Hi there! I am a currently a sophomore in high school. I am interested in OBGYN, and I’d like to learn more about this field.
1- I want to focus more on OB than GYN, is that possible?
2- How hard is it raising a family while becoming an OBGYN doc? I want to raise kids of my own (ik it’s early to think about this) but I want to have some flexibility and family time.
3-What are the hours like when being an OBGYN? Are you always on-call in the delivery room, or are you doing routine checkups of expectant mothers and working in the newborn department in the hospital?
4- How often do you have to perform surgery?
5- What is an OBGYN residency like? Are you always on call, or do you have family tim?
6- Is it possible to do OB with a minimal amount of surgery?
7- As a high school student, Is it possible to gain some experience/exposure in this field other than by volunteering at a hospital?
Answering any of these questions would be a big help 
Thank you so much!!
- Yes. Definitely - once you're done with residency that is.
- If you're in private practice, you can always limit the number of patients you have in your practice but fewer patients means less money. With regard to work life balance though: births do not follow a M-F 9-5 schedule with federal holidays. Some people don't care that much who delivers, some definitely want it to be someone from the practice group, and some will put a premium on having an OB who is there every step of the way.
- The one thing you won't be doing is working in the newborn department. That's a pediatrician's territory. The joke/truth about how someone who likes births decides between OB and peds is where do you look after the baby comes out? If you're paying attention to the kid, you want to be a pediatrician. The OB is going to be sewing up mom (and that's regardless of method of delivery). Everything else is going to vary by practice setup.
- As a resident, often when you're on your GYN surg blocks. As a full fledged OB - outside of c-sections I imagine never. National average for USA is 1/3 births by c-section.
- Depending on the residency and what year you are in, you are on call as often as every 2nd night or as little as every 4th or 5th night. FWIW, the 80hr work week limit was just removed. National average for OB/Gyn residents is 58hours/week. (https://www.aamc.org/cim/specialty/exploreoptions/list/us/336850/obstetrics_and_gynecology.html) I believe that is the average across all 4 years of residency.
- After residency, you can easily get away with no procedures besides c-sections. Depending on where you end up living it may be a necessity that you can perform your own c-sections but I can imagine a scenario where you could let other people operate on your patients; however, I don't know how many patients would choose a doctor with such a policy.
- I don't know if minors can become doulas but that would certainly get you a lot of experience with birthing mothers assuming you're in a place that has some sort of system set up to provide people with doulas. For example my school has offered doula certification for students and then the hospital will facilitate matching women and doulas together. (https://www.dona.org/become-a-doula/find-doula-training/) Are there birthing classes or other things in your community geared towards moms to be? Might be easier to be a volunteer at a lamaze class than shadow an OB in a hospital and at least you're getting some exposure to pregnant women.
Wrote half of this on my phone so sorry if there are typos
Also I’m not interested in OB/Gyn (in fact that was probably my least favorite rotation) so not exactly an expert on the subject by any means.
Consider becoming a certified nurse midwife. Sounds like a good fit. Look at Acnm.org or PM me.
Why are you concerned about the surgery part @R-Squared16 ?
@suzyQ7 I don’t want to be spending a lot of time doing surgery. I don’t mind it, it’s just that it’s not something I want to do very frequently.
@iwannabe_Brown wow thank you so much for the info! one question for you, if you can answer it: I’ve heard that if you practice this specialty in at/in a group practice, your hours and workload would be easier/more flexible. Is this true?
Not IWBB, but the answer to your question is yes, if you are a member of a group practice then there is more flexibility in work hours and how often you take call.
But the terms of employment contract will spell out exactly what your work hours will be and how often you take night call.
And it will make a difference how large or small the practice group that you join is. And whether it is physician-owned practice group or corporate-owned practice group. You’ll have flexibility in contract negotiations with a physician-owned practice–assuming those still even exist 15 years from now. Corporate-owned practices tend to be more “take it or leave it” when it comes to negotiating contracts.
The spouse of my husband’s work colleague joined a small physician owned group practice. There were 4 women physicians in the group. Since they were all either pregnant or had small children, each only worked half time – each worked either 8 am to 1 pm or 12 to 5 pm 5 days/week for office hours and each took call every 4th night. Each took weekend call once a month.
Obviously if you have other people in your practice they can cover for you, but like I said before: Many people do not like the idea of doing all their pre-natal care with one OB only to have an OB they’ve never met come do the delivery. There are also obviously many people who don’t care and figure if they like you, they’ll be fine with anyone you work with, and of course there are also many people who can’t afford to be that picky (e.g. if you’re on medicaid).
D2 has told me that the trend for large groups (esp at academic or major community hospitals) is to have a designated “labor intensivist”. Much like a hospitalist, a laborist works specific shifts doing only L&D, has no office hours (and thus doesn’t do pre-natal/post-natal care) and does not take call.
Interesting setup. Seems weird to go into OB and either never do births (but do lots of pre/post natal) or only do births (and never do pre/post natal)