I have so much school work piling up in the homestretch, so obviously it’s time to get back to the blog.
I struggle with prenatal visits. While I’m totally fascinated by all the physiological changes a woman’s body goes through in pregnancy, I’m so much more interested in gynecology than obstetrics. I’ve been trying to explain my disinterest, but it’s difficult for some reason. Maybe part of it is that I’ve been seeing most of my pregnant patients in a practice where all that happens at every visit is weight, blood pressure, sonogram. Sometimes they have a little blood taken, but that’s basically it. In most practices, women only get like 2 or 3 sonograms in their entire pregnancies. Maybe I’d be more into it if I were measuring the height of the uterus and listening to fetal heart tones. But I don’t think so. Prenatal visits have such a predictable sequence, but if something goes wrong, it goes REALLY wrong and it scares the crap out of me.
Routine gynecological visits have so much potential to be so interesting! You’re checking in with women about everything that is going on below the belt. You get to talk to her about her sex life! And her life in general. It’s great. All of the problems that come up at gyn appointments seem so much more manageable to me, or at least puzzles that I’m interested in solving. I totally look forward to working with women on resolving mysterious pelvic pain or crazy periods or chronic BV. Things like preeclampsia or cholestasis of pregnancy? Too fucking crazy.
