at least at this moment in time). Would it be incredibly risky and highly not recommended to study medicine if you only wanted to specialize in OB and not be open to any other fields? Like I said, I don't think I would even be able to get into med school (I've always been a low 80s student, albeit, I never tried too hard either, and I currently don't have any volunteer experiences), but the thought is always lingering in the back of my mind. Would love honest opinions, no matter how harsh they may be.

Should I maybe consider another profession that would maybe be less risky to get into, but can also allow me to work with pregnant women? (Midwifery? Labor/delivery Nurse? Although I'm not sure how society would view a man in these roles)

Thanks

 

[watermelon master]

Why don't you try and shadow an OB so you know what you could be getting yourself into. Why don't you also try and shadow physicians in other fields?

Good luck

 

[theonlytycrane]

wait... troll post? kinda creepy.

 

[Stagg737]

Should I maybe consider another profession that would maybe be less risky to get into, but can also allow me to work with pregnant women? (Midwifery? Labor/delivery Nurse? Although I'm not sure how society would view a man in these roles)

Thanks

To be blunt, a very large section of society would not feel comfortable with a man in these roles. Many women don't feel comfortable with male OB/Gyns, let alone men being the ones newborn infants are handed off to. Maybe you could do it, but the L&D floor is literally the only place I've worked at/rotated through where not only were all the nurses and techs women, they actively scoffed at the idea of a man working with them (other than physicians).

 

[njtrimed]

To be blunt, a very large section of society would not feel comfortable with a man in these roles. Many women don't feel comfortable with male OB/Gyns, let alone men being the ones newborn infants are handed off to. Maybe you could do it, but the L&D floor is literally the only place I've worked at/rotated through where not only were all the nurses and techs women, they actively scoffed at the idea of a man working with them (other than physicians).

As someone who's pregnant with my second baby, I can tell you I've never even thought about the sex of the people taking care of me. My first OB was a woman and she retired, and my current OB is a man. I spent a day on L&D after a car accident recently and one of the nurses was a man. Yes, more women seem to gravitate to the field in general, but that doesn't mean that men shouldn't pursue it. I'm sure there are some women who feel more comfortable with a female gynecologist, but I think especially during pregnancy, most are just concerned with finding someone who will help them safely through pregnancy and delivery. Incidentally, I think my OB did maybe 1-2 pelvic exams total, between 15-16 office visits and three days in L&D last time. Most of the time, they're basically checking vital signs, monitoring your progress, watching for red flags, and answering questions.

I do think the OP is a little odd, but not because he's a guy- I just can't imagine anyone only wanting to pursue medicine to go into obstetrics, and not due to an interest in medicine in general.

 

[reaction mechanisms]

I'm pursuing medical school solely because I plan on specializing in OB/GYN. I've always known that I wanted to work in women's health. I don't consider it risky at all. I've been working in an OB/GYN clinic during pre med and let me tell you couple of things:

1. While the field of women's health is certainly dominated by females, there is plenty room for male physicians. In my clinic, we have 3 female and 3 male physicians. Some patients request a female provider but our male providers have their own steady flow of patients as well.

2. As a male, you will actually have a slightly improved change of landing a residency spot in OBGYN. Read other SDN posts on this as well. Aggie08 posted a thread in the Medical Student MD forum recently about OB GYN that got a lot of male inquiry and response on this topic.

OP what GPA did you graduate with? You'll need to take the required prerequisite courses in the form of a post bacc and you'll need a > 3.7 GPA overall. I would also recommend looking into hospital volunteering and shadowing as soon as possible.

Best of luck!


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[Catalystik]

Hello all,

I am a 27, nearly 28 year old Male, and I am currently in a quarter-life crisis when it comes to what I want to do with my life, career wise. Bear with me, but I'll try to keep this brief. I have a BA in Economics (no interest in it at all), and for the past couple years, I've been doing data entry and payroll jobs and have found them to be incredibly soul-crushing. I loathe going to work every day. I am currently brainstorming and thinking about what I may want to do. The only problem is that I have very few passions, skills, and of the few passions I do have, I have no idea how I will be able to make a career out of it. To be quite honest, I don't even know if I have what it takes to get accepted into Med School so this might even be a moot question, but I can't help but keep thinking about it at the back of my mind.

Anyways, I have very few hobbies/interests in life, namely they are playing video games, or watching TV/movies. Although I would love a career in the video game, or TV, or movie industry, I have never, in my free time, had any interest in learning any skills that are used to create those things (ie. I never learned animation, or drawing/art, or filming or video editing. Dabbled a bit in programming in school but wasn't my thing either). I am not too convinced at the moment that I would be able to get a career in these fields.

Now what I do find interesting enough that I actually do research online in order to learn more about it in my free time, is the whole human reproductive system, pregnancy, and birth. I don't know why, but I feel so drawn to it, and I am very fascinated about the whole process. I read articles, as well as watch videos online. I think it would be wonderful if I were able to help women throughout their pregnancies, and also help to deliver their babies.

The thing is though, I really don't have any interest in any other fields of medicine (at least at this moment in time). Would it be incredibly risky and highly not recommended to study medicine if you only wanted to specialize in OB and not be open to any other fields? Like I said, I don't think I would even be able to get into med school (I've always been a low 80s student, albeit, I never tried too hard either, and I currently don't have any volunteer experiences), but the thought is always lingering in the back of my mind. Would love honest opinions, no matter how harsh they may be.

Should I maybe consider another profession that would maybe be less risky to get into, but can also allow me to work with pregnant women? (Midwifery? Labor/delivery Nurse? Although I'm not sure how society would view a man in these roles)

Thanks

You could also consider becoming a doula, which is a childbirth coach, as opposed to a healthcare provider. A doula is a professional trained, and provides emotional, physical, and educational support to a mother who is expecting, is experiencing labor, or has recently given birth. The doula's purpose is to help women have a safe, memorable, and empowering birthing experience.

While I suspect there is more than one pathway to become a doula, here is one: https://www.dona.org/become-a-doula/

 

[Catalystik]

@choirboy1 if you get into medical school and can't get into OB/GYN what kind of doctor would be? That is real question as all residencies are competitive and if you are not going to be happy as a family doc in a suburb someplace, then you may not want to consider medical school.

Just so you know, choirboy1, Family Medicine docs can deliver babies, too, but those that continue to provide obstetrical care are less likely to be in suburban locations, as they don't have sufficient OB patient volume to support the much-higher malpractice premiums related to delivering babies

 

[Catalystik]

And in some areas, with dearth of OB/GYN, they do alot of the non complicated deliveries.

. . . and even caesarian sections.

Though, where there is no OB to be found and as complications aren't always expected, I'd imagine that a lot of rural docs have had to become adept at the use of forceps, and other emergent interventions.

 

[njtrimed]

Many of the traditional applicants I used to advise would come in with only 1 thing they would want to do in medicine and that was all they wanted. The usual Cardiac or Neurosurgeon types but everything in between. I thing most students applying to medical school actually have a strong idea of what kind of doctor they think they want to be. However, the majority wind up doing something different when they leave medical school.

I guess what I meant to say is that nobody should enter medical school without an interest in medicine, and science in general. It's just such a huge commitment just to get through the application process, and then an enormous investment every step of the way once you begin. As Catalystik pointed out, you can become a doula and play an instrumental role in women's birth experiences, including pre- and postpartum. I started med school with a specialty in mind too, but I'm keeping an open mind. I think it's a good idea to be open to almost anything, or at least general primary care, because even if OB isn't the most competitive speciality, there's never a 100% guarantee of matching into your desired specialty. That's just my opinion, though.

 

[Tsunnami]

Articles and videos are a very shallow version of the material that can be found in Medical school.
Look up the books for the actual material needed in Med and then decide whether you feel up to it.

 

[LyMed]

Why don't you try and shadow an OB so you know what you could be getting yourself into. Why don't you also try and shadow physicians in other fields?

Good luck

This. You need more exposure to the actual field of medicine before taking such a plunge. Best wishes.

 

[Stagg737]

As someone who's pregnant with my second baby, I can tell you I've never even thought about the sex of the people taking care of me. My first OB was a woman and she retired, and my current OB is a man. I spent a day on L&D after a car accident recently and one of the nurses was a man. Yes, more women seem to gravitate to the field in general, but that doesn't mean that men shouldn't pursue it. I'm sure there are some women who feel more comfortable with a female gynecologist, but I think especially during pregnancy, most are just concerned with finding someone who will help them safely through pregnancy and delivery. Incidentally, I think my OB did maybe 1-2 pelvic exams total, between 15-16 office visits and three days in L&D last time. Most of the time, they're basically checking vital signs, monitoring your progress, watching for red flags, and answering questions.

I do think the OP is a little odd, but not because he's a guy- I just can't imagine anyone only wanting to pursue medicine to go into obstetrics, and not due to an interest in medicine in general.

I completely hear what you're saying, I'm just saying that what you've stated is not the experience I've had in medical school. Maybe it's due to the area of the country I'm in (midwest), but where I rotated every attending said that OB is probably the friendliest field for a men to get residency in (as it has the highest rate of women entering, so it's a actually an advantage to be a male applying to OB/Gyn residencies according to them), but that men struggle a lot more with building up their patient base than women in OB/Gyn. This came from about 5 different physicians, 3 were women and 2 were men.

I agree that a lot of women probably just want to make sure their baby is safely taken care of, but that doesn't change that there are also many women who don't want a man looking at them 'down there'. We saw multiple women at check-ups where I (a guy) was asked not to come in who also wanted to be reassured a woman would be able to be on call to deliver. My attending even said that he once had a woman try to leave the hospital during a high-risk delivery because he was the only one on call and she refused to let a man deliver her baby. He said she signed off on letting midwife do it and there ended up being a lot of complications, but at least a woman delivered her child...

Plus it's not even always the mom that has the problem with it. There were a few times on my rotation that the mom was fine with guys being in the delivery room, but the father wasn't comfortable and all the guys (other than the doc) had to step out. We saw one patient at a 20 or 28 week check up where we were all there with the mom and when the dad came in he got angry and the guys had to leave and the girl students got to stay. I've heard guy friends who are nurses say the same thing about husbands not wanting other men around their newborn kids.

I'm not trying to invalidate your opinions or say that OP couldn't do OB/Gyn. I'm just pointing out that I've clearly had very, very different experiences with the field than you have shared, so much so that it actually played a role in me choosing a field other than OB/Gyn (which I was very strongly considering for most of the rotation). I'll add that there were a few patients, though not nearly as many, who requested to have a male doing pelvic exams/delivering their babies because they didn't want other women looking at them down there and judging them. So sometimes it goes the other way too.

Question to the bolded. Did your OB/Gyn seriously only do 1-2 pelvic exams on you throughout the 15-16 visits and 3 days in L&D???? Idk what the process was for you, but from what I was taught on my rotation that would be a serious failure to meet the minimal standards of care, especially if you were in L&D for 3 days....

 

[njtrimed]

I completely hear what you're saying, I'm just saying that what you've stated is not the experience I've had in medical school. Maybe it's due to the area of the country I'm in (midwest), but where I rotated every attending said that OB is probably the friendliest field for a men to get residency in (as it has the highest rate of women entering, so it's a actually an advantage to be a male applying to OB/Gyn residencies according to them), but that men struggle a lot more with building up their patient base than women in OB/Gyn. This came from about 5 different physicians, 3 were women and 2 were men.

I agree that a lot of women probably just want to make sure their baby is safely taken care of, but that doesn't change that there are also many women who don't want a man looking at them 'down there'. We saw multiple women at check-ups where I (a guy) was asked not to come in who also wanted to be reassured a woman would be able to be on call to deliver. My attending even said that he once had a woman try to leave the hospital during a high-risk delivery because he was the only one on call and she refused to let a man deliver her baby. He said she signed off on letting midwife do it and there ended up being a lot of complications, but at least a woman delivered her child...

Plus it's not even always the mom that has the problem with it. There were a few times on my rotation that the mom was fine with guys being in the delivery room, but the father wasn't comfortable and all the guys (other than the doc) had to step out. We saw one patient at a 20 or 28 week check up where we were all there with the mom and when the dad came in he got angry and the guys had to leave and the girl students got to stay. I've heard guy friends who are nurses say the same thing about husbands not wanting other men around their newborn kids.

I'm not trying to invalidate your opinions or say that OP couldn't do OB/Gyn. I'm just pointing out that I've clearly had very, very different experiences with the field than you have shared, so much so that it actually played a role in me choosing a field other than OB/Gyn (which I was very strongly considering for most of the rotation). I'll add that there were a few patients, though not nearly as many, who requested to have a male doing pelvic exams/delivering their babies because they didn't want other women looking at them down there and judging them. So sometimes it goes the other way too.

Question to the bolded. Did your OB/Gyn seriously only do 1-2 pelvic exams on you throughout the 15-16 visits and 3 days in L&D???? Idk what the process was for you, but from what I was taught on my rotation that would be a serious failure to meet the minimal standards of care, especially if you were in L&D for 3 days....

Wow! I'm from the East Coast, and while I'm sure there are some conservative people out there, everything you described is so foreign to me! My sister is pretty shy and joined a women-only gym because she feels uncomfortable working out with guys, but all three of her OB practices (they moved around during grad school and training) had at least one or two male OBs, and she never gave it a second thought. I'm just trying to imagine my husband getting angry about a man being in the room, and I don't know if I would find it more infuriating or just plain laughable. It's purely clinical- what difference does sex/gender make? It also seems strange to me because historically, most physicians were men... Anyway, I suppose we live in two different worlds! The only friends I have who chose to pursue obstetrics are almost all men, except for one.

 

[jqueb29]

Wow! I'm from the East Coast, and while I'm sure there are some conservative people out there, everything you described is so foreign to me! My sister is pretty shy and joined a women-only gym because she feels uncomfortable working out with guys, but all three of her OB practices (they moved around during grad school and training) had at least one or two male OBs, and she never gave it a second thought. I'm just trying to imagine my husband getting angry about a man being in the room, and I don't know if I would find it more infuriating or just plain laughable. It's purely clinical- what difference does sex/gender make? It also seems strange to me because historically, most physicians were men... Anyway, I suppose we live in two different worlds! The only friends I have who chose to pursue obstetrics are almost all men, except for one.

My brain agrees with you but, at the end of the day, we are highly evolved animals, and my male animal instinct would have an enormous problem with it.

 

[Pusheen]

I'm just trying to imagine my husband getting angry about a man being in the room, and I don't know if I would find it more infuriating or just plain laughable. It's purely clinical- what difference does sex/gender make? It also seems strange to me because historically, most physicians were men...

Yea, honestly I find that pretty icky. Why would I let my husband or boyfriend interfere with my care because they had weird hang ups? It seems pretty controlling tbh

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Well honestly I'm not sure you are actually interested in being a doctor because it seems like you aren't sure what you want.

The answer to your question though is no. OBGYN isn't really competitive, and OB is also something that can be done through FM which is the least competitive field.

 

[Chillbo Baggins]

Hello all,

I am a 27, nearly 28 year old Male, and I am currently in a quarter-life crisis when it comes to what I want to do with my life, career wise. Bear with me, but I'll try to keep this brief. I have a BA in Economics (no interest in it at all), and for the past couple years, I've been doing data entry and payroll jobs and have found them to be incredibly soul-crushing. I loathe going to work every day. I am currently brainstorming and thinking about what I may want to do. The only problem is that I have very few passions, skills, and of the few passions I do have, I have no idea how I will be able to make a career out of it. To be quite honest, I don't even know if I have what it takes to get accepted into Med School so this might even be a moot question, but I can't help but keep thinking about it at the back of my mind.

Anyways, I have very few hobbies/interests in life, namely they are playing video games, or watching TV/movies. Although I would love a career in the video game, or TV, or movie industry, I have never, in my free time, had any interest in learning any skills that are used to create those things (ie. I never learned animation, or drawing/art, or filming or video editing. Dabbled a bit in programming in school but wasn't my thing either). I am not too convinced at the moment that I would be able to get a career in these fields.

Now what I do find interesting enough that I actually do research online in order to learn more about it in my free time, is the whole human reproductive system, pregnancy, and birth. I don't know why, but I feel so drawn to it, and I am very fascinated about the whole process. I read articles, as well as watch videos online. I think it would be wonderful if I were able to help women throughout their pregnancies, and also help to deliver their babies.

The thing is though, I really don't have any interest in any other fields of medicine (at least at this moment in time). Would it be incredibly risky and highly not recommended to study medicine if you only wanted to specialize in OB and not be open to any other fields? Like I said, I don't think I would even be able to get into med school (I've always been a low 80s student, albeit, I never tried too hard either, and I currently don't have any volunteer experiences), but the thought is always lingering in the back of my mind. Would love honest opinions, no matter how harsh they may be.

Should I maybe consider another profession that would maybe be less risky to get into, but can also allow me to work with pregnant women? (Midwifery? Labor/delivery Nurse? Although I'm not sure how society would view a man in these roles)

Thanks

Another thing to consider is time. If you did business I'm guessing you only have a few (or even none) of the med school pre-reqs done. So you have to account for taking all those classes and the MCAT. You also have to get a sufficient amount of volunteering and shadowing. Best case, we'll say that takes 1 year, so you apply in 2018 to start in 2019; if you get in, you have 4 years of med school and then 4 years of OB residency. So best case you're finishing around age 37. Granted, you'd be doing what you think you want for the last 4 years of that. The thing to consider is that those other options like L&D nurse would come to fruition much more quickly with much less investment.

 

[bbbcccppp]

Well honestly I'm not sure you are actually interested in being a doctor because it seems like you aren't sure what you want.

Quote]

Op is definitely interested in being a doctor. People want a doctor who is honest and performs due diligence. It exhibits the qualities of a good caretaker to be asking questions sooner rather than later.


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