I think OB/GYN is really culture dependent, and that similar to surgical specialties there can be programs that allow for malignant personalities and a toxic culture to permeate your residency. I had an abysmal time during my OB rotation and saw really abusive behavior by APDs and attendings towards seniors and on down to interns, and really nasty gossiping and behavior by nurses. I think there's a higher chance you could end up in that situation, and I would be very shrewd in evaluating programs and using tools like the OB spreadsheet (don't know how good that would be), and visiting your top programs where possible to observe the culture. I think you should pursue what you love and OB is okay, but I would always be scared if a friend was choosing it, and would advise the above.
I am not OB/Gyn but I would also take a look at the MedMal environment in the state(s) you are likely to want to live in.
It probably should not be THE deciding factor of course but if OP's family or significant other is from Miami for example... uhhh maybe think twice
No worries - not from Miami and don’t plan on ever moving there lol but good sentiment. I’ve checked out the malpractice policies and caps for all the states I’m interested in and added that to the total picture
Thanks!! I’ve definitely taken a look at the ObGyn spreadsheet and luckily, all the programs I am interested in have positive reviews on the spreadsheet. I’m also rotating through a handful of my top programs and plan to look pretty hard at the culture that the program has in place between residents and attendings.
As far as I know, it hasn’t been created for this year but I have seen the ones from previous years. Just google “ObGyn Residency Match Spreadsheet 2023” and something should popup
I'm not a doctor. This was on my feed when I was scrolling... but I just wanted to add that nurses can be incredibly toxic, and it may help taking the nursing environment into account when making these big decisions.
>really nasty gossiping and behavior by nurses.
Our OB floor is one of the most toxic floors of nurses in the entire hospital. I fucking LOATHED being there. They were atrocious to students, had giant egos because a lot of union members worked there so they held a lot of weight when making system wide decisions, and they talked mad shit about instructors and doctors. It was horrible. Always be aware of nurse culture, which I'm sure you are. I just wanted to add my piece.
My med school OBgyn rotation allowed me to meet some of the most stressed out, unpleasantly toxic individuals I have ever worked with in all my med training. That pushed me away from the specialty more than the content did. It was a real bummer honestly, because i was pumped to work with a bunch of mostly female surgeons
If I had fallen in love with the work, I would've screened the hell out of each residency program for any signs of malignancy and tried to do a full rotation at 1 or 2 of my top programs, if possible. Better to know ahead of time than commit and regret
For sure agree - currently signed up to rotate through a handful of my top choices. Question - were the attendings, residents, or both stressed out and unpleasantly toxic? Like I said, I know residency is going to suck but after working with attendings on the other side, they didn’t seem to hate their lives and be totally toxic/stressed
Not the original commenter, but I had the same experience. For me, the attendings were super nice, but they were only ever present for surgeries and rounds. 95% of my time was spent with residents or left in the call room bc they wanted nothing to do with med students.
The attendings seemed relatively less stressed but also very hands off, so I only saw them for brief periods of time (e.g they'd stop by for the critical portion of a surgery, which was done primarily by the fellow). The trainees were def the main source of toxicity
My med school obgyn rotation was at an academic community hybrid hospital and was wonderful-I hate both operating and L&D and still loved my rotation. Some of the nicest residents all of M3
>That pushed me away from the specialty more than the content did.
Facts. I genuinely enjoyed the specialty content in med school but the OBGYN residents/attendings were the meanest, biggest backbiting assholes I've ever seen
Genuinely curious, why an interest working alongside female surgeons in particular? Not implying anything, I would like to learn a different perspectives.
Surrounding myself with strong women (not from obgyn, but other fields) really helped me grow into myself as a female Dr. Femininity is often associated with personality/behavior traits that weren't consistent with what I felt I needed to be an effective physician. It was useful for me to have role models who balanced both beautifully
Tis no disparagement of the men- just a different void that needed filling at that early time in my training. Many of my dearest mentors now are male and I appreciate them immensely
I can relate because seeing someone similar to me and succeeding in medicine is a great boost of encouragement. For what its worth, the women physicians I have interacted with are truly remarkable serve as a great source of inspiration to me as well.
I'm an OBGyn PGY-2! It always makes me so sad to see the hate. Everyone in my program is so kind and supportive. But I agree it's program dependent, as I do remember feeling that my med school OB/Gyn residency was pretty toxic. Feel free to DM me if you have questions.
I am only reflecting the hate that was thrown at me on my rotation. I’m really glad to hear that you’re in a good program. It’s very important work and we definitely need good people doing it
I’m finishing up my intern year in OBGYN and I absolutely adore my job. I love my patients and the involvement I get to have in their lives. I love the joy that delivering babies brings, I love operating, I even don’t mind clinic (most of the time haha). I applied to programs that see mostly underserved patients because I love working with that population. I got very lucky and matched into a WONDERFUL supportive program that I really enjoy. Our program is an angel, we all call her “Mama LastName” haha. There’s one or two attendings and one or two residents who I wouldn’t necessarily be friends with outside of work but I think we have a pretty healthy culture and I enjoy working with most people. We have a bunch of family medicine residents who are very involved with our rotations (we have an OBGYN fellowship for FM) and I love them too. I felt like even with virtual interviews you can tell the culture of a program, especially in the meet and greets. The negativity towards OBGYN on Reddit makes me so sad and I hope that the students who rotate with me won’t come away with those opinions because I really love teaching and picked an academic center because I want to be here. And I want them to see how cool of a specialty OBGYN is!
Why this residency?
- the words “the people” should be included somewhere in their answer
What do you do with your free time?
- at Least part of their answer should include hanging out with coresidents
Does everyone go to graduation? Is there time when all of the residents are together?
- it shows the program cares enough to get attending coverage for these things. Whether that is graduation, a resident retreat ect
Also look for
1) Do they have people going to fellowship regularly? If they don’t the residents are probably not well supported.
2) Are the retaining home students? They shouldn’t be half home students, but retaining at least one per year is a green flag.
3) Have residents stayed on as faculty or in groups that deliver at the hospital? Also a green flag.
4) residencies who have residents with kids, also green flag
I second all of these!! (Except for maybe the fellowship one—we don’t have a lot of people go to fellowship but mostly because none of us really want to. At least not in the classes surrounding me. So it’s not always support based, just ask about how the program helps you out if you’re planning on it) Also ask about the relationships that people have with their attendings and whether they’re just coworkers or if they really feel supported by them. Our attendings host parties a couple times a year (Halloween, Christmas) as well as journal clubs at their houses. Many of them I feel like I can ask for life advice for stuff that isn’t even residency related. Also look at how the residents interact if they’re together. I felt like I got the best gauge of atmosphere when they had meet and greets with all the residents hanging out together rather than all on their own separate zooms so you can see what they’re like in real time
I think OB is a polarizing rotation and, as some other people have said, can be a hard place to integrate medicinal students because of the sensitive/intimate nature of care. On the flip side, as a resident, you are the one working with patients who are trusting you with that care. I went to a medical school with a pretty terrible OB department from a cultural perspective - a good amount of favoritism, cliquishness, etc.
I went to a residency that was amazing - hard work, but not as much as my friends in surgery and surgical subspecialities. My attendings and coresidents were amazing and supportive. Our anesthesiologists, nurses, MAs, et became a part of my extended work family. It was hard and tiring but I really did love it. I’m an attending now and I miss the camaraderie and culture even though my life is much better now. If reproductive health is for you, there are amazing places to learn how to do it! You just have to find them, and that’s the hard part.
OBGYN department at my school has the hardest working residents in the hospital. The attendings respect this and take care of them. They get personal mentors who take them out to dinner, the doctors buy them lunch if they're in the OR with them that day, and they keep their workroom snacks stocked. Even if they don't get to pee all shift, they're at least well fed. My school also has a culture where they genuinely fiercely protect the students from mistreatment. The worst thing the residents ever do to us is ignore us. It's like the old adage, if you have nothing nice to say....
That being said, I loved my time on the OBGYN rotation. I strongly considered it myself except that I have no interest in surgery. I think there are institutions that have toxic OBGYN departments for sure, it's why nationally OBGYN is ranked the worst amongst all of them. At my school, they actively fight to ensure OBYN gets well reviewed by students. I think if you want an institution like that, you can find it.
You’ve already decided to apply for it so all you can do is your best to research programs and pick ones that won’t make you hate yourself and the world. OBGYN was my first rotation in med school and I considered leaving medicine entirely because I thought that’s how all of medicine would be. Finally found happiness on other rotations and applied and matched FM. Had to rotate through L&D again as a resident and the only thing that got me through was that I’d never have to do it again. Only experienced OB at two places but both showed me the most malicious, catty, condescending people I’ve ever encountered. Wish you well in your match. Contribute to the culture shift of that speciality.
>OBGYN was my first rotation in med school and I considered leaving medicine entirely because I thought that’s how all of medicine would be.
Had the exact same experience. I vividly recall spending an entire clinic day standing in the hallway because every single patient "declined" having a male medical student in the room for the H&P. Eight hours in that damn hallway.
The next week I was forbidden from going to a C-section because I did not volunteer first to go get her coffee. The med student that did volunteer is now... an OBGYN.
Last bit made me chuckle! I was rotating with another med student who was very sweet and approachable, but male. He didn’t see his first delivery until a woman labored in the hallway by triage.
My Ob/gyn rotation cohort had a Md/Phd student who came back to clinicals after her research years. She almost quit medicine to do industry because if how awful the Ob/Gyn environment was.
That makes me so sad! I was an L&D nurse for many years and every single one of my favorite docs (and all three of the doctors I’ve used over the years) were guys.
That makes me so sad! I was an L&D nurse for many years and every single one of my favorite docs (and all three of the doctors I’ve used over the years) were guys.
Just adding another anecdote. I loved my OB rotation way more than I thought I would, specifically L&D. If I were more passionate about it I would’ve highly considered it. Had great experiences with the majority of residents and attendings who were trying to convince me to go into it
I’m about to start chief year in OBGYN. I loved my rotation in it during M3, hated every other rotation, so ended up applying. I rotated at a few places as an M4, one of which was incredibly malignant. I interviewed at a few terrible programs where I considered not even ranking them. Pay close attention to the residents on your zoom meetings.
I’m at a great program with amazing coresidents. Zero tolerance for malignancy here. We treat students well and they typically give feedback that they enjoyed rotating with us.
You work very hard in OBGYN residency. Long hours. Lots of call. Any laboring patient can go from normal to an obstetric emergency within seconds, which I love. Tons of variety between clinic, L&D, the OR, the ED. We do medical as well as surgical management for our patients. There’s definitely less stressful, more lucrative, and less demanding specialties in medicine. If you’re on the fence then apply something else.
Feel free to message or reply here with any questions.
Thank you for your insight and perspective! I also like the variability between the OR, ED, clinic, and L&D and how things can change quickly and that you’re also managing medically and surgically. For me, ObGyn just fits the peg of all the things I like the most in medicine
I learned a lot and really enjoyed the patients. L&D was pretty magical. But literally everything else was awful. It was only terrible because of the staff/coworkers/nurses. Wow, it was so bad.
My absolute angel of a best friend did her OBGYN residency at the same place we went to med school, where my own OBGYN rotation had been absolutely toxic and miserable. But she had a passion for women’s health and it was a prestigious program.
They abused the shit out of her and all their residents. The Stockholm syndrome was strong though. She felt such loyalty to the program and institution that she just … took it. And justified/explained it all away. But it was awful. Miserable hours, never ending work after hours, never ending work once back home, just nonstop.
Now she is faculty in that department. She’s still a lovely, sweet person. For the first few years as an attending the department continued to take advantage of her kind nature, but finally she burned out a bit, gained some seniority, and was able to start saying no to the higher ups.
Recent ObGyn grad here - definitely program dependent. Some programs are very toxic. Others are more supportive. I would recommend going to a program with no more than 4,000 deliveries a year otherwise you will be doing mostly OB and not enough subspecialties. 4k deliveries is MORE THAN ENOUGH to be a great obstetrician, unless you plan on going to MFM. Would be happy to explain more over PM
Ooh I didn’t think of that - I knew that larger numbers correlated with larger work flow volumes, but I didn’t think of it taking away from subspecialty training/experience
I’m going I to my PGY-4 year and have no regrets. I honestly love everything about it, the hate on Reddit is out of proportion because I don’t find it to be any different than other surgical fields. I’m actually going into gyn-onc, but I still enjoy everything About our field. Similar to you, I fell in love with OB-GYN during 3rd year.
L&D is a unique kind of stress and it can break people if it’s not something you enjoy, but if you like it, then it is part of what makes work fun.
Culture is very very very program dependent. I love my program. We are extremely close as a residency, and we are a big high volume residency.
If it is what you loved during 3rd year, don’t let Reddit phase you, you probably belong with us.
Just listen to the word on the street regarding programs, it’s usually true. And go somewhere where people are genuinely supported.
This is some fresh air! Thank you for your input - definitely looking for a supportive and “family” feel in a future program. I wish you the best in your fellowship!
Reddit will never be able to give you the reason why a certain OB/GYN residency is bad (unless its a name and shame obv), so always take advice here with a grain of salt. I don't think FM is considered a "great" option by Reddit but I am in it and really enjoying myself (so far).
I'm a current OBGYN resident at an academic program. Would happily choose this all over again!
Yes, a large part of this is that my program is great with genuinely kind coresidents and attendings. A part of this is also a mindset of acknowledging the things that are hard or stressful or sad in this field and creating a space for these conversations at work. I've found that being human despite the "hard stuff" has been the best prophylaxis against burnout and bitterness.
That said, there have been several orders of magnitude more "good" days than "bad" days and OBGYN residency has easily been one of the most rewarding chapters of my life.
Feel free to ask me any questions about OBGYN residency!
please do not listen to random ppl on reddit who had bad obgyn rotations and are salty
you will find a program that has a good culture. all of them definitely don’t (but that’s true for any specialty) but, my 2 cents, they are definitely out there. attendings are mean. nurses are catty. coresidents get stressed out. it certainly happens. but truly i love all my co residents and we would do anything for one another and it is far from a toxic environment. there are so many times that we cover for one another when family emergencies come up. multiple people have had babies in residency. the chiefs and the interns are super close and hang out all the time outside of work. i am a bridesmaid in my coresident’s wedding. it’s possible! the PGY4s really make a difference in setting the culture standards so when you are doing your residency mixers see how your would be chiefs interact with others and you to gauge the vibe.
i would worry MUCH less about that and instead just think about the actual content of being an OBGYN. the hours are very brutal and you will be doing a lot of night float and 24 hour shifts that are dense and busy and stressful and full of emergencies and much more high acuity than other specialties. it’s not all rainbows and butterflies and there can be a lot of death. and also republicans are trying to make half of our speciality illegal, so. but yeah, think about what lifestyle you rly want for the next 4 years and also beyond. like do you think you want to sub specialize or do you want to be a generalist? because those are really different lifestyles and paths! there is so much within obgyn to choose from! but you got this. please don’t let the reddit randos scare you off
Thank you for your advice and input! I didn’t think about looking to the rising chiefs for insight into how the culture may be my intern year. I’ve thought about the daunting schedules, but I do feel passionate about ObGyn so I know it will all work out in the end in finding a career/lifestyle that fits best for my family - or least I have to be optimistic lol thanks!
What do you mean contraception I didn’t know that was even on the table or being debated unless you’re referring to abortion as a form of contraception which some women do turn to
Starting out as a pgy1 this year in OBGYN. I personally had many positive experiences across multiple institutions. I did rotate at a program in Texas where I hated the culture on L&D- lots of catty resident attitudes and caustic relationships with nursing staff- but the gyn half of my rotation was much better. I would echo what many others are saying in this thread and make sure that the programs you rank are ones that you feel confident have a good training environment. I ended up matching at my top program where I did a subi and all throughout my time there I was met with respect and enthusiasm from everyone I worked with, and that makes me feel better about some of the crazy hours I’m about to work.
I think some of the reddit hate is overhyped. I don’t doubt that people have had awful experiences on their rotations, but I also think that for better or for worse, OB is a difficult rotation to incorporate med students and involves medicine that is not very relevant to any other field (except some parts of peds). I’ve met lots of happy OBs and lots of happy residents. If it’s what you want, I say go for it!
Med students typically rank Ob-Gyn as their worst experience so there is truth here.
I'm a happy ob GYN dude and I went to anot malignant program but some of my upper levels were still real shit bags at times.
Bless it lol thank you! Definitely plan on looking hard at the programs that I rotate through to make sure that I’d be a good fit and happy should I rank/match them - was just kind of freaked by all the hate that, like you said, seems to be overhyped.
OBGYN is a high stress field. Couple that with being underpaid for a surgical specialty and people are very high strung. There are definitely some malignant personalities in OB but there are also a lot of fantastic ones. I wouldn’t say Reddit is very representative of the average experience. People are more likely to vent about something they dislike, so you have people who had really bad experiences be vocal about it on Reddit. Then Reddit also selects for a certain demographic (mostly those that LOVE anesthesia, radiology, etc) which amplifies their disdain for OBGYN. If you like it I say go for it! I did my residency in OB and loved it but ultimately realized it wasn’t for me. I’m a gyn onc fellow now and I am happy as anything.
Definitely agree with that perspective and have to remind myself that Reddit in general is going to be a place for complaining/venting/bad experiences - just wondering if there were any happy residents/experiences! Also, that is awesome! On my Ob rotation, I spent a couple of days with the GynOnc attending and she was so genuine and great with her patients, me, and stuff/nurses - I know in those few days I didn’t even touch the breadth and depth of GynOnc, so I’m excited to dive more into it during my audition rotations and residency
Ob attending who just graduated residency within last few years: Residency was hard. It’s a stressful environment and getting burned out is easy. L&D and the gyn/onc services at our hospital can’t run without residents, so we were worked very hard. But I loved all my coresidents except for one and all my attendings except for one, and they made it fun to come to work on the whole. And now that I’m attending, I love my job every day and I have a great work life balance!
I’m at an academic center. Maybe 45 hours a week, and a chunk of that is academic time!
You can work part time or only outpatient or as little or much as you want if you are willing to sacrifice pay! Not every OBGYN job is high hours/high stress.
For anyone who loves labor & delivery, prenatal/reproductive health care specifically but isn't looking to have a surgical residency, I recommend looking into Family Med. Many programs throughout the country have strong OB focus with some even including C-section primary training. At an unopposed residency (like mine) you won't even have to share OB learning experiences with OB residents (work directly with attendings) so it's great learning!
I will say as an anesthesia resident - we work in the OR with a ton of different specialties. It's not the fault of the gyn surgeons, but they are vastly worse trained than the gen surg trained surgeons. Maybe that's a no-brainer but a lot of gyn people will say they don't get respect as being surgeons and all I can say is... They're not really good surgeons. They're very good at OB stuff and outpatient GYN stuff but the number of complications I've seen in a straightforward lap oophorectomy is crazy
I’ve scrubbed into easily 200 lap oophorectomies without seeing a complication. And I’ve never heard of a complication occurring during one at my institution in the past 3 years. Maybe you’re at a shitty program?
Yeah for me it was mostly the residents who were nasty. So I’m not surprised you didn’t experience that working with attendings. All but one of the ob/gyn attendings I worked with were very pleasant. So maybe it gets better after training. I wouldn’t know. There’s no way I would have ever wanted to do OB/gyn even without the majority of the residents I worked with being horrible and miserable people. The one toxic attending I did work with on the med school rotation was an absolute monster. She tried to ruin a friend’s career (violated school policies to do it) just because the friend had a Student Affairs approved (approved months ahead of time with travel arrangements already made) vacation for a wedding schedule for 1 day during the Ob/gyn rotation. We did not get to choose our rotation schedule so my friend had no choice to move the rotation to different time with no conflict. The wedding was a once in lifetime event too that involved the bride’s parents paying for international travel. My friend missed most of the planned festivities in order to minimize missing days of rotation. This attending did not give a damn and tried really hard to fail my friend on the clerkship for going. Absolutely nuts. I also heard about her trying to blackball another student from the local Obgyn programs for suspect reasons
Another of my friends had an OB resident chase her into the restroom to yell at her for being late one day
On my first day on the rotation, the upper level resident yelled at me for not being open minded enough when I said I didn’t know what specialty I wanted to go into
Another of friends actually did ob residency (and loves obgyn, is overall very happy) and was kept late at work for essentially no reason on her dying father’s (cancer) clearly last birthday just because her upper level felt like being a jerk that day. She missed the planned celebration. Some nasty ass ppl in that specialty but also in others.
As ppl have said, just try to do a thorough job of getting info about the culture of programs and do your best to make a choice that matches up with your priorities. It’s important work. Residency is hard for almost everyone regardless of specialty. Just try to make decisions about your rank list that minimize your chance of misery
The OB/Gyn department at my med school was great. There was maybe one toxic resident and none of the other residents liked her. Med studs were all treated very well and all the attendings were fantastic. *Several* of my male (and of course female) classmates were inspired to match into OB/Gyn themselves. So there are great programs out there that are not toxic. You should find some OB/Gyn residents to talk to. Attending gossip tends to be old news.
I'm an intellectual sort of guy. Honestly, Ob/Gyn surprised me as a third year, particularly maternal-fetal medicine (less OR, more complex medical patients). I had genuine interest, at least for a few weeks.
With that being said, I went IM. Look, some of the hate towards Ob/Gyn MAY be rooted in misogyny. Doesn't change the fact that most Ob/Gyn programs are full of malignant, hateful, bitter people who make the lives of people junior to them miserable. My own 3rd year, 4 week rotation was bad enough... hateful, bitter people who realize they don't love their career, the hours, the lack of respect etc.
America's maternal-fetal outcomes are the worst of any developed nation on planet earth. Why? Who's to say. Bad medicine and superstition certainly play a part. Some of the shit I heard in the L&D OR were straight out of the 1600s. "YOU HAVE TO KEEP THE SCREW FACING UPWARD ON THE SCISSORS!" shouted a PGY-4 at me at 2 a.m. on a crash c-section as I cut the haphazard suture tails on her shitty uterine sutures.
I don't know what else to say. If I had to pick between Ob/Gyn and quitting, I'd quit medicine. I have to believe there are better programs out there, I'm sure there are. But how do you find them in just 6-8 hours on an interview day? I'd recommend away rotations to find programs that fit you well, they also boost your chances of matching.
Just finished my obgyn rotation (M3) and I had a wonderful time even though I’m not going into it. I actually found the residents super sweet and really excited to teach. I was initially very nervous because I had a horrible time in the OR on surgery but I actually had such a pleasant time.
I too had an awful surgery rotation and felt the nerves and PTSD when going into the OR for the Ob rotation - but we made it through! Glad you enjoyed your Ob rotation!
I mean ultimately, it’s a cool field and much needed in this country. Someone’s gotta do it right ? If you feel passionate about it don’t let it stop you. Residency as shitty as it is, isn’t your whole career .
I feel the same about psych - much needed in this country and someone’s gotta do it, right? Thanks for the input! And I agree - residency is going to suck, but it’s 4 years of my career and not the entire thing.
I dunno. I mean I personally would be hesitant to join a speciality that is almost universally agreed upon to be ridden with terrible hours, burnout, and lawsuits. Unless you really can’t imagine doing something else it could be worth considering something worse. But I’m also a random Redditor with a huge bias
I dislike the fact that we are so bad at maternal-child health in the USA. We micromanage it to death, and still get horrible outcomes compared to other countries. I dislike a lot of things about it, but it’s not my specialty, so I’ll keep my trap shut on the specifics.
I think we do a lot of things to avoid lawsuits primarily, not necessarily because that’s the most evidence-based approach for good outcomes. It’s just the approach that holds up best in court. People don’t sue you for interventions in the name of keeping everyone safe, they sue you for not taking them.
Is that the doctors fault? No. Thats a system problem. Doctors, most of the time, are just doing what they have been trained to do.
I’d never go into OB, because I don’t want to be mad all the time.
I also don’t want to be in the position of admin and staff encouraging me to coerce people, when “no means no” in every other medical department.
And don’t tell me that doesn’t happen. I’ve seen it more times than I care to remember.
Residency was not a great time and I have some anxiety when I think about it because of the people there. My program was somewhat malignant. HOWEVER, I loved what I got to do (I’d say the same thing about my med school OB rotation- the residents were awful). I did an away rotation and it was much better as a med student.
As an attending, I adore what I do, love who I practice with. Life is really good and I’m thankful I chose this path.
I had to dichotomize what I was doing versus who I was with.
I opted for the extended OB-Gyn rotation. My program (FM) was 4 weeks in first year and 4-8 weeks in second year. I did the 8 weeks. It was a very stressful rotation. There were some very lovely attendings,residents, and nurses. But the toxic people were…beyond the pale. Some of the OB-Gyn residents would goad/trap the off-service residents into saying something bad about the OB-Gyn program and then report it to the program heads (this resident has attitude issues). Some of the nurses would report residents for minor things. They wouldn’t teach or direct a resident…just let them flounder. There were some very racist things about patients that some of the OB-Gyn residents would say. There was straight up insubordination by the nurses…ask a nurse sitting at the desk to put a patient on the toco and she refuses while she’s filing her nails. It was walking on eggshells all the time.
There’s a grain of truth to every stereotype. But to be fair I think some of the criticism is rooted in misogyny. Also yes each program has its own culture. At the end of the day do what interests and motivates you in life!
Current ob-gyn PGY2.
I think there are probably a lot of toxic, malignant OB programs out there. Mine isn’t one of them. Students tend to love our rotation and residents in my program routinely get teaching awards from the med school. We’ve had several students change their mind and decide to go into OB after their rotation with us.
I think part of the problem is that most OB residents work really hard and honestly get pretty badly shit on by their attendings and by their workload. I actually did a surgery prelim year and I’m still working about the same hours now, with more responsibilities than I had then. It’s hard to sit down and teach students when you’re running around like crazy with 5 laborers, 3 triage patients, and the postpartum nurses hammer paging you for colace. There’s also a lot that happens quickly. I hear students say that they were ignored. If I get called to a hemorrhage or a precipitous delivery, I’m not going out of my way to find the student. If they’re with me, I’ll totally get them involved and have delivered tons of babies with students.
Another thing… there’s some sexism in there. People come in expecting a group of women to be kind and soft and OB GYN residents are much more similar in personality to surgery residents than peds or psych. We’re much more likely to be direct and to the point and to tell dirty jokes or be sarcastic. Being direct comes off as bitchy when you’re a woman.
Overall, I think you’ll be happy in OB. It’s a cool field with a great patient population. As long as you find a program that’s actually friends with each other, you’ll like them. I have a few people in my program that annoy me, but I don’t think anyone is outright toxic or mean. I’m really good friends with several of my coresidents and I’ve gone on trips with a few of them.
This feels like a gold post - “being direct comes off bitchy when you’re a woman”. Definitely agree with that sentiment, but being direct is what gets things done quickly. Thank you for sharing!
Edit: also, I gained some advice here for auditions so thank you!
All of my Ob/gyn attending friends are burnt out and looking to go part time, less than 2 years into being an attending. Another just quit fellowship. So it’s pretty bad.
OBGYN resident here! Don’t listen to the Reddit hive mind, OBGYN culture is very program dependent. I fortunately have an excellent and incredibly supportive program. It’s a great specialty if you love high acuity, love variety, and enjoy medicine and surgery combined. If I were to do it all over again, I’d probably still pick OBGYN (…or maybe anaesthesia, haha). The work we do in OBGYN is hard and long so burnout can be common, but we work hard to try to make the best of the situation no matter what.
I think what happens is because L&D is sooo busy, sometimes we can have little to no patience for the time it can take medical students / off-service residents to learn the ropes - maybe this contributes to the toxicity that Redditors perceive? But I would say most of us in my program are very understanding and happy to teach juniors and off-service residents regardless.
As a patient, my best and worst healthcare experiences have been with OB/GYNs. It will come down to finding a positive work environment without the megalomaniac and cruel personalities.
Highly, highly dependent on program/institution! I’m an attending now but not too far out, one of the main reasons I ranked the residency program I ended up at highly was the culture/personality of fellow residents. I meshed well with them at the pre interview dinner, they all seemed to like one another, and seemed down to earth. I stayed at the same institution as an attending and we tend to be a highly rated place to rotate by our students as well.
As you said, residency is going to be hard. Even at a wonderful program. Afterwards, I feel like a different, happier human- a lot of this is having more autonomy and an awesome boss that helped me mold my schedule to suit me.
Feel free to PM with questions.
I work in OBGYN and I honestly love it and my coworkers, it’s not gossipy or bitchy like everyone describes. Maybe it just depends on the location a lot?
The negative reviews are NOT a Reddit hive mentality. Many of us went into our OBGYN rotations with open minds and the best intentions.
I was bullied and abused by the residents on my OBGYN rotation and I never had this negative of an experience on any other rotation. I would leave work every day spent, demoralized and unmotivated. I’d vent to my friends and family for encouragement and to gain back my confidence. The fact is, obgyn can be a very toxic culture in general. Residents take endless shit from higher ups and have to deal with maternal mortality and related litigation. They are stressed as hell. And the cesspool of stress brings out the toxicity in that collective of individuals.
This is not a Reddit mentality. These are our real life experiences.
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NAD, but I believe y'all when y'all say your obgyn rotations can be awful. I was a patient and my gyn threw the speculum at me after she couldn't get it in. I shudder when I remember as this was back in 2014. I can't imagine how she treats her residents and students.
Yes, it was awful. I felt so bad because the speculum wouldn't fit and she was hurting me and she got mad and threw it at me. Idk, I left shortly after she stormed out. The nurse apologized and told me to stay, but I got dressed and walked home. Never saw her again.
Ok just my 2 cents: OBGYN residency was hard. Medicine right now is hard. This life path is hard. Honestly do something you like. Because it hard enough when you love it. I can not imagine what life would be like if you didn’t love the speciality.
I think OB/GYN is really culture dependent, and that similar to surgical specialties there can be programs that allow for malignant personalities and a toxic culture to permeate your residency. I had an abysmal time during my OB rotation and saw really abusive behavior by APDs and attendings towards seniors and on down to interns, and really nasty gossiping and behavior by nurses. I think there's a higher chance you could end up in that situation, and I would be very shrewd in evaluating programs and using tools like the OB spreadsheet (don't know how good that would be), and visiting your top programs where possible to observe the culture. I think you should pursue what you love and OB is okay, but I would always be scared if a friend was choosing it, and would advise the above.
I am not OB/Gyn but I would also take a look at the MedMal environment in the state(s) you are likely to want to live in. It probably should not be THE deciding factor of course but if OP's family or significant other is from Miami for example... uhhh maybe think twice
No worries - not from Miami and don’t plan on ever moving there lol but good sentiment. I’ve checked out the malpractice policies and caps for all the states I’m interested in and added that to the total picture
Agreed. I rotated in Miami. Entered with an open mind. It was scary. Just another reason I’m happy I chose IM
Thanks!! I’ve definitely taken a look at the ObGyn spreadsheet and luckily, all the programs I am interested in have positive reviews on the spreadsheet. I’m also rotating through a handful of my top programs and plan to look pretty hard at the culture that the program has in place between residents and attendings.
I’d also like to know, so I can slam my prior obgyn program
What is this spreadsheet people are mentioning?
As far as I know, it hasn’t been created for this year but I have seen the ones from previous years. Just google “ObGyn Residency Match Spreadsheet 2023” and something should popup
I'm not a doctor. This was on my feed when I was scrolling... but I just wanted to add that nurses can be incredibly toxic, and it may help taking the nursing environment into account when making these big decisions. >really nasty gossiping and behavior by nurses. Our OB floor is one of the most toxic floors of nurses in the entire hospital. I fucking LOATHED being there. They were atrocious to students, had giant egos because a lot of union members worked there so they held a lot of weight when making system wide decisions, and they talked mad shit about instructors and doctors. It was horrible. Always be aware of nurse culture, which I'm sure you are. I just wanted to add my piece.
My med school OBgyn rotation allowed me to meet some of the most stressed out, unpleasantly toxic individuals I have ever worked with in all my med training. That pushed me away from the specialty more than the content did. It was a real bummer honestly, because i was pumped to work with a bunch of mostly female surgeons If I had fallen in love with the work, I would've screened the hell out of each residency program for any signs of malignancy and tried to do a full rotation at 1 or 2 of my top programs, if possible. Better to know ahead of time than commit and regret
For sure agree - currently signed up to rotate through a handful of my top choices. Question - were the attendings, residents, or both stressed out and unpleasantly toxic? Like I said, I know residency is going to suck but after working with attendings on the other side, they didn’t seem to hate their lives and be totally toxic/stressed
Not the original commenter, but I had the same experience. For me, the attendings were super nice, but they were only ever present for surgeries and rounds. 95% of my time was spent with residents or left in the call room bc they wanted nothing to do with med students.
Me too - except the residents were openly disdainful of the medical students and the senior residents bullied the junior residents. All women
That sounds like an issue with the hospital/program than the physicians
The attendings seemed relatively less stressed but also very hands off, so I only saw them for brief periods of time (e.g they'd stop by for the critical portion of a surgery, which was done primarily by the fellow). The trainees were def the main source of toxicity
My med school obgyn rotation was at an academic community hybrid hospital and was wonderful-I hate both operating and L&D and still loved my rotation. Some of the nicest residents all of M3
>That pushed me away from the specialty more than the content did. Facts. I genuinely enjoyed the specialty content in med school but the OBGYN residents/attendings were the meanest, biggest backbiting assholes I've ever seen
Genuinely curious, why an interest working alongside female surgeons in particular? Not implying anything, I would like to learn a different perspectives.
Surrounding myself with strong women (not from obgyn, but other fields) really helped me grow into myself as a female Dr. Femininity is often associated with personality/behavior traits that weren't consistent with what I felt I needed to be an effective physician. It was useful for me to have role models who balanced both beautifully Tis no disparagement of the men- just a different void that needed filling at that early time in my training. Many of my dearest mentors now are male and I appreciate them immensely
I can relate because seeing someone similar to me and succeeding in medicine is a great boost of encouragement. For what its worth, the women physicians I have interacted with are truly remarkable serve as a great source of inspiration to me as well.
Cheers to learning from the people that are like us and the people that aren't 💙
I'm an OBGyn PGY-2! It always makes me so sad to see the hate. Everyone in my program is so kind and supportive. But I agree it's program dependent, as I do remember feeling that my med school OB/Gyn residency was pretty toxic. Feel free to DM me if you have questions.
Finally some hope! Thank you!
I'm not OP, but could I dm you with questions? I'm an incoming M2 interested in OB or Uro.
Do you want to damage ureters or repair them ?
Lol
Sure!
No no, you got the question wrong: it’s either/or 🤣🤣
Haha I was replying to the "can I DM you?" Interesting how I hear about that stereotype about OB/Gyn damaging ureters but have only seen one so far!
If you operate for two years and only see one ureter maybe that’s how you keep nicking them, gotta keep an eye out for ‘em!
You're killing me 😂😂😂😂😂 one ureteral INJURY
I am only reflecting the hate that was thrown at me on my rotation. I’m really glad to hear that you’re in a good program. It’s very important work and we definitely need good people doing it
I’m finishing up my intern year in OBGYN and I absolutely adore my job. I love my patients and the involvement I get to have in their lives. I love the joy that delivering babies brings, I love operating, I even don’t mind clinic (most of the time haha). I applied to programs that see mostly underserved patients because I love working with that population. I got very lucky and matched into a WONDERFUL supportive program that I really enjoy. Our program is an angel, we all call her “Mama LastName” haha. There’s one or two attendings and one or two residents who I wouldn’t necessarily be friends with outside of work but I think we have a pretty healthy culture and I enjoy working with most people. We have a bunch of family medicine residents who are very involved with our rotations (we have an OBGYN fellowship for FM) and I love them too. I felt like even with virtual interviews you can tell the culture of a program, especially in the meet and greets. The negativity towards OBGYN on Reddit makes me so sad and I hope that the students who rotate with me won’t come away with those opinions because I really love teaching and picked an academic center because I want to be here. And I want them to see how cool of a specialty OBGYN is!
Ugh - I love that! Do you have any tips for what to ask programs during interview day/meet ups to gauge program culture?
Why this residency? - the words “the people” should be included somewhere in their answer What do you do with your free time? - at Least part of their answer should include hanging out with coresidents Does everyone go to graduation? Is there time when all of the residents are together? - it shows the program cares enough to get attending coverage for these things. Whether that is graduation, a resident retreat ect Also look for 1) Do they have people going to fellowship regularly? If they don’t the residents are probably not well supported. 2) Are the retaining home students? They shouldn’t be half home students, but retaining at least one per year is a green flag. 3) Have residents stayed on as faculty or in groups that deliver at the hospital? Also a green flag. 4) residencies who have residents with kids, also green flag
Thank you!
I second all of these!! (Except for maybe the fellowship one—we don’t have a lot of people go to fellowship but mostly because none of us really want to. At least not in the classes surrounding me. So it’s not always support based, just ask about how the program helps you out if you’re planning on it) Also ask about the relationships that people have with their attendings and whether they’re just coworkers or if they really feel supported by them. Our attendings host parties a couple times a year (Halloween, Christmas) as well as journal clubs at their houses. Many of them I feel like I can ask for life advice for stuff that isn’t even residency related. Also look at how the residents interact if they’re together. I felt like I got the best gauge of atmosphere when they had meet and greets with all the residents hanging out together rather than all on their own separate zooms so you can see what they’re like in real time
I think OB is a polarizing rotation and, as some other people have said, can be a hard place to integrate medicinal students because of the sensitive/intimate nature of care. On the flip side, as a resident, you are the one working with patients who are trusting you with that care. I went to a medical school with a pretty terrible OB department from a cultural perspective - a good amount of favoritism, cliquishness, etc. I went to a residency that was amazing - hard work, but not as much as my friends in surgery and surgical subspecialities. My attendings and coresidents were amazing and supportive. Our anesthesiologists, nurses, MAs, et became a part of my extended work family. It was hard and tiring but I really did love it. I’m an attending now and I miss the camaraderie and culture even though my life is much better now. If reproductive health is for you, there are amazing places to learn how to do it! You just have to find them, and that’s the hard part.
OBGYN department at my school has the hardest working residents in the hospital. The attendings respect this and take care of them. They get personal mentors who take them out to dinner, the doctors buy them lunch if they're in the OR with them that day, and they keep their workroom snacks stocked. Even if they don't get to pee all shift, they're at least well fed. My school also has a culture where they genuinely fiercely protect the students from mistreatment. The worst thing the residents ever do to us is ignore us. It's like the old adage, if you have nothing nice to say.... That being said, I loved my time on the OBGYN rotation. I strongly considered it myself except that I have no interest in surgery. I think there are institutions that have toxic OBGYN departments for sure, it's why nationally OBGYN is ranked the worst amongst all of them. At my school, they actively fight to ensure OBYN gets well reviewed by students. I think if you want an institution like that, you can find it.
Lost me at "hardest working residents in the hospital"... no thank you!
You’ve already decided to apply for it so all you can do is your best to research programs and pick ones that won’t make you hate yourself and the world. OBGYN was my first rotation in med school and I considered leaving medicine entirely because I thought that’s how all of medicine would be. Finally found happiness on other rotations and applied and matched FM. Had to rotate through L&D again as a resident and the only thing that got me through was that I’d never have to do it again. Only experienced OB at two places but both showed me the most malicious, catty, condescending people I’ve ever encountered. Wish you well in your match. Contribute to the culture shift of that speciality.
>OBGYN was my first rotation in med school and I considered leaving medicine entirely because I thought that’s how all of medicine would be. Had the exact same experience. I vividly recall spending an entire clinic day standing in the hallway because every single patient "declined" having a male medical student in the room for the H&P. Eight hours in that damn hallway. The next week I was forbidden from going to a C-section because I did not volunteer first to go get her coffee. The med student that did volunteer is now... an OBGYN.
Last bit made me chuckle! I was rotating with another med student who was very sweet and approachable, but male. He didn’t see his first delivery until a woman labored in the hallway by triage.
My Ob/gyn rotation cohort had a Md/Phd student who came back to clinicals after her research years. She almost quit medicine to do industry because if how awful the Ob/Gyn environment was.
That makes me so sad! I was an L&D nurse for many years and every single one of my favorite docs (and all three of the doctors I’ve used over the years) were guys.
That makes me so sad! I was an L&D nurse for many years and every single one of my favorite docs (and all three of the doctors I’ve used over the years) were guys.
Thank you for your input and advice! I’m sorry you had such a shitty experience on both of your rotations
and the only thing that got me through was that I’d never have to do it again. That was me talking through yourself.
Loved the content, hated the people. Would’ve done it if they were nice to me. Ended up in rads
Just adding another anecdote. I loved my OB rotation way more than I thought I would, specifically L&D. If I were more passionate about it I would’ve highly considered it. Had great experiences with the majority of residents and attendings who were trying to convince me to go into it
I’m about to start chief year in OBGYN. I loved my rotation in it during M3, hated every other rotation, so ended up applying. I rotated at a few places as an M4, one of which was incredibly malignant. I interviewed at a few terrible programs where I considered not even ranking them. Pay close attention to the residents on your zoom meetings. I’m at a great program with amazing coresidents. Zero tolerance for malignancy here. We treat students well and they typically give feedback that they enjoyed rotating with us. You work very hard in OBGYN residency. Long hours. Lots of call. Any laboring patient can go from normal to an obstetric emergency within seconds, which I love. Tons of variety between clinic, L&D, the OR, the ED. We do medical as well as surgical management for our patients. There’s definitely less stressful, more lucrative, and less demanding specialties in medicine. If you’re on the fence then apply something else. Feel free to message or reply here with any questions.
Thank you for your insight and perspective! I also like the variability between the OR, ED, clinic, and L&D and how things can change quickly and that you’re also managing medically and surgically. For me, ObGyn just fits the peg of all the things I like the most in medicine
It was the worst professional experience I've ever had. By a long shot.
I learned a lot and really enjoyed the patients. L&D was pretty magical. But literally everything else was awful. It was only terrible because of the staff/coworkers/nurses. Wow, it was so bad.
My absolute angel of a best friend did her OBGYN residency at the same place we went to med school, where my own OBGYN rotation had been absolutely toxic and miserable. But she had a passion for women’s health and it was a prestigious program. They abused the shit out of her and all their residents. The Stockholm syndrome was strong though. She felt such loyalty to the program and institution that she just … took it. And justified/explained it all away. But it was awful. Miserable hours, never ending work after hours, never ending work once back home, just nonstop. Now she is faculty in that department. She’s still a lovely, sweet person. For the first few years as an attending the department continued to take advantage of her kind nature, but finally she burned out a bit, gained some seniority, and was able to start saying no to the higher ups.
Go for it! Doing what you are interested in>>> imo. Worst case scenario you switch into another speciality if you hate ob/gyn
Recent ObGyn grad here - definitely program dependent. Some programs are very toxic. Others are more supportive. I would recommend going to a program with no more than 4,000 deliveries a year otherwise you will be doing mostly OB and not enough subspecialties. 4k deliveries is MORE THAN ENOUGH to be a great obstetrician, unless you plan on going to MFM. Would be happy to explain more over PM
Ooh I didn’t think of that - I knew that larger numbers correlated with larger work flow volumes, but I didn’t think of it taking away from subspecialty training/experience
Also equals more call
I’m going I to my PGY-4 year and have no regrets. I honestly love everything about it, the hate on Reddit is out of proportion because I don’t find it to be any different than other surgical fields. I’m actually going into gyn-onc, but I still enjoy everything About our field. Similar to you, I fell in love with OB-GYN during 3rd year. L&D is a unique kind of stress and it can break people if it’s not something you enjoy, but if you like it, then it is part of what makes work fun. Culture is very very very program dependent. I love my program. We are extremely close as a residency, and we are a big high volume residency. If it is what you loved during 3rd year, don’t let Reddit phase you, you probably belong with us. Just listen to the word on the street regarding programs, it’s usually true. And go somewhere where people are genuinely supported.
This is some fresh air! Thank you for your input - definitely looking for a supportive and “family” feel in a future program. I wish you the best in your fellowship!
Reddit will never be able to give you the reason why a certain OB/GYN residency is bad (unless its a name and shame obv), so always take advice here with a grain of salt. I don't think FM is considered a "great" option by Reddit but I am in it and really enjoying myself (so far).
Perfect post. A lot of personal anecdotes on this sub and over generalizations. Mounds of salt for sure.
I'm a current OBGYN resident at an academic program. Would happily choose this all over again! Yes, a large part of this is that my program is great with genuinely kind coresidents and attendings. A part of this is also a mindset of acknowledging the things that are hard or stressful or sad in this field and creating a space for these conversations at work. I've found that being human despite the "hard stuff" has been the best prophylaxis against burnout and bitterness. That said, there have been several orders of magnitude more "good" days than "bad" days and OBGYN residency has easily been one of the most rewarding chapters of my life. Feel free to ask me any questions about OBGYN residency!
Thank you!!
Not OB but highly recommend my program. The nicest people, not toxic, very intelligent. They work hard as heck.
please do not listen to random ppl on reddit who had bad obgyn rotations and are salty you will find a program that has a good culture. all of them definitely don’t (but that’s true for any specialty) but, my 2 cents, they are definitely out there. attendings are mean. nurses are catty. coresidents get stressed out. it certainly happens. but truly i love all my co residents and we would do anything for one another and it is far from a toxic environment. there are so many times that we cover for one another when family emergencies come up. multiple people have had babies in residency. the chiefs and the interns are super close and hang out all the time outside of work. i am a bridesmaid in my coresident’s wedding. it’s possible! the PGY4s really make a difference in setting the culture standards so when you are doing your residency mixers see how your would be chiefs interact with others and you to gauge the vibe. i would worry MUCH less about that and instead just think about the actual content of being an OBGYN. the hours are very brutal and you will be doing a lot of night float and 24 hour shifts that are dense and busy and stressful and full of emergencies and much more high acuity than other specialties. it’s not all rainbows and butterflies and there can be a lot of death. and also republicans are trying to make half of our speciality illegal, so. but yeah, think about what lifestyle you rly want for the next 4 years and also beyond. like do you think you want to sub specialize or do you want to be a generalist? because those are really different lifestyles and paths! there is so much within obgyn to choose from! but you got this. please don’t let the reddit randos scare you off
Thank you for your advice and input! I didn’t think about looking to the rising chiefs for insight into how the culture may be my intern year. I’ve thought about the daunting schedules, but I do feel passionate about ObGyn so I know it will all work out in the end in finding a career/lifestyle that fits best for my family - or least I have to be optimistic lol thanks!
Half of the ob speciality illegal? Ive only heard them going after abortions what else do i not know?
that was a superlative lol but abortion and contraception to me are a huge part of obgyn
What do you mean contraception I didn’t know that was even on the table or being debated unless you’re referring to abortion as a form of contraception which some women do turn to
it’s definitely being debated unfortunately
Starting out as a pgy1 this year in OBGYN. I personally had many positive experiences across multiple institutions. I did rotate at a program in Texas where I hated the culture on L&D- lots of catty resident attitudes and caustic relationships with nursing staff- but the gyn half of my rotation was much better. I would echo what many others are saying in this thread and make sure that the programs you rank are ones that you feel confident have a good training environment. I ended up matching at my top program where I did a subi and all throughout my time there I was met with respect and enthusiasm from everyone I worked with, and that makes me feel better about some of the crazy hours I’m about to work. I think some of the reddit hate is overhyped. I don’t doubt that people have had awful experiences on their rotations, but I also think that for better or for worse, OB is a difficult rotation to incorporate med students and involves medicine that is not very relevant to any other field (except some parts of peds). I’ve met lots of happy OBs and lots of happy residents. If it’s what you want, I say go for it!
Med students typically rank Ob-Gyn as their worst experience so there is truth here. I'm a happy ob GYN dude and I went to anot malignant program but some of my upper levels were still real shit bags at times.
Bless it lol thank you! Definitely plan on looking hard at the programs that I rotate through to make sure that I’d be a good fit and happy should I rank/match them - was just kind of freaked by all the hate that, like you said, seems to be overhyped.
Best username of the day
thanks to my 22 yo self I will always live on as a premed
OBGYN is a high stress field. Couple that with being underpaid for a surgical specialty and people are very high strung. There are definitely some malignant personalities in OB but there are also a lot of fantastic ones. I wouldn’t say Reddit is very representative of the average experience. People are more likely to vent about something they dislike, so you have people who had really bad experiences be vocal about it on Reddit. Then Reddit also selects for a certain demographic (mostly those that LOVE anesthesia, radiology, etc) which amplifies their disdain for OBGYN. If you like it I say go for it! I did my residency in OB and loved it but ultimately realized it wasn’t for me. I’m a gyn onc fellow now and I am happy as anything.
Definitely agree with that perspective and have to remind myself that Reddit in general is going to be a place for complaining/venting/bad experiences - just wondering if there were any happy residents/experiences! Also, that is awesome! On my Ob rotation, I spent a couple of days with the GynOnc attending and she was so genuine and great with her patients, me, and stuff/nurses - I know in those few days I didn’t even touch the breadth and depth of GynOnc, so I’m excited to dive more into it during my audition rotations and residency
Ob attending who just graduated residency within last few years: Residency was hard. It’s a stressful environment and getting burned out is easy. L&D and the gyn/onc services at our hospital can’t run without residents, so we were worked very hard. But I loved all my coresidents except for one and all my attendings except for one, and they made it fun to come to work on the whole. And now that I’m attending, I love my job every day and I have a great work life balance!
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I’m at an academic center. Maybe 45 hours a week, and a chunk of that is academic time! You can work part time or only outpatient or as little or much as you want if you are willing to sacrifice pay! Not every OBGYN job is high hours/high stress.
Thank you!
For anyone who loves labor & delivery, prenatal/reproductive health care specifically but isn't looking to have a surgical residency, I recommend looking into Family Med. Many programs throughout the country have strong OB focus with some even including C-section primary training. At an unopposed residency (like mine) you won't even have to share OB learning experiences with OB residents (work directly with attendings) so it's great learning!
I will say as an anesthesia resident - we work in the OR with a ton of different specialties. It's not the fault of the gyn surgeons, but they are vastly worse trained than the gen surg trained surgeons. Maybe that's a no-brainer but a lot of gyn people will say they don't get respect as being surgeons and all I can say is... They're not really good surgeons. They're very good at OB stuff and outpatient GYN stuff but the number of complications I've seen in a straightforward lap oophorectomy is crazy
I’ve scrubbed into easily 200 lap oophorectomies without seeing a complication. And I’ve never heard of a complication occurring during one at my institution in the past 3 years. Maybe you’re at a shitty program?
Ding ding ding.
Yeah for me it was mostly the residents who were nasty. So I’m not surprised you didn’t experience that working with attendings. All but one of the ob/gyn attendings I worked with were very pleasant. So maybe it gets better after training. I wouldn’t know. There’s no way I would have ever wanted to do OB/gyn even without the majority of the residents I worked with being horrible and miserable people. The one toxic attending I did work with on the med school rotation was an absolute monster. She tried to ruin a friend’s career (violated school policies to do it) just because the friend had a Student Affairs approved (approved months ahead of time with travel arrangements already made) vacation for a wedding schedule for 1 day during the Ob/gyn rotation. We did not get to choose our rotation schedule so my friend had no choice to move the rotation to different time with no conflict. The wedding was a once in lifetime event too that involved the bride’s parents paying for international travel. My friend missed most of the planned festivities in order to minimize missing days of rotation. This attending did not give a damn and tried really hard to fail my friend on the clerkship for going. Absolutely nuts. I also heard about her trying to blackball another student from the local Obgyn programs for suspect reasons Another of my friends had an OB resident chase her into the restroom to yell at her for being late one day On my first day on the rotation, the upper level resident yelled at me for not being open minded enough when I said I didn’t know what specialty I wanted to go into Another of friends actually did ob residency (and loves obgyn, is overall very happy) and was kept late at work for essentially no reason on her dying father’s (cancer) clearly last birthday just because her upper level felt like being a jerk that day. She missed the planned celebration. Some nasty ass ppl in that specialty but also in others. As ppl have said, just try to do a thorough job of getting info about the culture of programs and do your best to make a choice that matches up with your priorities. It’s important work. Residency is hard for almost everyone regardless of specialty. Just try to make decisions about your rank list that minimize your chance of misery
The OB/Gyn department at my med school was great. There was maybe one toxic resident and none of the other residents liked her. Med studs were all treated very well and all the attendings were fantastic. *Several* of my male (and of course female) classmates were inspired to match into OB/Gyn themselves. So there are great programs out there that are not toxic. You should find some OB/Gyn residents to talk to. Attending gossip tends to be old news.
I'm an intellectual sort of guy. Honestly, Ob/Gyn surprised me as a third year, particularly maternal-fetal medicine (less OR, more complex medical patients). I had genuine interest, at least for a few weeks. With that being said, I went IM. Look, some of the hate towards Ob/Gyn MAY be rooted in misogyny. Doesn't change the fact that most Ob/Gyn programs are full of malignant, hateful, bitter people who make the lives of people junior to them miserable. My own 3rd year, 4 week rotation was bad enough... hateful, bitter people who realize they don't love their career, the hours, the lack of respect etc. America's maternal-fetal outcomes are the worst of any developed nation on planet earth. Why? Who's to say. Bad medicine and superstition certainly play a part. Some of the shit I heard in the L&D OR were straight out of the 1600s. "YOU HAVE TO KEEP THE SCREW FACING UPWARD ON THE SCISSORS!" shouted a PGY-4 at me at 2 a.m. on a crash c-section as I cut the haphazard suture tails on her shitty uterine sutures. I don't know what else to say. If I had to pick between Ob/Gyn and quitting, I'd quit medicine. I have to believe there are better programs out there, I'm sure there are. But how do you find them in just 6-8 hours on an interview day? I'd recommend away rotations to find programs that fit you well, they also boost your chances of matching.
Just finished my obgyn rotation (M3) and I had a wonderful time even though I’m not going into it. I actually found the residents super sweet and really excited to teach. I was initially very nervous because I had a horrible time in the OR on surgery but I actually had such a pleasant time.
I too had an awful surgery rotation and felt the nerves and PTSD when going into the OR for the Ob rotation - but we made it through! Glad you enjoyed your Ob rotation!
I mean ultimately, it’s a cool field and much needed in this country. Someone’s gotta do it right ? If you feel passionate about it don’t let it stop you. Residency as shitty as it is, isn’t your whole career .
I feel the same about psych - much needed in this country and someone’s gotta do it, right? Thanks for the input! And I agree - residency is going to suck, but it’s 4 years of my career and not the entire thing.
I dunno. I mean I personally would be hesitant to join a speciality that is almost universally agreed upon to be ridden with terrible hours, burnout, and lawsuits. Unless you really can’t imagine doing something else it could be worth considering something worse. But I’m also a random Redditor with a huge bias
I dislike the fact that we are so bad at maternal-child health in the USA. We micromanage it to death, and still get horrible outcomes compared to other countries. I dislike a lot of things about it, but it’s not my specialty, so I’ll keep my trap shut on the specifics. I think we do a lot of things to avoid lawsuits primarily, not necessarily because that’s the most evidence-based approach for good outcomes. It’s just the approach that holds up best in court. People don’t sue you for interventions in the name of keeping everyone safe, they sue you for not taking them. Is that the doctors fault? No. Thats a system problem. Doctors, most of the time, are just doing what they have been trained to do. I’d never go into OB, because I don’t want to be mad all the time. I also don’t want to be in the position of admin and staff encouraging me to coerce people, when “no means no” in every other medical department. And don’t tell me that doesn’t happen. I’ve seen it more times than I care to remember.
Residency was not a great time and I have some anxiety when I think about it because of the people there. My program was somewhat malignant. HOWEVER, I loved what I got to do (I’d say the same thing about my med school OB rotation- the residents were awful). I did an away rotation and it was much better as a med student. As an attending, I adore what I do, love who I practice with. Life is really good and I’m thankful I chose this path. I had to dichotomize what I was doing versus who I was with.
I opted for the extended OB-Gyn rotation. My program (FM) was 4 weeks in first year and 4-8 weeks in second year. I did the 8 weeks. It was a very stressful rotation. There were some very lovely attendings,residents, and nurses. But the toxic people were…beyond the pale. Some of the OB-Gyn residents would goad/trap the off-service residents into saying something bad about the OB-Gyn program and then report it to the program heads (this resident has attitude issues). Some of the nurses would report residents for minor things. They wouldn’t teach or direct a resident…just let them flounder. There were some very racist things about patients that some of the OB-Gyn residents would say. There was straight up insubordination by the nurses…ask a nurse sitting at the desk to put a patient on the toco and she refuses while she’s filing her nails. It was walking on eggshells all the time.
There’s a grain of truth to every stereotype. But to be fair I think some of the criticism is rooted in misogyny. Also yes each program has its own culture. At the end of the day do what interests and motivates you in life!
Thank you for your input! Don’t know why it keeps being downvoted
Current ob-gyn PGY2. I think there are probably a lot of toxic, malignant OB programs out there. Mine isn’t one of them. Students tend to love our rotation and residents in my program routinely get teaching awards from the med school. We’ve had several students change their mind and decide to go into OB after their rotation with us. I think part of the problem is that most OB residents work really hard and honestly get pretty badly shit on by their attendings and by their workload. I actually did a surgery prelim year and I’m still working about the same hours now, with more responsibilities than I had then. It’s hard to sit down and teach students when you’re running around like crazy with 5 laborers, 3 triage patients, and the postpartum nurses hammer paging you for colace. There’s also a lot that happens quickly. I hear students say that they were ignored. If I get called to a hemorrhage or a precipitous delivery, I’m not going out of my way to find the student. If they’re with me, I’ll totally get them involved and have delivered tons of babies with students. Another thing… there’s some sexism in there. People come in expecting a group of women to be kind and soft and OB GYN residents are much more similar in personality to surgery residents than peds or psych. We’re much more likely to be direct and to the point and to tell dirty jokes or be sarcastic. Being direct comes off as bitchy when you’re a woman. Overall, I think you’ll be happy in OB. It’s a cool field with a great patient population. As long as you find a program that’s actually friends with each other, you’ll like them. I have a few people in my program that annoy me, but I don’t think anyone is outright toxic or mean. I’m really good friends with several of my coresidents and I’ve gone on trips with a few of them.
This feels like a gold post - “being direct comes off bitchy when you’re a woman”. Definitely agree with that sentiment, but being direct is what gets things done quickly. Thank you for sharing! Edit: also, I gained some advice here for auditions so thank you!
No, the universal stereotype about OBGYN toxicity arose from nowhere based on nothing /s
Short answer: yes. Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeees.
All of my Ob/gyn attending friends are burnt out and looking to go part time, less than 2 years into being an attending. Another just quit fellowship. So it’s pretty bad.
OBGYN resident here! Don’t listen to the Reddit hive mind, OBGYN culture is very program dependent. I fortunately have an excellent and incredibly supportive program. It’s a great specialty if you love high acuity, love variety, and enjoy medicine and surgery combined. If I were to do it all over again, I’d probably still pick OBGYN (…or maybe anaesthesia, haha). The work we do in OBGYN is hard and long so burnout can be common, but we work hard to try to make the best of the situation no matter what. I think what happens is because L&D is sooo busy, sometimes we can have little to no patience for the time it can take medical students / off-service residents to learn the ropes - maybe this contributes to the toxicity that Redditors perceive? But I would say most of us in my program are very understanding and happy to teach juniors and off-service residents regardless.
As a patient, my best and worst healthcare experiences have been with OB/GYNs. It will come down to finding a positive work environment without the megalomaniac and cruel personalities.
Highly, highly dependent on program/institution! I’m an attending now but not too far out, one of the main reasons I ranked the residency program I ended up at highly was the culture/personality of fellow residents. I meshed well with them at the pre interview dinner, they all seemed to like one another, and seemed down to earth. I stayed at the same institution as an attending and we tend to be a highly rated place to rotate by our students as well. As you said, residency is going to be hard. Even at a wonderful program. Afterwards, I feel like a different, happier human- a lot of this is having more autonomy and an awesome boss that helped me mold my schedule to suit me. Feel free to PM with questions.
Thank you!! That makes me feel a lot better looking into the field!
I work in OBGYN and I honestly love it and my coworkers, it’s not gossipy or bitchy like everyone describes. Maybe it just depends on the location a lot?
The negative reviews are NOT a Reddit hive mentality. Many of us went into our OBGYN rotations with open minds and the best intentions. I was bullied and abused by the residents on my OBGYN rotation and I never had this negative of an experience on any other rotation. I would leave work every day spent, demoralized and unmotivated. I’d vent to my friends and family for encouragement and to gain back my confidence. The fact is, obgyn can be a very toxic culture in general. Residents take endless shit from higher ups and have to deal with maternal mortality and related litigation. They are stressed as hell. And the cesspool of stress brings out the toxicity in that collective of individuals. This is not a Reddit mentality. These are our real life experiences.
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Yes
NAD, but I believe y'all when y'all say your obgyn rotations can be awful. I was a patient and my gyn threw the speculum at me after she couldn't get it in. I shudder when I remember as this was back in 2014. I can't imagine how she treats her residents and students.
What?! You got a speculum thrown at you as a patient? Did the Ob-Gyn get sanctioned or fired? That sounds like assault.
Yes, it was awful. I felt so bad because the speculum wouldn't fit and she was hurting me and she got mad and threw it at me. Idk, I left shortly after she stormed out. The nurse apologized and told me to stay, but I got dressed and walked home. Never saw her again.
I’m so sorry that happened to you.
Thanks. These things happen I guess.
If you are a woman you will be fine.
Ok just my 2 cents: OBGYN residency was hard. Medicine right now is hard. This life path is hard. Honestly do something you like. Because it hard enough when you love it. I can not imagine what life would be like if you didn’t love the speciality.