One Down

Well, I have successfully completed my first rotation of third year by taking the OB/Gyn shelf (aka nationally standardized exam for the clerkship) this morning. Overall, I think it went well--there were a good number of pretty straightforward questions, but there were also a few really weird "what would you do next" kind of questions where all of the possible answers seemed like something you could do and maybe even would do but who the hell knows which one would actually come first? Ah well. I'm confidant I did well enough to pass, and hoping I did well enough for Honors.

Overall, OB was an interesting ride. I enjoyed some things more than I expected, and actually discovered more about what I want and don't want out of my medical career than I would have thought possible from a 6 week rotation through a specialty I wasn't that interested in to begin with.

For one, I learned that bringing babies into the world for a living is awesome. I really loved my time on labor and delivery, and got tears in my eyes at the last birth I attended because everyone in the room was so excited. The problem is, as soon as the baby is out, I pretty much lose interest. Sewing up huge tears in the perineum just seems anticlimactic and not so exciting. Another thing I liked was that patients are mostly healthy, responsive to your suggestions, and compliant with treatment. I find that this is something I really like, which lines up with a big part of why I like pediatrics so much--patients want to see you, are generally pretty healthy without a ton of chronic diseases, and are much more likely to quit smoking/drinking/etc. when they are a) pregnant or b) have small kids. I also learned that I'm pretty sure I don't want to do a specialty that involves a lot of surgery--or maybe any. The OR is interesting, but just not my cup of tea, I think.

Now I get a nice weekend off, and then we start psych on Monday. I'm really excited because I get to do my rotation on child psych, which is not only interesting to me from the pediatrics perspective but also supposedly has the best hours--so we shall see. Hopefully if nothing else it'll make for some really interesting stories.