I'm not sure how much more stupidity I can possibly take. I've been working with residents for 13 years. I know what to expect. I know that sometimes they are going to do things that will make me insane. Will make me want to punch them in the ovaries, whether they possess them or not. Will make me wonder how on earth they received their medical degree. And how stupid they think I am. This last week I had a resident that I nearly strangled with his own innards. He was working with an intern (sweet girl, a little scared of this thing we call "labor" and "delivery")and he spent the entire day smirking at patronizing me. We had a patient that was clearly, to anyone with half a brain and lick of experience in OP presentation: blood in the catheter, coupling contractions, belly that looked like a ski slope. Classic. I continued to explain to him why keeping her with her head down and changing from side to side was the most prudent course of action despite his wanting to sit her bolt upright. When she finally got to 9 centimeters and he declared he "really wanted her sitting up" I decided, "fuck you, fine." So I sat her bolt upright. And an hour later she had a swollen cervix. So now, she's in trendelenberg and changing from side to side. After about another hour, the intern comes in to check her cervix and announces, "The foley came out." I said, "It came out? Is the balloon deflated?" "No," she says, "it's right here." And she holds up the end of the foley with the 10 ml balloon still intact. Ouch. I look around to make sure my delivery table is actually in the room (oh, good, there it is) because anyone who had been doing this job for any length of time knows the only reason that bulb came out is because a a big, fat HEAD pushed it out. So, I said, "Go ahead and check her." The intern gets a strange look on her face, and says, "I don't think I feel any cervix." After she said she wanted me to follow her, I did, and immediately ran into head. I declared her ready to have a baby just as Dr. Hairball walked into the room. At this point, he grabs a glove, saunters over to the patient and then tells the the intern, "You might be able to call her +2 station." Now, this is where I am biting a hole in my lip to keep from saying, "It's a good thing you followed me, because with your three years of experience I'm sure you know better than I, who has only been doing this job, in a high risk hospital that does 3000 deliveries a year, since you were 15 years old." I wanted to, but that's what I wanted to say. Luckily, the patient is right there and I still have a thin veneer of professionalism. Very thin, but still existing. I tell them I was going to straight cath her before we started pushing because I didn't know how long that foley had been out, and as I go to put in the catheter, all I see is head. Then I got shitty. "You call THAT +2???" Oops.
Of course, this pales in comparison to the idiot attending I dealt with the other day. This guy is an OB, a perv, and dumber than a bag of hammers. He scarred one of my poor corpsman for life by changing his scrubs in the stock room. "It was all man boobs and nipple hair." she nearly sobbed. She'll probably never want to see a naked man ever again. We had a post-partum hemorrhage the other day, that was significant enough I wanted to weigh the pads. So, I put the same number and quality of pads on the scale, zero it out and weigh to get the amount of blood she has lost. First he asked me how I knew that was right because she had all kinds of pads on there. Yes, I know this. I weighed the dry ones first and zeroed the scale; I know how to weigh pads! Not my first rodeo and the blood loss was 1952 grams. Which equates to 1952 milliliters. So then he says, "I'm going to call her loss 800 mls." You can't call it that, I weighed the pads; its 1952 mls. "So, your guesstimate is what?" It's NOT A GUESS! IT'S A MEASUREMENT! IT IS 1952 MLS!!!! So then I had to explain how 1 ml equals 1 gm "But it's liquid not a solid." Hello??? Yes, and 1 ml weighs 1 gram. A pint's a pound the world around, have you never heard of this? My mother says it all the time! Liquid has weight and the weight is known. "Okay, but it wasn't all blood, all liquid, some of it was clot." For the love of GOD MAN! MATTER IS CONSTANT!! THE SAME AMOUNT WILL WEIGH THE SAME NO MATTER WHAT STATE SAID MATTER IS IN!!! THIS IS HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS!!! YOU CALL YOURSELF A DOCTOR???? Needless to say, I need my Ativan refilled.
