Opinions on OB/Peds rotation???

Music in My Heart · Oct 23, 2009

Yep, Rednights.

The guys were totally unwelcome and ostracized during our L&D rotation.

No great loss, IMO.

RadfordSN · Oct 23, 2009

I loved OB and hope to be doing my practicum in that area.

I'm in peds right now, and absolutely hating it. I'm not sure what it is though. The lectures are boring, the professors talk to us like grade school children, and the clinicals are ridiculous. We're basically babysitting. I only get 3 days in an actual pediatric unit this semester; one more day left there and all I've done is vitals and given one med.

Mother/Baby care is my favorite.

TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP · Oct 24, 2009

OB and guys don't mix very well. If you're a guy, good luck to you and tough it out. When I mean tough it out .. I mean be ready to sit there and do nothing after you're done taking care of your baby(ies) for the day. L&D days were my saving grace from absolute boredom. The content is what you would expect, though I did find it relevant and useful.
If you're a girl. Have fun?
Peds is cool, though kids I were assigned usually weren't as sick as you would imagine by reading the charts. That was a pretty easy clinical in that regard.

I've been doing some research - just literature searches for now - on men in nursing school to prep for my thesis. (It's part of the fun of being in a Master's Entry program.) The literature agrees with the overall consensus of the male students on this board - namely, that how well the OB rotation goes for guys is dependent upon the attitudes held by the patients, floor staff, clinical instructor, and the male students themselves on having male students on the OB floor. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for more than one of those views to be negative, and the only one you can control as a student is your own. At least go into it with an open mind; the worst that'll happen is that your spirit will be crushed by everyone else around you. :-D

That said, I've not hit my OB rotation yet. My school splits Psych and Rehab, 5 weeks each (out of 10wk quarters), and then after critical care splits OB/Maternity and Peds for 5wks each.

shrimpchips, LPN · Oct 27, 2009

OB was boring for me. And staring at a woman's lady parts waiting for a baby to be born just really isn't my cup of tea to be honest.

I had the opportunity to go to the OR and see a c-section which was kind of cool. In L&D, you're pretty much playing "the waiting game". You'll do a lot of fetal monitoring with your RN (which also helped me study for tests lol) and obviously trying to make mom as comfortable as possible. The only meds I administered in L&D were IVP promethazine and morphine, both in the same day. It really depends on your nurse (and the patient) regarding meds and other procedures...one of my patients had to be straight cathed a couple of times but she wouldn't let me do it, only the RN.

Postpartum was slightly better because there was more to do (we had to do assessments both on mom & baby Q4H, so 3x/clinical day) and we had the opportunity to do patient teaching and discharge teaching which apparently doesn't happen very often in my program. But other days there is NOTHING to do other than to assess assess assess...you'll have multigravidas on the unit who don't any teaching so it's more like a "been there, done that" kind of thing...I gave more meds in postpartum than L&D but they're all PRN and it really depends on mom's preference. Other things you do also depends on the patient's preference...for example, one patient wouldn't let me assess her fundus...she just told me "normally the RN does that. I would feel much better if she did that instead of you." Eventually I gained her trust and she let me assess her fundus and also let me remove her staples (she was a C-section patient)...but yeah, that's pretty much it. Oh, and you get to play with babies which is always fun...that was probably the thing that I enjoyed the most during this rotation lol

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Oct 28, 2009

OB was boring for me. And staring at a woman's lady parts waiting for a baby to be born just really isn't my cup of tea to be honest.
I had the opportunity to go to the OR and see a c-section which was kind of cool. In L&D, you're pretty much playing "the waiting game". You'll do a lot of fetal monitoring with your RN (which also helped me study for tests lol) and obviously trying to make mom as comfortable as possible. The only meds I administered in L&D were IVP promethazine and morphine, both in the same day. It really depends on your nurse (and the patient) regarding meds and other procedures...one of my patients had to be straight cathed a couple of times but she wouldn't let me do it, only the RN.
Postpartum was slightly better because there was more to do (we had to do assessments both on mom & baby Q4H, so 3x/clinical day) and we had the opportunity to do patient teaching and discharge teaching which apparently doesn't happen very often in my program. But other days there is NOTHING to do other than to assess assess assess...you'll have multigravidas on the unit who don't any teaching so it's more like a "been there, done that" kind of thing...I gave more meds in postpartum than L&D but they're all PRN and it really depends on mom's preference. Other things you do also depends on the patient's preference...for example, one patient wouldn't let me assess her fundus...she just told me "normally the RN does that. I would feel much better if she did that instead of you." Eventually I gained her trust and she let me assess her fundus and also let me remove her staples (she was a C-section patient)...but yeah, that's pretty much it. Oh, and you get to play with babies which is always fun...that was probably the thing that I enjoyed the most during this rotation lol

Thanks for sharing your experience! I have a question though.....as a nursing student do you have to assist with circumcisions? I'm extremely against this procedure and I'm wondering about this. This is one of the few reasons I'm going to hate maternity next semester. I refuse to assist if it's the case, I'm just wondering if it's part of the typical nursing student duty for maternity.

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Oct 28, 2009

One of my patients got a circ and I did assist but I volunteered. I wanted to see how it was done and the doc was very nice and talked me through everything and answered all my questions and then she instructed me on what to do to help her. Im not against circs but she said if I was uncomfortable with it I didnt have to participate ( that and my teacher is Vehemently against them so she would have been ok with it too )

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Oct 28, 2009

One of my patients got a circ and I did assist but I volunteered. I wanted to see how it was done and the doc was very nice and talked me through everything and answered all my questions and then she instructed me on what to do to help her. Im not against circs but she said if I was uncomfortable with it I didnt have to participate ( that and my teacher is Vehemently against them so she would have been ok with it too )

Thank you for sharing your experience. I sure hope I have an instructor that's also against it, that way I know I won't have an issue when I refuse to watch. I'm just afraid of getting into trouble because I won't.

bluehippo · Oct 28, 2009

In maternity, which was 8 weeks, I was lucky enough to have something to do for most of the day. Other students weren't as lucky and were waiting around the nurse station. It was nice to work with people who weren't too sick for the most part. Also, the nurses in maternity were awesome, helpful, friendly, and great teachers. There was a lot less negativity towards students as compared with other clinical rotations. I have a lot of strong feelings regarding patient care on labor/delivery and postpartum, which I know are supposed to be left at the door. That made the rotation challenging for me. Experiencing clinicals on those floors was interesting, sad, and made me realize that I do not want to work there.

The care plan actually seemed harder in maternity because it was more foreign. More students seemed to have trouble with the tests in maternity as compared with other classes.

I just started pediatrics which is 9 weeks. It's heart-breaking what I've seen already on the pediatric cardiac floor. I'm not looking forward to the clilnicals. The nurses seem to be mostly friendly and willing to teach. I looked over the care plan assignment for pediatrics and it doesn't look easier than the previous medical-surgical NCPs.

Good luck to you.