Thanks guys! I appreciate all your advice and help!
This sounds silly but one of my main problems for OB is that I'm not good at feeling the cervix. I have short fingers and I've only been able to feel the cervix twice (in women who were small). I've done cervical checks after the interns in med school but couldn't feel the cervix at all while they were able to tell that it was dilated by x cm. I met a resident once at a program and she said that she had problems feeling the cervix too because of her short fingers. She said there were other techniques that can help make it easier to feel the cervix. Does anyone know what techniques she was talking about? Thanks!
Well, at the risk of sounding crass, I don't know about all that short finger business. I mean, either you're missing a couple of phalanges or your patient population has cavernous vaginas. All that it is is anatomy, and like anything anatomic, you have to know geographically where it's supposed to be and how it's supposed to feel. L&D is a bad place to learn what a "normal" cervix feels like because by the time you exam them, they may be dilated and thinned out. Of course you can't find it... it ain't there no more. Now, a good place to learn normals would be in L&D Triage (volume) and FM/OB clinic during WWE's (not in labor).
Like I said, visualize a hot dog with a belly button on the tip of it. If the hot dog points towards the floor, it's posterior. If it points at you, it's anterior; diagonally in between, it's mid-position. As a cervix dilates, the belly button gets bigger and you start to be able to stick 1 or 2 fingers in it and maybe spread your fingers. As the cervix thins out, it feels less like hot dog and more like the bottom of a cereal bowl (smooth and flat with a ridge which is the cervical os).
I feel your pain, though, because it took me a lot of exams to "get it", but once you get it, it's ridiculously simple. I mean, seriously. OB residents like you (you stupid incompetent FP rotator who gets in my way) to think that a freaking vag exam is some secret kung fu. AND they like to think they're right. There's so much variability, both between observers and intraobservers, that I'm sometimes surprised that we make C/S decisions for FTP based on them. So don't let an OB resident make you feel like you're wrong. It's all a matter of an (educated/seasoned) opinion.
Personally, I don't agree at all with TN Family MD's attitude. Weak? Strong? Who freaking cares? I'm at an unopposed program so I don't appreciate it as much as others, but you will end up wasting a lot of time/energy and be extremely unhappy if you sit around comparing yourself to others. I mean, who cares if you can read an EKG or a rash better than an OB resident? That doesn't help you deliver babies during this rotation or in a taxi cab in the middle of traffic jam.
Learn how to do the OB resident's job better than they do. That should be your purpose. Come up with 4 specific things you want to master during the rotation (that's 1 per week to get really good by Friday), and freaking do it.
I would rather strive in learning OB while I'm on OB than be proud of the fact that I know Cards better than an OB resident. I mean, when you're on Cards, do you say to the Medicine resident "well, I can't read EKGs like you, but at least I can deliver a baby"? Ridiculous. Sorry, just my opinion.
but I'm only 5'1.5 and my fingers are very short (3rd digit is only 3 1/4 inches; okay, now I feel weird talking about size 
