Obstetrics & Gynecology

OB/GYN was my second to last rotation of 3rd year and I was starting to feel like it was the home stretch.  I did gynecology first and it was not my favorite.  I spent a lot of time in the OR watching hysterectomies and other surgeries that would make a person cringe if I described them.  If there is one thing I figured out early on, the OR is not my favorite place to be.  I think I might enjoy it more if I wasn't so freaked out the whole time that I was going to touch the wrong thing and contaminate it and have the wrath of a scrub nurse fall on me.  But even besides that, gynecology surgeries are in a particularly difficult place to watch if more than 2 people are standing around the patient, so I spent hours pretending to be attentive when all I could see was the back of people's heads.  I made to-do lists in my head, memorized the order of advertisements on the computer screensaver in the room, and basically tried to save myself from a death caused by boredom.  Gynecology clinic was OK, a better learning experience but mostly a little gross in my opinion.  Then I did a week of urogynecology where I learned everything there is to know about urinary incontinence and basically learned to fear the consequences of child bearing.  I'm mostly kidding...

The second half of the rotation was the obstetrics part which I enjoyed a lot more.  Being a part of delivering a baby was an unforgettable experience.  I had a hard time not getting choked up everytime I was in a delivery because it was just such an amazing sight to see the faces of the mothers and fathers as they saw their little one for the first time.  It was at this point that I realized Pediatrics was it for me, because I always found myself wishing I could go with the baby over to the warmer instead of finishing up with the mom.  After a while, you also start to recognize the personality types that certain fields of medicine attract, and I am not quite the ob/gyn type.  Not really sure how to explain it, but it is just a feeling you get I guess.