Won Over.

Obstetrics and Gynaecology (or O&G for short) has completely won me over. I knew it when I arrived an hour early at the hospital and milled around outside the Operating Theatre before I went in to assist in surgery, when I bought my textbooks and chewed on them like novels, and when I felt that warm, fuzzy feeling ooze inside of me like chocolate lava whenever I saw babies being delivered. I did my first 2 baby deliveries today (it’s a requirement for our training), under careful supervision of course, and that sealed it for me.

I love O&G, period. Excuse the pun.

There’s something about the gore, mess and chaotic-ness of O&G which I love- the screaming mothers in labour, the solemn and anxious fathers, the frantic nurses running about in the delivery suites, the bloodiness of labour, and the craziness of this all happening at once… which enthralls me so much.

During labour, there’s a lot of blood everywhere, spurting sometimes, and faecal matter, and pain (I love the smell of pain) and shouting and holding and squeezing, all in the anticipation of a new life being forced out of a tiny canal, that tiny channel in which an act took place, a sacred act of love and commitment and a joint hope for a future. There is the marvelling of the human body, of its ability to be pregnant with new life, of the beauty of how a joint union, sex, can bring about something so… so… tiny and precious and miraculous, so fearfully and wonderfully made by God. And as strange as it may sound, I never realised till today, till the moment I used my gloved and bloodied fingers to coax the baby’s head out of the mother, how amazing and beautiful and strong the Woman is, how incredibly mindblowing the whole reproductive idea of sex is, how gorgeous pregnancy is, and how amazing life simply is. (Yeah I know, wait till I have my own kid and wake up puking over the side of my bed.)

When the baby popped out, coughed and cried, I couldn’t place my finger on the feeling inside of me. I felt as if like the mother, I, too, at that point, had a million hormones going through myself- my maternal instincts, sense of amazement, joy, wonder and realisation that I had reached a milestone in my medical education kicked in and gushed all about in me. And when I put the clamp on the umbilical cord, cut it and pulled the placenta out, and assisted with the stitching, I suddenly realised I wasn’t a child anymore. I am a woman, capable of the same process and a doctor-to-be, equipped with practical skills to help somebody who needs them.

At that moment when the baby was in my arms, I suddenly felt… different.

Then there’s the surgery bit about O&G of course, which I love. Once, I had a doctor look at me quizzically when I said I loved surgery because he said, “You know, there’s something intrinsically aggressive about surgery which attracts so many men into it. Not a lot of women like surgery.” I must admit, there is something about the confrontational nature of surgery which attracts me so much, attracts that very intense part of me which is always seeking release and that adrenalin rush. In the Operating Theatre, the battle, no longer just in the mere form of scribbling a prescription, becomes all the more real, frank, all the more in-your-face. It’s just you, your hands and the tumor/lump/baby/organ. It’s different from fighting a battle by scribbling prescriptions. It’s your skill put out there on the line. Your hands. Your stitch. A good or bad surgeon will make all the difference. And while it will take another decade or so before I will ever have the chance to perform my own surgery unsupervised, the thought of it excites me tremendously.

And perhaps one of the best things I enjoy about Obstetrics and Gynaecology is how it encapsulates so many aspects of medicine- it involves surgery, internal medicine, ethics, counselling, psychiatry (think post-natal blues)… In short, it’s a good mix of hard and soft skills, a mix which none of the other specialties I’ve done so far could offer me.

Of course there is the dark side of having to come face to face with abortions, the tragedy of inevitable miscarriages, social issues, and the high rate of litigation. Also, the working hours show no respect for sleep. But that’s life, isn’t it? What, besides God, is perfect?

I love the lovely, tight-fisted nurses who chide you if they think you’re compromising the patients’ well-being, or who roar mercilessly at mothers who don’t push hard enough and risk compromising the fetus’ well-being, and the way they turn from lionesses to coo-ing mama birds who shower their patients and babies with lavish tenderness; I love the the efficient medical team bordering on obssessive-compulsiveness and how they’re such a balanced mix of scientist and artist, OCD and TLC, how the medical officers are so incredibly warm and friendly; I love the well-furnished hospital which has colourful happy cartoon characters all over the place and is but a half-hour journey away from home. I also love the way O&G is so educational for me since I am a prude about a lot of things- I found out about sex when I was twelve and even then, didn’t really believe it- I thought it was something about the blankets which made babies. And I love the way I feel so comfortable around women and children, and around the O&G surgeons, who, unlike other surgeons I’ve met, don’t have any lewd jokes to make.

And also, the fact that it’s so incredibly useful in medical missions.

O&G. It’s won me over.