Me. It's all about me here.

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NY, United States
My name is Daren. I currently attend LECOM in Bradenton, FL. This is currently my 4th year of med school. I created this blog to post my thoughts about medical school. And because I rock. Boom. So please, come make yourself at home and enjoy my musings. If you are easily offended by things (ie sarcasm, being politically incorrect, etc) then I suggest you evacuate the immediate vicinity :)

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

On Ob/Gyn

Those of you who know me know that I really do not enjoy the field of ob/gyn. It's hard to say exactly why. And honestly, I don't even know if I can pinpoint the exact reason(s). It's like asking someone why don't you like the color orange? Or why do you prefer your sandwiches cut into rectangles as opposed to triangles? I guess I could come up with some reasons. But I'm not here to complain about the field. I'll give a fairly objective view of my rotation.

I did my ob/gyn in Buffalo, NY. It was intense. A week of labor and delivery on days, a 24 hour weekend call, then straight into a week of labor and delivery nights, then a week of gyn surgery on days, then a week in the free clinic. You show up around 6am and round before signout. You signout then begin your day doing labor checks, delivering babies, and C sections. Around 530pm you do signout to the night team. Lather (extra soap), rinse, repeat. There's something about dealing with all the fluid and gunk with deliveries that's just not my thing. I can drain abscesses, do rectal exams, suck an empyema out of a lung, and touch fungus infected feet, but these unearthly delights coming out of the vag is just not me. Ugh. You can kind of do as much or as little as you want. But of course, I always try to do more than less because honestly, sitting around the nurses station is super mundane. I scrubbed in on as many C sections as possible in order to avoid performing vaginal deliveries. It actually was pretty cool and I got to learn how to suture. Was pretty happy about that. Did a few D&C's too. 

Nights were similar, except at night. Had more vaginal births than C sections during nights.

Gyn surgery was pretty nifty. Got to see a lot of cancerous female parts. Ladies, please get your cervix checked. You don't want to end up swollen, bleeding, and sick because you skipped an "uncomfortable" office procedure. Didn't get yelled at when maneuvering the uterus for the Da Vinci machine, so that's a plus (I heard that the guy who is the DaVinci man tends to yell at people). 

Clinic was probably the worst part. Pregnant females are so... well... [insert adjective here]. You'd think they'd be nice because they're coming to a free clinic. But no such luck.  And there were a LOT of diseased parts. It's sad too, to think the lifestyle into which these children will be born.

These residents with whom I worked were awesome. They were supremely nice and helpful and give me learning tips whenever I had questions. Very nice of them. 

The ob/gyn shelf was pretty hard for me. My worst score out of all of them. I highly recommend doing all the UWorld questions, reading Case Files, and going over the Kaplan videos. It's divided fairly evenly between ob stuff and gyn stuff. I remember having at least 3 fetal heart and contraction tracings, questions about pre-eclampsia management, stages of labor, and OCPs. Then there were at least 4-5 vaginal discharge questions, a few dysmenorrhea q's, a couple of PCOS q's, and various cancers of the angry vag/ute. Have fun. 

So anyway, I'm on ICU now. Having a good time so far, this is much more my style. Lots to read. Peace out kids.

Mood: Chill
Music: Michele McLaughlin -  The Druid's Prayer