How did it go? What have you learned? What can you improve? How do you plan to improve these new skills?

I’m grateful to have had this experience for my Ob/Gyn rotation. Prior to this, I considered Ob/Gyn to be one of my weakest areas; now that I’ve completed 5 weeks of long shifts in labor and delivery, gynecology, and women’s health clinic, I feel that my knowledge in this field is so much stronger. I was able to work with intelligent and patient providers who took time out to explain procedures and teach me concepts about patient care, obstetric management, and more. I feel much more comfortable performing pelvic exams now, although I could improve in my abilities with finding the cervix with a speculum, which will happen with practice. This will also improve with more knowledge; for example, I learned that women who have had multiple c-sections often have their cervix positioned more anteriorly. I also really appreciated my experience at QHC because I got to work with women majorly from minority backgrounds in a mostly underserved area.

 

What was a memorable patient or experience that I’ll carry with me?

During one of my overnight shifts on the Labor and Delivery floor, I introduced myself to a Middle Eastern patient who was expected to have a vaginal birth that night. She asked me what my ethnicity was and she was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was also of Middle Eastern descent. Every time I walked into the room the patient would warmly smile at me. Her labor ended up being longer and more difficult than expected, and I was by her side, holding her hand, encouraging her to push through most of the journey. Although I did not do much for her medically, she ended up thanking me along with the rest of the staff after her baby was delivered. This patient experience may not be considered “memorable” by others, but it stuck with me because it showed how important cultural diversity is in healthcare. It further emphasized that minority patients often appreciate having providers that “look” like them or have similar cultural backgrounds. I look forward to being that comforting presence to patients, in a culturally related way among others.

 

How could the knowledge I’ve gained here be applicable in other rotations/disciplines?

Although I do not see myself working in the Ob/Gyn specialty for now, I do plan to spend some of my PA career in the ED and/or urgent care setting. Therefore, I think that my training and experience gained at QHC in pelvic exams and managing Ob/Gyn complaints will help and be applicable to my time in an urgent care/ED. Another example of knowledge I’ve gained here that I’ll apply to other rotations and my future career is how to prepare when presenting a patient case. I learned that I should take time to organize my thoughts before presenting a case to another provider, despite how confident I feel in my knowledge about the case. I have noticed that when I do not take time to organize the history in a logical manner, important elements of my presentation may be disordered as I speak. I will take time during this next final rotation and as a new PA to write out and plan my patient presentations before speaking about them.

 

How was the way I did my work different from how other people did theirs?

Excluding one instance where I had to leave my shift early for a site evaluation, I always stayed at my clinical site for the entirety of every single shift or even later. Although this is the bare minimum and the expectation for my behavior during clinical rotations, I often saw other students skip days or leave many hours early when they knew the patient volume was “quiet/slow” and other students were around to cover the work. Even when I knew there was a great chance I would not be seeing a single patient for the entirety of a shift (which was often the case during my week on gynecology), I still stayed on site the whole time. Many mentors have said that your work as a student reflects how you will be as a provider after school. My values in integrity and honesty have remained high and constant throughout the clinical year and will follow in my PA career as well.