Sunday, August 14, 2011

Oh also the scrubs on Ob/Gyn were awesome and I stole like 10 pairs

I loved my Ob/Gyn rotation, unlike approximately 103% of other med students.  It was the weirdest, most fun experience, top to bottom (pun intended).  Oh sure, there were the bad residents.  Well just one really.  She was actually the worst human being I've ever met, but she was so bad it was comical.  Plus she hated me, and since I didn't use the adverb "fucking", that means she didn't make my life any particular hell.  My love of that rotation can also be qualified with, "it was your first," making it new and exciting and fun.

Still, it was a cool trip down memory lane (you know, because I was born there.  The vagina that is.  I came out of a vagina).  There is some surgery, some primary care (find that combo in another specialty) and an interesting patient population.  But what really made that rotation for me was one single person.

The head of the department was probably the best teacher I've ever had.  He was this hilarious guy who just knew exactly how to give you information so it was useful, relevant, and interesting.

Those are all code words.  Useful means it had the number one most important feature, it would appear on our test.  I know this sounds shallow.  I'm supposed to be a medical student learning for the sake of learning.  Learning so I can be a better doctor.  Learning so I can help people.  That's the kind of bullshit that I said to get into med school. The truth is that I will never remember even a 20th of what I learned over my clerkship year, so the fact that it got me through my test is the most important feature by far.

That being said, relevant refers to its usefulness in the actual clinic, helping actual people, when it actually matters.  The kind of stuff you need to know as an Ob/Gyn resident.  There is a large overlap between useful and relevant, but not nearly big enough. A good teacher can differentiate the two.  A bad one pimps you on both indiscriminately, then tells you to read more.

Interesting means what it sounds like, but it also means that it had a chance of sticking beyond my 6 week rotation.  It didn't, but it had a chance.  This is a rare skill indeed.  Let me provide an example.

"Fetal heart monitors are sensitive, but not specific (useful).  They help us decide whether or not to perform a C-section (relevant).  This is bullshit forced down our throats by lawyers.  They have never been proven to do anything, but increase the rate of C-section.  We use them because we can be sued if we don't (interesting)."

See how that is a unique skill?

Medicine often laments that the most influential aspects of choosing a specialty are the residents and attendings you worked with during your clerkship; the most dynamic and least legit reasons to choose a specialty, but true nonetheless.  I'm not going into Ob/Gyn, but if I did, it would definitely be because of him.  And vagina.  J/k, just him.

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