6 posts tagged “ob”
Today I've been trying to sleep the whole afternoon off but there's still too much adrenaline in my system that I barely got 2 hours of sleep. The antihistamine I took earlier for my allergic rhinitis didn't even make me sleepy.
Maybe I should have gone out instead.
Over the phone my brother kept kidding me on Christmas day that I was a total loser with no life. Which if one thinks about it is actually not far from reality. I didn't even get drunk during the series of Christmas parties with friends, co-interns and families as I went home early each time to get some sleep before my OB duty the next day.
I think I need to make good New Year's resolutions so I can get a life.
Things have been going really well in my OB-Gyne rotation. Yesterday I was on 24-hour duty at the ER (saw about 50 patients and admitted 33). The resident with me during the day surprised me by saying that OB-Gyne seemed to suit me and that I would probably do well as an OB-Gyne practitioner. One: I never even considered taking up OB-Gyne for residency. Two: this is the first time that someone thought that OB would suit me. And three: although I don't cringe anymore when someone shouts out that the patient we are examining has a cervix that is fully dilated, I am still basically taking baby steps to learning the appropriate management for common OB-Gyne conditions.
Speaking of fully dilated cervices, I never got the chance to explain the four words that I dreaded the most. Fully - would mean that a pregnant woman has a cervix that is fully dilated to 10 cm and if all goes well would probably deliver her baby in the next few minutes or within the hour. After the (once) cringe-inducing announcement of full cervical dilatation would come the awkward shout of table. At this point the patient is transferred from the stretcher to an operating table and placed in lithotomy position in preparation for delivery. Calling out table is actually directed to nurses and nursing aides to assist in the transfer of the patient, but most of the time we wheel the patient to the delivery room ourselves and transfer them onto the table. And then there's baby out which is pretty much self-explanatory. Lately, these words haven't been so scary. They've transformed from loud hairy, red-lettered words in my head to small, furry animals which scurry along the path they're pre-directed. Cute, really.
Having said all these I am really enjoying my rotation so far.
Cheers!
Post-call from OB duty in the labor room/delivery room complex I can still hear fetal heart tones in my mind as if there's a pregnant woman continuously hooked to an electronic fetal monitor in the background.
Halfway through my first month in OB I still find myself more interested in fetal outcomes than pregnant women although for the past 2 duties I have been enjoying working at the ER and the LR/DR. Yesterday they started admitting patients again, lifting the "limit admissions" memo given two weeks ago. I started to feel how it really felt to be working in a "labor hospital". Contrary to what would be normally expected, I enjoyed it. At least for a change I felt that my going on duty was worth it. From 10 to 15 admissions per day during the last 2 weeks, we have warmed up with 36 admissions yesterday. I expect the number to double during the next few days.
21 vaginal deliveries, 12 cesarean sections, 5 completion curettage procedures and 8 other miscellaneous admissions for fetal monitoring, preeclampsia, anhydramnios or placenta previa. All things considered, It was really a fruitful day on duty.
OB OPD. There I was taking a history of a 14-year old who was 9 months pregnant. But I'm not even remotely interested in her life's story - if she was raped liked the 13-year old or if it was her boyfriend like another 14-year old. I just wanted to get it over with. Same with the dozen other pregnant women waiting to be seen after her. And I found that I really don't care much about people except to learn from them.
Or maybe OB just isn't my thing.
One time, after observing a normal spontaneous delivery I found that I was more interested in the thickly meconium stained neonate who was delivered breech then the mother who was probably preeclamptic. And although I hardly noticed how pale the mother was (she had an ongoing blood transfusion) it was so easy for me to catch the slightly yellowish tinge of her baby's skin.
OB tales on hold, I have been trying to preoccupy a co-intern who has just been dumped by her boyfriend of almost 8 years, not successfully if I may add. Amidst trying to stop her from slipping into sadness I am trying to figure out where I am in this rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, of blues and relative elation. I've only been up for 5 hours and I'm already on my 4th cup of coffee. [Love]Sickness is the pits and is generally contagious.
Renovations are a total disaster especially if they are taking place in a hospital. Moreso, if the Emergency Room is involved.
A visit to one hospital's ER had me gagging from the smell of the still air and sickness. I doubt that as a patient I would get well if I had to stay in the basement wards right next to where the ER was relocated. I pride myself for not having a weak stomach and for taking the smell of gangrene and infection well enough without a mask but I am still hoping that the renovations will be finished by the time I need to be back there for my ER rotations in Internal Medicine.
On a different note: I have already started my 2-month long OB-Gyne rotation. And this early on, I have much to tell already. More OB tales to come.
First of November. Tomorrow I go on call in a different government hospital. From catching babies in the nursery/NICU, I now go to watching over would-be mothers go into labor and eventually deliver their babies. And yes, just thinking about all those pregnant mothers is making me scared already. If I found catching 20+ babies a day already scary before, becoming part of a team who deliver 70+ babies a day is even scarier. And it's not just the numbers.
Right now there are three words I am dreading to hear: 1) fully, 2) table, and 3) baby out.
Oh, that's four words. Yes, I meant four. More about it later.
