What the F, I am enjoying OB/Gyn???!!!

[Red Beard]

I don't know if it was low expectations, irrational fear, or what....but I am 2 weeks into my first rotation in OB/gyn and I really dig it. Simple medicine, interesting surgeries, relatively happy and healthy patients. Based on everything I read on SDN over the last few years, I was prepared to hate OB/gyn.

Some things about my rotation I feel really lucky about:

1) Its a preceptorship so its just me and the doc, who happens to be a good teacher and a good person.

2) I've been assisting in surgery and catching babies since day one.

3) The L&D nurses are super friendly at this hospital

4) One of the older scrub nurses has taken me under her wing and is very patient and a good teacher

Crazy, eh?

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[G0S2]

I don't know if it was low expectations, irrational fear, or what....but I am 2 weeks into my first rotation in OB/gyn and I really dig it. Simple medicine, interesting surgeries, relatively happy and healthy patients. Based on everything I read on SDN over the last few years, I was prepared to hate OB/gyn.

Some things about my rotation I feel really lucky about:

1) Its a preceptorship so its just me and the doc, who happens to be a good teacher and a good person.

2) I've been assisting in surgery and catching babies since day one.

3) The L&D nurses are super friendly at this hospital

4) One of the older scrub nurses has taken me under her wing and is very patient and a good teacher

Crazy, eh?

I enjoyed it as well but the private practice outlook for me in this region appeared rather dim according to many male attendings. I just didn't want to struggle with my debt load.

Very interesting field though.

 

[gbwillner]

I don't know if it was low expectations, irrational fear, or what....but I am 2 weeks into my first rotation in OB/gyn and I really dig it. Simple medicine, interesting surgeries, relatively happy and healthy patients. Based on everything I read on SDN over the last few years, I was prepared to hate OB/gyn.

Some things about my rotation I feel really lucky about:

1) Its a preceptorship so its just me and the doc, who happens to be a good teacher and a good person.

2) I've been assisting in surgery and catching babies since day one.

3) The L&D nurses are super friendly at this hospital

4) One of the older scrub nurses has taken me under her wing and is very patient and a good teacher

Crazy, eh?

Not that surprising from what you say. There is nothing inherently bad about OB/GYN. The thing that makes it the ABSOLUTELY WORST ROTATION EVER is the terrible, catty, backstabbing, and demeaning nature of the residents, as well as the confrontational and adversarial relationship they have with the nursing staff.

 

[noentiendo]

I don't know if it was low expectations, irrational fear, or what....but I am 2 weeks into my first rotation in OB/gyn and I really dig it. Simple medicine, interesting surgeries, relatively happy and healthy patients. Based on everything I read on SDN over the last few years, I was prepared to hate OB/gyn.

Some things about my rotation I feel really lucky about:

1) Its a preceptorship so its just me and the doc, who happens to be a good teacher and a good person.

2) I've been assisting in surgery and catching babies since day one.

3) The L&D nurses are super friendly at this hospital

4) One of the older scrub nurses has taken me under her wing and is very patient and a good teacher

Crazy, eh?

Don't let them suck you in. I actually didn't mind my ob/gyn rotation, but talking an ob/gyn on faculty that had come from private practice could deter anyone from going into the field.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Not that surprising from what you say. There is nothing inherently bad about OB/GYN. The thing that makes it the ABSOLUTELY WORST ROTATION EVER is the terrible, catty, backstabbing, and demeaning nature of the residents, as well as the confrontational and adversarial relationship they have with the nursing staff.

Just goes to show you how important the residents (or nurses or faculty) can be in making you enjoy or dislike a rotation. The OB/Gyn residents at my school were probably the best group of residents across the board compared to any of the other clerkships' residents. None were as awesome as some of the IM residents, but they also didn't have any particularly weak links.

I think it's really, really, really important to try to separate the residents/nurses/staff from the actual practice of a specialty (I know, it can be hard to do) when trying to decide if it's right for you. If you love the medicine that a specialty does, then great, consider it in the future - just at a distant institution. Sometimes you might love a field in spite of the people who surround it at your school.

 

[Tiger26]

Our interns/residents/nurses all seem really nice, but I've gotta admit that all of us M3's look like a bunch of kindergarteners since we're only about 2 days into the rotation. Hell, we practically have to get the front desk lady to show us around the hospital all day--the first rotation ever has been really disorientating so far

 

[Law2Doc]

I don't know if it was low expectations, irrational fear, or what....but I am 2 weeks into my first rotation in OB/gyn and I really dig it. Simple medicine, interesting surgeries, relatively happy and healthy patients. Based on everything I read on SDN over the last few years, I was prepared to hate OB/gyn.

Some things about my rotation I feel really lucky about:

1) Its a preceptorship so its just me and the doc, who happens to be a good teacher and a good person.

2) I've been assisting in surgery and catching babies since day one.

3) The L&D nurses are super friendly at this hospital

4) One of the older scrub nurses has taken me under her wing and is very patient and a good teacher

Crazy, eh?

I also didn't find OBGYN to be bad. But I think you aren't getting the "true experience", as others suggest. You need to be surrounded by a bunch of cranky, sleep deprived residents, patients who won't allow you into the room, and nurses who see you more as someone they are allowed to yell at with impunity, to get the same experience everyone else has been describing.

 

[fuzzyerin]

I think the biggest thing in third year is to learn to separate out "I liked the rotation because I worked with cool people but I wouldn't want to do this for the rest of my life" from "I hated the rotation because the people sucked but I really liked the material and could do this for a living."

I loved my surgery rotation - the people were really cool - but I couldn't see myself just taking out gall bladders all day.
I hated my ob/gyn rotation - the residents were horrible - but I loved the material and am now in my chief year in a non-malignant, non-yelling kind of place that I looked for during the match.

Just something to think about.

 

[Law2Doc]

I think the biggest thing in third year is to learn to separate out "I liked the rotation because I worked with cool people but I wouldn't want to do this for the rest of my life" from "I hated the rotation because the people sucked but I really liked the material and could do this for a living."

I loved my surgery rotation - the people were really cool - but I couldn't see myself just taking out gall bladders all day.
I hated my ob/gyn rotation - the residents were horrible - but I loved the material and am now in my chief year in a non-malignant, non-yelling kind of place that I looked for during the match.

Just something to think about.

But don't you think the kind of folks who gravitate to a field tells you something about the field itself? Why would you want to be eg a pathologist if every pathologist you ever met was not someone you'd want as a colleague? I think it's all one package, the subject matter, the people, the procedures. You need to find one that mostly fits on all counts.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

I think this whole Ob/Gyn thing is as much a self-fufilling prophecy as anything else. I mean if someone has a bad experience with a group of IM/Peds residents everyone says, "hmm, must have been the people." But if someone has a bad time on Ob it's automatically, "yeah, Ob sucks."

Ob/Gyn is an interesting, varied field with (admittedly) a higher stress level that average. Some Ob/Gyns are miserable -- there is no question about that. Alot of the reason for that is the insane malpractice situation that surrounds Obstetrics. If I, as an eventual emergency physician, make a mistake during a procedure and there is a bad outcome there is a small chance I will be sued. If one of my Ob colleagues makes NO mistakes during a delivery but there is a bad outcome for whatever reason there is a near certainty that the patient will at least consider litigation. This is not a good environment. Trial attorneys should be ashamed of themselves for the situation they have brought to bear on the specialty of Ob/Gyn.

But back to the topic at hand, specialty stereotypes are just that. It's not that there aren't kernels of truth but ultimately it's YOUR decision which field you want to enter.

 

[anonperson]

Don't let them suck you in. I actually didn't mind my ob/gyn rotation, but talking an ob/gyn on faculty that had come from private practice could deter anyone from going into the field.

I enjoyed it as well but the private practice outlook for me in this region appeared rather dim according to many male attendings. I just didn't want to struggle with my debt load.

If you don't mind, what exactly did they say to you about the field that was so negative?