What is the freaking deal with OB?

RorySeiter · May 7, 2015

I am headed to my first OB clinical rotation in a few hours. I will let you know if the desire is there.

MinneNurse, BSN, RN · May 7, 2015

My best advice is don't rule anything out and say you'd never want to do it if you haven't done yet, and don't expect to love anything you haven't done yet. Nursing is an amazing world of unexpectedness.

labordude, BSN, RN · May 8, 2015

Mavrick, I was also thinking the OTHER side of the "I wanna go into ___" is ED/ICU. Seems like every male student wants to be a Trauma King, as well as enough of the women to make me realize L&D/OB has a run for it's money when it comes to "Most Popular Among Students"!
Definitely an upsurge since the popularity of television shows spotlighting the glamorous, sexy lives of Critical Care Gods

I have never had any desire to be near trauma. That being said, I very much enjoy the critical aspects of L&D and NICU. I may be in school to be a CNM, but I will always want to work with higher-risk cases and MFM patients. I find my adrenaline rush anywhere I go, though lately that stupid black cloud has been following me.

cellogirl22 · May 8, 2015

I think at my school we had 2 semesters of just adult clinicals in a row, so people were excited to try something new with L&D. Our L&D professors were really good too and had a lot of presence in the school. We also had a program called Birth Companions, which trained students to be doulas (develop birth plan with mom, attend birth, help with breastfeeding, meet postpartum). The Birth Companion program was free for the moms (often refugee, economically disadvantaged, etc) and paid the students work study. So I think OB was a big part of my program, and it got a lot of people thinking about L&D.

Personally, I didn't think I would like it. I came from an instrumental music education degree as my first bachelors, so I always thought I would do peds. But in nursing school I fell in love with the NICU and that's where I am now :)

dcwang · May 8, 2015

@cellogirl22 good to see someone here who majored in music as first bachelors! My first degree was in music too.

MedChica · May 8, 2015

I have no idea. I wasn't picky but I developed the impression that I should be doing critical care to fast-track my career.

I couldn't handle OB, though.

When I did rotation, we had babies crying nonstop needing nonstop rocking thanks to drug addict mothers disappearing during their visit for a fix (baby was adopted), abrupted placentaes with the MD scooping out blood and showing it to me, "See? Wine colored!" (It was a teaching moment), emergency c-sections, fetal demise ... >sigh<... and everything else.>

Some people don't really consider these things when they talk about wanting to 'work with babies'. It's all sunshine and rainbows, filled with babies and 'baby nurses' who frolic up and down the halls with stars and Lucky Charms shooting out of their butts.

Whatever to ... all of that. 'Baby nurses' are fairly hardcore, in my opinion.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · May 8, 2015

Lol, I know what you mean. I expected more people to say peds but even some people I never would have figured would say L&D say L&D. I, from the start, said heck no to that. Then, I went through that rotation and was like, yeah, if I had to, I would but I'd much rather it be postpartum. Otherwise, no, still, just.....no. :no:

IHeartPeds87 · May 8, 2015

One of the reasons why I liked OB was that it was the only floor in the hospital where people left happy! Usually, people are in the hospital for something bad....with OB usually it is good news (I know that the OB floor has bad news as well but as a whole the OB floor, I would think, is a more upbeat atmosphere than say the ICU).

I thought I would love OB...I liked the baby part of it but the actual L&D? It was cool to see a birth but I wouldn't want to do it.

CamillusRN, BSN · May 8, 2015

Not me - not even a little bit. I still shudder when I think back to L&D clinicals. My ears still hurt from the screaming, my arm still hurts from the fingernails, and my brain still hurts from dealing with the confusion of why cocaine/meth/heroin/alcohol/tobacco addicts are willing to risk the lives and future development of their own children instead of trying to get clean for a few months. :banghead:

cellogirl22 · May 8, 2015

@cellogirl22 good to see someone here who majored in music as first bachelors! My first degree was in music too.

Awesome! What's your instrument? I'm a cellist.

Dranger · May 9, 2015

Because of idealism. L and D or M/B are generally filled with healthy people experiencing the best moments of their lives. The comorbidities are low, less stress, less leg work and less nasty (yes I realize labor can have fluids but not c-diff/gi bleed status). My gf works L/D and I envy her job sometimes. To make matters worse we get paid the same......( I work ICU).

Most don't realize they will be in the trenches in med/surg a year after they graduate.....lol

As an aside I realize labor land can be sad with fetal demise but in other areas of the hospital like the ICU we deal with death so much we sometimes run out of body bags or grab quick bites to eat between imminent codes. It wears on you after a while....

antowas, ADN, BSN, RN · May 9, 2015

Babies! Awe, their just so cute. Once people actually take their OB class they either change their mind or realize that's what they're made for. In my class most people changed their minds when they realized what they were getting into.