First day of work

I just finished my first day of work. I wouldn't exactly call it work, more like confused shadowing. I went in from 8am to about 230 pm. .

I was told to report to the labor room at 8 am. The physician who is in charge of the department told me she would meet me there, but she was not there. I started talking to the different interns and residents to figure out what in the world was going on. I had lots of questions. Rounds started at 930 am and lasted until about 11 am. We went to all the different rooms. There was a labour room, antenatal room, PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension) room, post-op room, postnatal room, and several eclampsia rooms on the obstetrics ward. There are about 5-10 beds in each room. The gyn ward I have yet to figure out. On rounds, I really could not understand what anyone was saying, even though they were speaking english. Fail. After rounds, I was still confused about what I was to do. I was not sure what I was allowed and not allowed to do, which made me really uncomfortable. Luckily there were a few interns around who were not doing anything who answered a lot of my questions. They said I could go read charts and examine patients, so I began doing that. All the charts were paper, which I rarely have seen at UF. During one 2 week geriatrics rotation in a nursing home at the beginning of 4th year, I had to read paper charts and it was a challenge. No one's handwriting is legible and I never knew where to look for the list of meds or surgical history, etc. So I got to experience that again. In India.

I found an interesting patient who was 17 weeks and had a hetertopic pregnancy (one baby in the tubes and one in the uterus). She had a ruptured ectopic (the one in the tube) at 6 weeks and an emergency cervical cerclage was placed because the cervix had funneled. Here she was 11 weeks later with her intrauterine pregnancy. This is pretty rare in the US, so I was excited to lay eyes on this. I also met a patient at 29 weeks with Lupus, gestational diabetes, antiphospholipid syndrome, evans syndrome, + hypertension whose AFI was at 4. This is low and usually we would deliver this patient in the US. I asked if she would be delivered and the intern said "No, she is not viable until 30 weeks." I was confused because we say 24 weeks is viable in the US. And then I remembered I was in India.

At about 1130, I decided I need a break. I went to find Ale in the ER and we went to lunch for dosas. She also agreed she was confused, but was definitely not as distraught since she said she expected it. It made me feel better and when I got back from lunch, I talked to a couple of the interns who weren't busy and they expalined a little bit how things work. Tomorrow they said I can follow them in outpatient ob. Even though I barely worked 8 hours, I'm pooped.