Erin's Bio

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The last six weeks of my life have bordered on the unbearable at times. I'm referring to my obstetrics and gynecology rotation, which I knew would be difficult but went into with the best of intentions. Never have I been so deflated so quickly. Not so much by what I do. That is the part that excites and invigorates me. The atmosphere in which I have to work, however, is the most unappealing of any rotation that I have experienced. An aura of unhappiness is the best way to describe it, coupled with an impossible schedule for residents, which causes them great frustration that ultimately flows downward to us. Gynecology I can live with or without. Obstetrics is fascinating, for only there can you witness the beginning of life and lay hands on a new human being for the first time. But you can also see the end as well.

I met Angela during the first week of my rotation and chose her as my patient to follow. This was a young woman, barely past her own childhood at 20, carrying her first baby and 24 weeks along. She had finally convinced her OB to refer when she ruptured at 22 weeks. That meant bedrest, loneliness, and stress. I didn't feel like I was helping by waking her at 5:30 every morning to poke at her belly and inspect her fluid leakage, but we managed to get to know one another over a couple of weeks. She was convinced that the baby was a boy, though he refused to show himself on ultrasound. She was convinced that he would be healthy and that he would be her first and last child. No more. She was 26 weeks along when I walked in one morning and saw the haggard faces of the night call team. Bits and pieces of information floated around..."six fetal deaths overnight"..."that PPROM in room 14"..."never want another night like that one again..."

One of those fetal deaths was hers. Her baby slipped out at 11PM and lived for about 4 hours after that. Pulmonary hypoplasia from the lack of amniotic fluid. She asked if I knew that he had been a boy, just as she said. She named him Seth, and said that he was beautiful. She asked what I would name my baby and told me not to cry, even though I already had started to. She went home immediately so that she wouldn't be surrounded by the sounds of labor and crying babies. I still think about her.

Not long after that Gillian arrived on the floor with her mother, 38 weeks and feeling uncomfortable. Just uncomfortable, with her back hurting. She was already dilated when we checked her, so she was sent to walk for a couple of hours. And of course, contractions started! Her husband was 7 hours away, but her mother stayed with her as she progressed through an easy labor. An easy labor and an easy patient that I bonded with immediately. My resident offered to let me "catch" this baby, a thrill that I had experienced just once before and was anxious to experience again. Gillian delivered, with my nervous help, a healthy baby boy late that night, bringing me nearly to tears. Of joy! Holding that baby in my hands for the first time was a wonder in itself. She named him Aaron, a name which she and her husband had already chosen. She laughed over the fact that "Erin delivered Aaron" and took that perfect little boy home a day or so later. I still think about her as well.

Through all of the verbal abuse and disinterest on the part of residents that I have experienced, those are the things that matter and the things that make me want to go on. The joy and the sadness of medicine are both evident in this field of medicine, one that I could almost commit myself to if it weren't for the malignancy so prominent in this program. I'll be happy to leave it next week and move on, but the memories of Seth and Aaron will be with me for the duration of my medical career.

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