Ob-Gyn Week 1 - Clinic Week and Physical Exams

We spend one week in the clinic at our hospital during the Ob-Gyn rotation. I was glad I had this week first. It would allow me to ease into my first clinical rotation. During our first 2 years of medical school, we learned how to obtain a full history and perform a full physical exam on our patients in our doctoring course. If anyone disliked this course during the first 2 years, I am sure that they quickly gained a whole lot of appreciation for the doctoring course.

I worked with an intern during my first morning in clinic. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Interns are closest to being a medical student, and mine remembered her first day "on the wards" very well! This meant that she did a great job of easing me into this rotation. We went over some of the specific questions to ask when obtaining histories from a pregnant lady. This was good as we had not previously learned this.

We had also learned how to do breast and pelvic exams in doctoring. I am really glad we got a refresher during our first evening as it made me a little bit more comfortable doing them. We are trained using standardized patients. These are people who get paid to act as patients, and we get to practice performing exams on them. A (fantastic) nurse practitioner guided us through the steps and the standardized patient was an excellent teacher too. By coincidence, my standardized patient was the same one I had trained with about 6 months ago, and we both recognized each other and gave each other a courteous shake of the head to acknowledge that we both remembered each other. I didn't expect to have the same patient - at all.

During the clinic week, I got to perform a lot of physical exams, and each and every single time, I was extremely careful to be very professional while doing the exams. This both helped calm my nerves and calm the patient as well. Most patients were ok with having me as the medical student perform the exam under the guidance of the nurse practitioner. A few were uncomfortable and I happily agreed to their request of letting the nurse practitioner perform the exam. As a male medical student, I can see why some females would be uncomfortable in letting me perform a pelvic exam. I am very grateful to those patients that let me perform the exams. They have been a part of some of my most nervous moments in my medical education.