Day 7: The Broad Spectrum of OB/GYN

"J'accepte la grande aventure d'être moi / I accept the grand adventure that is being me."

- Simone de Beauvoir

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Today was a double whammy of OB/GYN shadowing! I've heard a lot about this specialty, especially through some of my peers who are very interested in it, but never have I had the chance to experience shadowing it myself. Personally I am interested in women's health on a global health as I've done a couple of presentations on the topic in university; quality healthcare for women is definitely integral to a healthy society.

The morning was filled with shadowing Dr. Chip Wiper (a gynecological oncologist). Before I had shadowed Dr. Wiper I had no idea that his specialty comes from a fellowship after OB/GYN residency. In his practice he has almost total patient care: diagnosis, patient follow up, operations, and determination of chemotherapy treatment. Its a wider range of patient responsibility than a typical oncologist or surgical oncologist.

After rounding with the OB/GYN residents, the morning took a quick downhill turn. I found it especially hard when I sat in on an appointment with a low-income patient. It hurt my heart to hear her story but Dr. Wiper was fantastic when talking to her and Im glad I was able to see how he handled the situation and discuss it with him afterwards.

The entire morning wasn't all tears though! The following patients all had stressful situations to deal with: some with happier diagnosis and outcomes than others but they were all a joy to meet. I was able to see a medical translator used for one patient, an adorable woman who came to her appointment with her son and different kinds of CT / ultra sound imaging for different patient diagnoses. I really wish I could have stayed with Dr. Wiper for his OR time in the afternoon but I was equally excited to go to my next shadowing opportunity.

The afternoon was a bit of a change as I shadowed Dr. Benjie Mills in the Child/Adolescent OB/GYN clinic. After being aquainted with her new fish named Brad we began a busy afternoon with multiple patients. Many of the cases were dealing with adolescent girls mostly came in with issues regarding their menstrual cycle. I loved seeing how Dr. Mills adjusted her approach to each patient, not just in what she consulted them but also how she consulted them. One of the important things that she taught me is that in a setting like this its extremely important to gain the trust of your patients, some of them will take multiple visits before she can figure out what their concerns are. Most of that has to deal with the fact that the young girls are still uncomfortable talking about their bodies that are going through a lot of change as well as the fact that many of them had their guardians there with them.

The time in the clinic wasn't the only insight into medicine that I had with Dr. Mills. Once clinic was over for the day she graciously stayed behind and answered my questions about her practice and medicine in general. One of the main questions that I had for her was how would I know if OB/GYN would maybe be the right fit for me. She actually gave me a much better response saying that to know what kind of medicine I wanted to practice I needed to know three things about myself:

1) Procedures or no procedures?

2) Is there a certain patient population that I am interested in working with?

3) Is there a certain disease / issue I want to work on?

We talked at length about that and other pressures that I have but its nice to remember from time to time that I don't have to have everything figured out right now. Its hard to remember that when Im surrounded by lots of other successful and ambitious people.