OBGYN PA School Rotation RECAP!

Well here it is. I've been putting it off for a week (life has been a little crazy, ok?), but I think I am finally ready to sit down and tell youy all about the joys of women's health! But first, let me give a little recap on what's going on right now: If you've seen my instagram page over the past few days, then you know what's going on, but for those of you who DON'T know, its basically this....PA school is over for AT LEAST 2 months.

As you all know, COVID-19 is absolutely ransacking the world....and my PA program has not been spared! We have cancelled our next rotation, where I was supposed to be in the pulmonary ICU. The following rotation isn't set to start until mid May, so hopefully by then the world will calm down and I can get back to work!

But, I don't really want to talk about COVID-19, because that's what everyone talks about these days! Lets talk about what I really want to talk about...the babies!

My time in OBGYN had 4 parts; clinical days, radiology days, surgery day and on call days. I'll talk a little bit on each one!

Clinic days: These days were usually 7-7:30 AM to 3:30-4 PM, and would basically consist of 15 minute appointments allllll day. We would see upwards of 20-25 patients per day! A good 90% of the patients would be return OB patients. Thankfully, all of my return OB patients were great and having healthy pregnancies! I had the opportunity to measure fundal heights and find a fetal heart tone with a doppler. Other patients we saw were just for normal GYN complaints - STDs, annual Pap smears, etc. These days kept my busy and provided a lot of education on how to handle a very busy, high patient load day.

Radiology: completely unrelated to OBGYN, we had the opportunity to spend 3 days in radiology. Here I saw (and sometimes helped with) ultrasounds, x-rays, MRIs, stress tests, etc. These days were admittedly quite boring, but it was nice to get to see a different side of the hospital besides the L&D ward.

Surgery: I got two spend two whole days in surgery - the cases we saw were all GYN related (endometrial biopsies, hysterectomies, D&Cs, etc.), and I got to scrub in and help! "Helping" basically consisted of holding a retractor for hours on end, but hey, I got to be all official and scrubbed in - it was pretty cool! Oh and ORs? They look wayyyy different from anything you see on Grey's Anatomy.

On call day: This was the best day EVER. 24 hours in the hospital, 7 deliveries, a lot of tears (from me at least!). In all of my medical training thus far, this was by far the most amazing, wonderful and educational days to date. The on call day is all about labor and delivery. On my 24 hour shift, I got to participate in 3 C-sections and 4 vaginal deliveries. And when I say participate in, I mean realllllly participate in. The C-sections were similar to my surgery days, where I basically was just scrubbed in an holding a retractor. But the vaginal deliveries, those were a whole different story! I was in there, catching babies and delivering placentas and all! The miracle of birth is TRULY something.

My overall impression of my women's health rotation is this: I could absolutely see this as a field that I go into after graduation, but unfortunately, there are just not a lot of PAs in Women's health. It definitely exists, so I am going to look more into it once graduation gets closer.

Things I liked: delivering babies, surgery, and the fast paced environment.

Things I didn't like: the clinic; 15 minute visits drive me crazy! Some check ins definitely only take a minute or two, but I feel like for the most part, pregnant moms would love to get to spend a little bit more time with their OBs, getting all of their questions answered, and all that.

So that is all I have! Sorry this is more of a "boring" post, but I really felt that it was important to keep you guys updated on what has been going on in the "other" part of my life that doesn't include reselling! Till next time...

(and by next time I mean probably a few days, I have nothing better to do then to write to you all!)

- Miranda