OB nursing is not my thing

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So many girls are so into this rotation and I have NO interest in it. On our floor all we do is stand around. We do our morning assessments, vitals. Same thing at noon and 4. We're there 7-7. I practically BEG nurses for stuff to do or watch. The exciting part of yesterday was giving one IM injection and a tiny bit of teaching. The nurses are sitting in their break area half the day, complaining about how long their day is.

You'll find our clinical group half the time in the nursery playing with babies. It's ridiculous. I need something fast paced, I dread going to this clinical each week. Maybe some other OB floors are exciting but this one, even with 20 or so patients on it, is not my thing. I miss med surg. I miss my geriatric patients.

Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.
Jolie, I would love to do those things and Id love to get more out of this rotation. Unfortunately, there are 8 girls, around 6-8 nurses, 2 of whom do not want students. And.. can I walk into any room I please and start teaching about car seats? Nope. Can I just go administering meds to whom I please? Again no (thank god..). My instructor disappears, gabbing with every doctor or nurse she can find. And we are left standing in the hall trying to figure out where she is.

We ask other nurses if there's anything we can do and we get "nope, i dont think so." (And yes, I've done this many times). I think I learned more standing in the nursery and just talking to the nurse in there. I was in no way trying to say I'm "all knowing", I'm saying that there seems to be little opportunity for the students and I am not getting a good impression of this unit.

I was not making a generalized statement about OB nursing, if that is how you took it.

I admit I tend to have a bit of a "knee jerk" reaction when I hear that OB education is (fill in the blank...) easy, boring, unnecessary, fluff...

Usually when students complain of any rotation as being easy, boring or unnecessary it is because they (and/or their instructors) are falling down on the job.

I have a passion about maternal-child health and teaching, and had the wonderful opportunity of precepting LPN and junior and senior-level RN students on our mother baby unit and in our NICU. Knowing the possibilities that exist in maternal-child health education, it makes me nuts when students and instructors alike fail to take advantage of those opportunities.

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Well, I think we should all be permitted a rotation that we just don't like or get into much without feeling like crud. For me, I suspect that will be peds or OB. Honestly, I'll probably go through the motions, do what I have to do, and then move on.

I agree, I wish I could get more than I am out of this rotation but it's kind of hard when the instructor and nurses aren't giving us the opportunities. I've searched them out and although a lot of nurses like to give us information, when it comes to going into a room with them, things change. This was just a vent post, plenty of others do it, figured I could too without being criticized for it :-/ All nursing students will have bad days, not so good rotations, and this site is for support as far as I'm concerned.

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I admit I tend to have a bit of a "knee jerk" reaction when I hear that OB education is (fill in the blank...) easy, boring, unnecessary, fluff...

Usually when students complain of any rotation as being easy, boring or unnecessary it is because they (and/or their instructors) are falling down on the job.

I have a passion about maternal-child health and teaching, and had the wonderful opportunity of precepting LPN and junior and senior-level RN students on our mother baby unit and in our NICU. Knowing the possibilities that exist in maternal-child health education, it makes me nuts when students and instructors alike fail to take advantage of those opportunities.

Understandable. I get annoyed with I hear girls who don't like med-surg because of "everything theyre expected to do." It really makes me sad when I hear girls say "Wow OB would be good for me because there's a lot of downtime." Theyre getting the wrong impressions (As am I, I'm hoping it's not normally like this...) I just feel like we're being extremely limited in this rotation.

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.
I have no problem with the academic part of the OB education. Of course we should have a pretty good idea of how to respond to a patient's needs regardless of age, but unless you are working in OB, you are unlikely to run into many of the problems you listed on a once-a week rotation, and things like DVTs and infection are likely to also be seen in med-surg.

I favor studying OB, but allowing students the option (when possible) of choosing a rotation that is more relevant to the areas they want to work in. For example, we only get one DAY in ER, oncology, surgery, etc. I would have rather spent more time in those areas.

I understand we have different perspectives on the subject, but by your own argument, anything you see in ER, oncology or surgery can also be seen on med-surg, so why not just skip those rotations altogether?

Without a good foundation in OB, which includes classroom and clinical education, how will you be prepared to care for a pregnant trauma patient, a pregnant cancer patient, or a pregnant woman undergoing surgery?

Nursing includes both classroom and clinical education for a very important reason. When you took driver's ed, did you rely on the book alone to teach you how to drive on a highway?

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Specializes in DOU.
I understand we have different perspectives on the subject, but by your own argument, anything you see in ER, oncology or surgery can also be seen on med-surg, so why not just skip those rotations altogether?

I understand your point. Honestly, I think a lot of this will come down to on-the-job experience. My experiences in OB were run-of-the-mill deliveries, and as such, I would be unprepared to deal with any OB emergency, despite having done this rotation. But I see your point.

I would still have rathered a different rotation, though. :)

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The only part of OB i enjoyed was doing assessment on the babies. the parents (should i say, just mother most of the time) really didn't interest me. i guess it always depends on the patients. a lot of them had a lot of psychosocial issues that we really weren't really there to address. Pediatrics was depressing. if there was a shortage of patients, we would volunteer to go to ER and help down there. which was cool.

We always had something to do in OB. start your care plan, med cards, concept maps, etc, etc. i got creative with my free time. pay your dues and pass the course. good luck!

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The only part of OB i enjoyed was doing assessment on the babies. the parents (should i say, just mother most of the time) really didn't interest me. i guess it always depends on the patients. a lot of them had a lot of psychosocial issues that we really weren't really there to address. Pediatrics was depressing. if there was a shortage of patients, we would volunteer to go to ER and help down there. which was cool.

We always had something to do in OB. start your care plan, med cards, concept maps, etc, etc. i got creative with my free time. pay your dues and pass the course. good luck!

we're there for 12 hours. you can only get creative with your time for so long. in my 12 hours there, i completed the mother assessment (3 times), newborn assessment (3 times), studying for monday's exam, care plans, worked on a presentation project on FAS, etc. I would work on paperwork for awhile, go wander to try to find someone who wanted my help, would fail at that, go work on paperwork some more, or just go to the nursery.

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we're there for 12 hours. you can only get creative with your time for so long. in my 12 hours there, i completed the mother assessment (3 times), newborn assessment (3 times), studying for monday's exam, care plans, worked on a presentation project on FAS, etc. I would work on paperwork for awhile, go wander to try to find someone who wanted my help, would fail at that, go work on paperwork some more, or just go to the nursery.

thats crappy. i dont feel like rereading the thread, have you personally told your instructor this? when we were bored on peds. we told the instructor once. we never did again. she brought case studies, logbooks, questionaires about how time is spent on the unit aka busy writing work that had to be handed in at the end of the clinical. we were like, "be careful what you wish for..." good luck.

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

I would still have rathered a different rotation, though. :)

Much as I would have like to have skipped anything to do with patients over 2 years or 25 lbs., whichever came first.:)

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Specializes in med/surg, ER.

The night before I started my OB rotation, I cried my eyes out and told my husband I didn't want to do it. He told me to remember I couldn't finish NS without it and if I really wanted to be a nurse, I'd do it (he knows me VERY well). I sucked it up and did it. I have some very personal reasons for not wanting to do OB or Peds and I need to save that part of myself. OB (for me) was okay and Peds seemed like the parents did all the care (I did do a lot of teaching). Med/Surg is my favorite. Today, in the ED though, I was thankful to have had the Peds experience. You never know when you might need it!

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Specializes in SICU/CVICU.

I just finished my OB rotation on Friday. I hated it! I am never looking back!

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