The Benefits of Teaching
by Jenna Huff, MD / Kalispell OB/GYN
“We have a medical student with us today. Is it okay if they participate in your care?”
It’s the question that many people really don’t want to hear, especially at the OB/GYN office. Making an appointment with an OB/GYN is never really the highlight of someone’s day. There could be sensitive topics that need discussed, nerves about the actual exam, and overall dread at what another year means to our overall health. Add to that an extra person there, listening and examining everything that’s going on in the room, and the anxiety might increase to the point where this appointment seems overwhelming. Why in the world would we even ask about students?!?
The real reason doctors teach is different for all of us. For many, the reason we teach has to do with the obligation we feel to teach the future doctors the same way we were taught. Had we not had dedicated doctor teachers, we wouldn’t be where we are today, being able to take care of you the best way possible. The word doctor comes from the Latin word docere, meaning, “to teach.” We were all once student doctors, naive to the ways of the doctor/patient relationship but anxious to learn everything we could so that we could one day join and then take over for those who taught us. We all have different stories of the many mentors in our medical eduction. In emergency situations, I can still hear Dr. Davis in my head as I rush to do the right thing. In surgery, I can still hear Dr. Karlen say, “tight, tight, tight” with every knot I tie. In addition to the good mentors in our career, we all have the ones who were not the best, from whom we strive to be better than for the rest of our career. Also, we commit to make sure our students never become like them. We have to opportunity to shape the medical community for years to come.
Teaching medical students is not a glamorous job. It takes extra time, extra patience, and dedication to the profession. Medical students keep us on our toes as you can always count on them to ask why you do things one way or another, or why you don’t do things the way they learned in class. They are always probing, questioning, and learning, and in turn keep us honest with our medical practice. It has been shown that doctors who teach are more up to date and knowledgable with cutting edge practice than those who do not. We are constantly trying to defend our actions and giving reasons and explanations for everything that we do. In teaching our medical students, we also become better teachers to our patients.
Medicine is ever changing and it’s imperative that we continue to grow and learn in order to take the best care of our patients.
At Kalispell OB/GYN, we are committed to medical education. We have four medical students per year from the University of Washington School of Medicine that each rotate with us during their third year 6 week OB/GYN rotation. For many of them, this is the only experience they will get delivering babies and helping with prenatal care their whole medical career. Our hope is that in the future, if they are the only one on a plane when someone delivers their baby unexpectedly, we can get them to provide adequate care. We also hope to inspire the best and brightest to join the wonderful profession of OB/GYN, to commit to the care of the amazing women we have the privilege to take care of.
So while that question of having a medical student might not be the most exciting thing to hear in a day, there are a multitude of reasons behind it. Know that as with every part of your care with Kalispell OB/GYN, you have to choice to help with our students medical education or to proceed with your appointment without any extra participants. We continue to respect the privacy and preferences of each patient while still working to continue to advance the profession of medicine for future generations.