These past 4 weeks I've rotating in OB/Gyn at Trinitas Hospital at Elizabeth, NJ. It's been exhausting. This is probably the 2nd most exhausting rotation I've done this year. The hours were very long. It starts at 7am and can go until 8-9pm the latest. Thankfully, there was no call. We had to do 1 week of clinic, 1 week of gyn surgery and 2 weeks of L&D.
For my 1 week of clinic, I realized clinic work really doesn't work. I get exhausted even with clinic being only 6 hours or so. I get bored and feel like I can't really do anything. It could be the patient population that I get to see, but I feel like I was seeing the same thing over and over again. There isn't really much variations.
The week of gyn surgery was fun. I really enjoyed it. It was definitely exhausting, assisting with any where from 3 to 15 cases a day depending on the day. But it was fun. It kept me going nonstop. I didn't realize I was tired until the end of the day. I definitely like being in the OR more that the office.
L&D was very different. I couldn't really describe it except that it's a mix of office and OR. The office aspect is that we would have to keep track of pregnant ladies and the contractions, determining when they are ready to deliver and taking care of all the prep for the delivery. The delivery is very much like to OR, catching the baby as it comes out and taking care of the lacerations and the baby in the sterile field. The true OR experience in L&D is the c-section.
For me, I personally caught 2 babies on my own, with the midwife helping me. The babies were slippery and I couldn't really find the grip to not drop the babies. I feel like I'm on the verge of dropping babies constantly. The whole process of labor and delivery really turns me off. The girls on the rotation couldn't really decide if vaginal delivery was better or c-section. Both are very crude and cruel. For C-section, some surgeon would take the uterus out and plop it on the stomach to stitch it up then shove it back in. Most of us decide that between the two choices, c-section is probably a bit better. Who knows, medicine is really making us think differently.
During the week of gyn surgery, the most memorable is literally first assisting a vaginal prolapse, which is the bladder drop into the vaginal area and out to where you can see and feel it. This one I was in was fairly big and it took like 20 clamps to hold it and for the surgeon to repair it. It took about 40 mins to repair and this was done by a surgeon who is very fast. It was great watching a prolapse turning it into normal.
I would definitely say this is the 2nd craziest rotation. The first was my surgery rotation, filled with work and politics, very draining.
