L&D, Boredom, and Meconium

Anita and I both beat our residents to the floors today, so no one can say we're lazy. =) Afterwards we went to the lecture room to hear Marcus and Kimberly give their student presentations. Marcus talked about Group B strep for less than 5 min, while Kimberly talked about a leimyosarcoma she saw in the OR. Then...we were treated to 3.5 hrs of lecture by Dr. R, the same prof who gave that 100-slide lecture on repro genetics last year. If you thought two hrs of slow monotonous lecture was hard to sit through, try three and a half hrs of facts, charts, and statistics that were at resident learning level, not med student level. It was hard to stay awake, and Anita and I ended up exchanging notes reflecting how boring it was. Dr. R started speaking at 8:30 a.m., and it was noon before we got out.

Later when we returned to L&D, many people sympathized with us when they found out who our lecturer was, especially having to put up with him for nearly 4 hrs. "So that's where he was all morning," one resident mused. "That means he'll be tired of talking." LOL. I got to work with a midwife named KD and she told me to do an H&P on a patient who had zero prenatal care and was 40 weeks along. I interviewed her only to have Dr. B take my H&P again, but KD called him on it, thank goodness. Then another woman in labor rolled in, so I was allowed to deliver her baby (yay!) This woman took a long time to push the baby out. The first time I delivered a baby, it slid out on its own, but this one I literally had to yank out. And out it came...followed by a bunch of greenish meconium. I got to clamp the cord before pulling on the umbilical cord to remove the placenta. Normally this doesn't bother me, but this time the smell of the meconium got to me and I had to tell myself to breathe normally and not pass out. Fortunately the placenta was out in 6-7 min and I was allowed to leave to write my note.

In the middle of my note writing, Dr. K sat down and told me how he thought I was doing on my rotation so far. For the most part he had positive things to say except that I was too timid and should work on building my confidence. I'm just glad he doesn't think I'm a total idiot. Things slowed down after that, so Anita and I ended up passing time by going through Internal Medicine questions with Dr. B, and at 6, when Dr. P said we didn't have to stay for check-out, we were all happy to leave. Happy Friday!