A physician broke down walls, or so she thought

I woke up at 6 a.m. to my daughter’s annoyingly, loud alarm. Since I was on call, my first reflex was to look at my iPad to see if I had patients in labor. I am part of an 11 doctor call group, so when I am on call, I cover all the patients of those doctors that come into the hospital. I scrolled through the patient list and saw three on “the board,” listing the laboring patients in our group. It looked like I didn’t need to rush in, so I hung out with my two high schoolers until they left, put on my scrubs and left the house with coffee in hand as well as everything I would need to stay at the hospital for 24 hours. As I drove to the hospital, I called labor and delivery to talk over each patient with the resident who was managing them. There was a preterm patient with concern for the baby — the baby had been monitored all night, and the baby’s heartbeat looked worrisome indicating delivery needed to happen soon despite being premature. There was a patient in early labor, her first baby. And lastly, a patient that had come in at 2 a.m., refused an exam, so no one knew where she was in her labor. Apparently, she was a victim of sexual abuse as a child. The relationship with the father of the baby was good, and he was present in the room. If an exam was traumatic, how could she possibly go through labor and push out a baby? I questioned the resident about whether an elective C-section had been discussed with this patient and her primary OB in the office. Contin...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician OB/GYN Source Type: blogs