Michigan, Ascension Providence Hospital 

OBGYN CORE

Hello everyone!

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My name is Lana Hariri and I am a current 3rd year medical student at AUC. I was so graciously asked by Tayler to talk about my different experiences at Providence Hospital in Michigan. 

 

OBGYN in Michigan is 6 weeks is broken up in the following:

• 1 week L&D at Southfield

• 1 week GYN surgery in Southfield

• 1 week L&D at Novi

• 1 week GYN surgery at Novi

• 1 week night-shift on Labor and Delivery in Novi

• 1 week outpatient in Southfield 

 

OB - Southfield

• I usually arrived at 6am to be on the safe side, sign-outs/shift change is at 6:30am

  • They use a white-board system and write all the info on the patients there. So make sure to pay attention to who is close to delivering so that you can see a delivery 

• After that, you have a 1-hour 7a-8a “Morning Report” where residents go over topics in the conference room 

• DUTIES IN OB: 

  • When patients walk in, they are placed in 1 of the 4 Triage Rooms. The nurses will see them first, then come into the conference room and let residents/students know they are ready to be seen

  • Students usually go and see the patient and do the H&P on CPN  (see below for info on CPN) 

    • CPN is a system that we only have access to in the patient’s room 

    • It is unique to OB, won’t find it anywhere else

  • Type in the H&P and then present to your resident

    • I only did heart, lungs, and extremities 

    • In the last week of my rotation, one of the residents let me ultrasound to confirm that the baby was head-down. That was super cool and I highly recommend you ask your resident to let you do that because it will help them out a lot :) 

  • If you want to see a delivery, check the board to see who is close to delivering

    • You MUST introduce yourself to the patient before delivery and/or C-section, or else you will not be allowed to watch/scrub in. 

    • Just say, “HI my name is X, I’m with the OB team today. Just wanted to introduce myself in case you find me here in the delivery. Is there anything I can do for you right now?”

  • There can be lots of downtime in OB, so bring study material 

  • The residents don’t really tell you what they’re doing/going, so just be “alert”

 

C-Sections:

• You will probably scrub in for most C-sections

• Usually, the residents/interns close and do stuff, so just be prepared to watch and observe

• C-section ORs are on the L&D floor 

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General Things to Ask in OB: 

• When you start a note make sure it’s in this format:

  • 39 G2P1001 at 36 6/7 presents with sudden onset contractions… continue HPI....
    +FM
    +CTX
    +LOF
    -VB

• IMPORTANT NOTE INFO!

  • For an OB patient, you must, must, must ask the big 4:

    • Are you feeling baby move? (+/- FM) fetal movement

    • Are you having contractions? (+/- CTX) Contractions

    • Are you bleeding vaginally? (+/- VB) 

    • Any loss of fluid? (+/- LOF) 

  • Ask when last Ultrasound was 

  • GTPAL

    • I messed this up a few times in the beginning so here is a quick breakdown

    • Gravida - how many pregnancies total (full-term, miscarriages) 

    • Term - how many babies born full-term (37 weeks plus)

    • Preterm - how many babies born PREterm (Less than 37 weeks) 

    • Aborta - how many babies aborted/miscarried 

    • Living - how many living children

    • We had one lady who has been pregnant 7x, 2 kids, 4 abortions, and pregnant sooo

      • G7P2042

        • If 1 was full term and the other not full term - G7P1142

  • GYN History: 

    • Ask about STDs, abnormal pap smears

    • Hx of fibroids, cysts, polyps 

  • Pregnancy

    • Ask the patient very detailed questions about past pregnancies

    • Year baby was born (or miscarriage), how many weeks, vaginal, C-section, any complications?

      • For every pregnancy!!

    • Hx of PreE 

  • Fetal Heart Tracing (FHR)

    • This will be on your OB shelf! 

      • Know the acronym VEAL CHOP! Will help for Shelf

    • All the residents have the FHR on the computers. I was super lazy and did not really pay attention to it at all 

 

Quick Facts to know 

• VBAC = Vaginal birth after C-section

• TOLAC = Trial of Labor after C-Section

• Normal FHR: 110 - 160 bpm

• “D-Cell”: Deceleration in the baby’s heart rate

• “A-Cell” Acceleration in the baby’s heart rate 

• **I feel like OBGYN was a whole new language, so if there isn’t anything you understand/know/acronym, look it up :) ** 

OB - Novi:

• I arrived at 6:45am because signouts/shift change is at 7am

• Duties are the same but in Novi, patients don’t have specific triage rooms, they are just assigned a room. 

 

OB Night Shift at Novi:

• I arrived at 6:45pm because signouts/shift change is at 7pm 

• Nights aren’t bad as long as you schedule your sleep kind of well haa so this is my recommendation

  • Taking a nap Sunday before your shift will help WONDERS

  • After Sunday night (aka Monday morning), I would sleep from like 730-12 (unfortunately not too long because of the sun entering the window) so if you have an eye mask or shades that would be really good :) 

  • I wouldn’t get out of bed until I absolutely had to start getting ready to give my body some rest. 

 

GYN Novi + SF: 

• Duties are pretty much the same at each hospital. I would look at the cases in the AM but the residents would pick and choose which ones

• Sometimes I would be asked to round on patients post-op in the AM and write a note, but only a few times. By the time I got to the room to round, the intern was already there so it was kinda pointless.  

• Laparoscopic procedures are really cool. I really liked seeing the GYN procedures because when doing OBGYN questions, it helped knowing what they were talking about. 

• Beware

  • Vaginal Hysterectomies - they’re not really fun for students bc we just stand there and can’t see anything. There would be 3 people by the vagina operating and you can’t see anything :/ 

• Duties in OR:

  • Help residents break down the bed for D&Cs are stuff. (just take out the last 2 parts of the bed)

    • Put legs up on the sling thingy 

  • Take the bed out of the OR

  • Pull gloves, gown for you + resident

  • Write name on the board

 

Wednesday Didactics:

• 7a-1pm:

  • Each didactic day is different. Sometimes the residents present a topic, the attendings do, reps from tech companies come, etc. 

 

Outpatient:

• See patients in the clinic: wellness checks, pap smears, ultrasounds, etc. 

• Paired up with a resident 

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Hope you guys found this helpful! Feel free to reach out to me/Tayler for any questions regarding the rotation or anything else!

 

- Lana Hariri