OBGYN Interest Group

I always knew I wanted to do something surgical; I love working with my hands. But general surgery lacked the patient contact and follow-up that I enjoyed. OB/GYN offered the best of both worlds. Initially, I had planned to do a fellowship in Gyn Oncology, but my interests changed to family planning during my second and third year of residency.

Everything! It’s a versatile job with a lot of variety. I get to do things in clinic, minimally invasive procedures/surgery and major abdominal operations. I even get to be a radiologist from time to time. Plus, I have innumerable opportunities to educate patients, students, residents and lay people regarding health and gender equity issues.

Pros: highly versatile, never boring, very rewarding patient interactions. Cons: stress and long hours (but I LIKE being at work, so it’s not so bad).

The best advice I ever got in medical school was: ‘Don’t take anyone else’s advice.’ In other words, everyone is unique and its best to follow your own instincts. That said, what I tell students considering a career in OB/GYN is only do it if you know that it is the only thing that will make you happy. If you can say to yourself: ‘I would be just as happy being an internist (or pediatrician, or anesthesiologist, etc.) as an OB/GYN’, be an internist. OB/GYN is truly a labor of love. If you don’t truly love the job, you will be miserable doing it. But the converse is also true: if you truly love being an OB/GYN, you would be miserable doing anything else.

It depends on the program you’re applying to and what the applicant pool is like year by year. Generally, we’re a moderately competitive specialty.

Talk to as many residents as you can. Go to conferences, no matter how small, and meet people from across the country. Do an externship! That is really the best way to find out what a program is like: go there and try it out for a couple weeks.

‘Good’ depends on what you want to do with your career. If you want to go out and do private practice, general OB/GYN, there are some excellent community based and small university programs where you can get great training. Residency has as much to do with what you put into it as what the program itself offers you. You can go to the ‘best residency program in the US’ and slack off for four years and learn nothing. Or, you could go to a community based program, work hard and come out as the best OB/GYN doctor you could possibly be. One little bit of advice along these lines: if you are considering doing a fellowship or having a career in academics, you should definitely go to a university based program, preferably one which has the fellowship you are interested in. It’s not that you couldn’t get into fellowship from a community program, but it would be much harder to do so since you won’t be as ‘plugged in.’

Find out what residents do after they graduate. How many go into fellowships? How many go into private practice? Ask about schedules and how they are made. Talk with residents about how they work together/support each other.

Oncology and reproductive endocrinology/infertility are very competitive. You will need to do research and make contacts within the subspecialty during residency if you want a decent shot at getting a position. Maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and family planning are a little less competitive, but it’s variable for all of the fellowship depending on the year you are applying. Some sites only take a fellows every other (or every third) year. Thus, some years there are a lot fewer available positions. Don’t let this discourage you, it’s always worth a shot and it’s not unheard of for people to apply more than once to get in.

Don’t worry – you will find a good job! Like all specialties, markets around big cities are more saturated and the jobs pay less and may not be quite as desirable as those available in less populated areas. Being mobile early in your career is very helpful. If you are bound to a single metropolitan area, finding the job you want may be very hard, or even impossible – but that’s not unique to OB/GYN. For example: if you want to be a minimally invasive GYN surgeon, doing no OB in a private practice setting in New York City, good luck- that job is taken and you can get in line with the 100 other people waiting for it to open up. If you want to be a minimally invasive GYN surgeon and don’t mind moving to Arkansas, Illinois (not Chicago), or Mississippi – you’ve got a good shot.

Probably a lot. We’ll be billing things differently, communicating with patients and other physicians differently, residency training will change, boarding of subspecialties may be different, who knows? I’m not particularly worried about it, though. If you wanted a job which was going to be ‘the same’ for your whole career, you should have become an accountant or something. The entire field of medicine is very dynamic, just get used to it, learn to expect change and go with the flow.

True. If once or twice a decade is ‘all the time.’ It also depends on what you do. If you work at a place like UM/JMH, you will be sued sometime. If you work in a low-risk, community hospital, you may never be sued, especially if you don’t do OB.

True, but there are ways to deal with that. You are waaaaay too early in your career to worry about this and it really shouldn’t impact your decision to pursue a specialty if it’s what you really want to do.

False. We have a great life! You just have to find a job which balances what you like to do at work with what you like to do at home. This is different for everyone and you’ll figure it out as you go along. Generally speaking: the more money you want to make, the less home life you will have.

True, but the stress is fun. As an OB/GYN you are very ‘tied’ to your patients: they really, really need you. Sometimes you are placed in situations where you have to do very aggressive interventions to save someone’s life; you will make A LOT of phone calls; your patients will be nervous, worried, tearful, etc. It’s all about how you handle it: I enjoy challenges. This is not a field for people who want a ‘cushy’ job.

False. Some OB/GYN’s are miserable, some OB/GYN’s are very happy. Again, this depends on your ability to balance your work and home life. OB/GYN presents a unique challenge because of the work environment and long hours, but there are just as many miserable general surgeons, anesthesiologists and internists as OB/GYN’s.