Obstetrics and Gynaecology continued…

We’re about halfway through our fourth specialist rotation of the year and the pace is still, shall we say, energetic. Things are going well but it takes a lot of effort to keep our noses to the grindstone at times! We look on with envy at the students in the year below us who had the last week off, bringing back fond memories of 2016! (We haven’t had a break yet.) Anyway, we are still on our Obstetrics and Gynaecology rotation right now and it’s been really interesting to see all of the issues that clinicians in this speciality confront on a regular basis.

So far, the block has been going well. Although the focus is heavily on female anatomy for obvious reasons, I’m also liking the fact that the Genito-Urinary Medicine clinics are for both sexes and cover lots of different presentations. Aside from a week with midwives and on a labour ward in our second year, we aren’t provided much exposure to the O&G side of medicine from a practical and real-life perspective until this clinical rotation. We have loads of lectures, but it’s all been very conceptual and didactic – and not very hands-on. But this all changes once we are in Phase III. At our hospital, the education coordinators have been doing a great job of giving us extremely varied exposure to different clinics and theatre opportunities, and it’s been a good form of revision.

Most of the procedures we have seen have been relatively routine, including hysteroscopies (inspection of the uterus with a little camera at the end of a tube – very similar in concept to a colonoscopy), excisions of suspicious cervical tissue and even caesarean sections. It’s been like Block 5 (Reproduction and Child Health from year 1) come to life!

Theoretically, a woman can progress through an entire pregnancy in the UK and never need to see a doctor, provided that the pregnancy is low risk and that everything progresses normally and without issue. As I’ve learnt, normally patients are referred to specialists only if there are concerns about the mother’s or the baby’s health during the pregnancy, the delivery or the post-partum period. These are the cases that we tend to see these days – and this has taken a lot of getting used to for me, since midwives don’t really exist in my country of origin, in which almost all babies are delivered by doctors. Anyway, when women are referred to neonatal clinics staffed by registrars or consultants, they usually have a condition that requires additional monitoring and support (although sometimes it’s the baby who requires attention). I’ve seen lots of endocrine issues, some obstetric cholestasis, some social-care issues and even saw a baby with a very high chance of being born with Down Syndrome who required some extra monitoring. All in all, it’s been a fascinating glimpse into the variety of humanity and I’ve loved what I’ve seen so far.

John

Luke Pemberton : 30 May 2017 15:37 |  Tags: John Mbchb Patients Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem