[update] Birth week completed. Conference essay review correction

I had my birth week last week. Although there was excitement when the baby finally popped out all those times, there was also a lot of waiting. Apparently it was a quiet week. I once had one full morning shift when I did not witness a single birth!

We are expected to get at least seven births signed off, although they can include caesareans. I already had two births signed off from elective caesareans before the birth week and had the rest of the seven signed off during birth week. Since it was quiet, I was just relieved at the end of the week that I had all my required births signed off.


It seems like the faculty realized their error in the 500 word word count for the conference review essay. Now they are accepting 300 to 500 words. I had already written my 500 word version though with many unnecessary words with long-winded sentences, so hopefully two people can have fun reading it.

[update] Student conference essay review time. Birth week next week.

As part of our pass/fail assessment for the student conference, we were required to do two critiques of MD2 essays. This year, for some reason it was decided that we were supposed to do 500 word critiques instead of 300 words like last year! I mean, personally I thought 300 words was sufficient enough, but someone decided that that wasn't enough.

Well, honestly I don't think most of us would be giving that much more information with our 60% longer essays that we had to write for critique this year. Naturally, it goes something like this:

Needless to say, after an initial essay which was around 300 words (last year's word count), I proceeded to add many needless words. Some of the sentence constructs I used must have made me sound like I was a completely different person!


Anyway, regarding my current women's health rotation, my week at the birthing center is next week. Should be something different from what I've been seeing so far.

[update] Halfway through women's rotation

I'm about halfway through women's rotation now. So far, it is probably one of the best I have had this year, if not the best rotation.

This rotation is about obstetrics (birth giving) and gynecology (more about the pathological things to do with the gynecological system). Right now, I enjoy the obstetrics part of it more, although the gynecology part is still OK. It is really amazing when you find the fetus's pulse with the doppler ultrasound probe, or visualize the fetus using the ultrasound imaging!

We also had the opportunity to scrub up into theater at times, for gynecological or caesarean operations. I got to see the surgeon do a hysterectomy and then follow the specimen straight to pathology and watch as it was cut up and analyzed right there. It is a lot more interesting when you can relate the pathological specimen and slides under the microscope to the patient whom it was taken from.

The caesarean sections were also very interesting, with the incisions and closing up, together with the birth of the baby. It is quite an interesting feeling to see the obstetricians make an incision in the uterus and break the membranes, knowing that the fetus is right there inside.

Apart from caesareans though, I haven't had my birth week yet, so I haven't seen the natural births. That should come later.