Of the two rotations I’ve completed this rotation was the one where I was the most apprehensive about starting, and this was because I’m a male student, and it hasn’t been uncommon for patients to ask me to step out during physical exams because I’m a student. To my surprise, many patients were welcoming of me during their gynecological exam.

The experience I got from this rotation was incredible I got to deal with a wide variety of different populations and prior to this didn’t truly grasp the complexity of OBGYN dealing with patients who still haven’t started menarche, patients who are pregnant, and post-menopausal patients and how you to treat each patient differently, for example, patients who are post-menopausal and still have bleeding they need an extensive work-up to rule out endometrial cancer. Patients who haven’t begun menarche need a full workup for PCOS.

The rotation was also emotionally challenging as I dealt with patient who had molar pregnancy, and how devasting it can be to lose a child, and this experience taught me the importance of listening to patients and provide them care that is compassionate, and sympathetic while also delivering bad news as well, and the proper way of doing it. I learned that you want to start off with “You did nothing wrong, and nothing would’ve made a difference”, is a something I’ve heard providers say to patients who had miscarriages, as patients can at times blame themselves for what occurred.  

My favorite part about this rotation was when I was at clinic. I spent the entire day working with midwife, PA, and attending and saw how they handle patients. It also showed me how effective in treating patients is when it is a collaborative environment as midwife, PA, nurses, and attending worked together and consulted one another for the betterment of the patient. It was also during this time that I was able to perform pelvic and breast exams, and collect cultures for PAP, and STI testing.

My two biggest takeaways from this rotation are how a collaborative environment is important in delivering patient care, and how to handle delivering bad news. My last two rotations I didn’t deal with delivering bad news to patients or even saw clinicians do it, but I learned that it needs to come from a place of sympathy and to let the patient know it was never their fault.