This is the essay I wrote for school with a few extra things thrown in (because I didn’t want to brag about how good the PAs looked in my school essay, and I didn’t want to go into as much detail for school). J
This was a great rotation. It was the first time I thought “wow, I could really see myself doing this one day and LOVING it!”
I learned so much and had a lot of fun! I enjoyed several things about Gynecology: the pace of working in an office, getting time to educate your patients, seeing gynecology surgeries, and following patients for more than one office visit. I had fun on gynecology learning and getting to see so much. I didn’t get to do a lot, but I feel like my doctor made up for it with the way he let me see so much from surgeries to office procedures. I really enjoyed Obstetrics. Working with women to help them deliver a baby was such a special moment to spend with them. And seeing a new life be born, knowing that I facilitated the birth, was really amazing.
My last day on obstetrics I got to deliver 3 babies all on my own (with someone standing right behind me just in case), plus watch a set of twins be born. The first baby was breech, so I got to see how to deliver a breech baby, which was something I had been reading about outside of the objectives. I was SO excited about getting to see twins, since my R3 (who had been at parkland 3 years as a resident) had never gotten to see twins be born!!) I finally perfected my one handed knot tying, which I strongly recommend we learn in our Clinical Skills class, because it’s always fun when the PAs look good in front of the medical students by helping them learn too. Several of the PAs were the first to learn how to tie a one handed knot and were helping the instructors teach the med students.
I was really thankful for my team of residents and attending on obstetrics. My R4 sat down with us about once a week and went over a topic from etiology to treatment, asking us what we knew and helping us remember the treatments. She was always giving us facts about treatment and then asking us to recall it later, which is one of the ways I remember things the best. Our attending doctor also sat down with us and talked through topics, he had great slides that helped us learn more than just what we read in our books. Everyone else on the team, especially the R1, were great at teaching hands on when it came to delivering babies, suturing, or tying knots. I know I learned a lot on obstetrics, with all of the hands on learning and verbal learning!
I feel like I met most of my goals. I learned the etiologies and treatments for gynecologic problems in both parts of the rotation. I learned to interpret labs and be proactive about women’s health. I felt like I learned a whole new set of suturing skills, and I was able to help the medical students on my team learn them too, because I was the first one to perfect the skill. This was one of the first rotations I felt like I knew possibly more than the med students I was working with (because we had the ob/gyn block in the summer, and they were hearing things for the first time) which helped me when we would go over things as a group and I felt like I was teaching them things. I liked going to the med students and asking them a question about what I didn’t understand, usually they would have no idea so we would look it up together. At the end of the rotation one of the med students brought in a practice test and so we worked through it as a team of students. Several times I was the one explaining why the answer was right, instead of the other way around. I usually feel as if I’m on the same knowledge level with the med students, but I really loved knowing a bit more. (and now I’m done bragging)
This was also the first rotation I got to see a PA working. I’ve seen many PAs before school started, but this was one of the first times I got to be in the room with a PA analyzing how what she did was did and the doctor did were essentially the same. It gave me more confidence knowing that I was getting a great education and I would be able to help people like that one day. (especially since she was educated at UT Southwestern!)
