I have vanished into the depths of the hospital…into the world of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Over the past month I have been dealing with a pretty tough rotation (at least for me), and one that is rigorous academically as well. A couple of days ago, I completed the “shelf exam” for this part of medicine, and only now I am getting myself together to write a series of posts about it. Certainly, this is no excuse for not posting as I went along, but in retrospect, it seems the time was always slipping through my fingers. Of course, this is an experience common to medical students, interns, and residents everywhere, but perhaps I felt is so much more acutely because of my previous experiences in health care that allowed me to feel more at ease during my other rotations.

Unbelievably, I am at the mid-point of my third year of medical school. The middle of my “grand overview” of clinical medicine that I am supposed to take as an American medical student, and even more unbelievable to me is the fact that I do seem changed in many ways. Despite my previous experiences in medicine as a provider, I am being hammered and wrought into a new role. This is both good and bad. I will write more about this later.

However, I feel I have to set the stage for the next few posts. Labor & Delivery, the “Labor Deck”, or whatever you choose to call it by is a singular entity within the hospital, an area where the Ob’s and the Midwives plied their trade and all others (with the exception of an occasional Pediatrician) are loath to tread. I was one of those before. Now I am not. It is hard to explain why it was so intimidating to outsiders. Is the fear of the ultimate of disasters, the loss of an infant or a young woman in the beginning of her life as a mother? Is it fear of being displaced from our role as the “captain of the patient’s ship” to what is in many ways a passive observer of a normal biological process women have been enduring since the dawn of the species? I do not have an answer, but I do know that the feeling exists. Over the next few posts I want to try and describe this world, and to do justice to the intellect, the caring, and the courage I saw there every hour.