“The mentorship in OBGYN is huge.
We have to depend on each other; we cannot do this alone.”
The following story extract is from a conversation with an OBGYN mentor and mentee.
Mentor: Do you remember when our partner took that buyout? The first thing you asked me, are you leaving? You must have known I was not happy.
Mentee: I think I knew the decision. Maybe I was hoping that wasn't true.
It felt a little like PTSD because I didn't really think it through when I decided to become an OBGYN. When I showed up at residency and they said, okay, you'll go to Planned Parenthood during this rotation. I was like, whoa, I need to talk to you about this. I'm a practicing Catholic and tubal is fine. I could do that. But all the other stuff, no. They were like, we’re not sure you're in the right spot. My residency really wasn't an option, and then it didn't take long to realize abortion is necessary. I was going to set aside my personal beliefs to take care of patients. That was a little bit of a process. How I interacted with my family: I actually stopped talking to my parents about my job for 20 years. Now, I have to talk to them because I might not have a job and they will want to know why. It's been really good. I needed time to take care of myself in that milieu.
During residency, when I started doing abortions, the whole spectrum, I never felt more, for lack of a better word, like Christ-like, more like a servant, more of like, this is my calling to go through this with her. That's what's so crazy, and you can't explain that to anybody.
Mentor: It's funny. I don't know if I've ever told you this story. In residency, abortions were part of our training. I'm not Catholic. They’re really hard. It breaks your heart to have these women in this situation. I sat down with my pastor and worked through it. There's no easy path. You try to do the greatest good. You do the best you can and try to meet women where they are and help them where you can, be true to your own values, of course. But sometimes, it's a hard decision, and a harder decision, and that's what you get.
One in four women have had an abortion.
Mentee: That's the whole thing, going back, we get to be with these women in their most vulnerable time. We say nothing about it. Our role is to be there and not talk about it. That's our gift to them. Our promise is to hold this in with us.
We talked about this beginning too, why we weren't speaking out more. You said, ‘it's part of our training not to share.’ My husband's partner tells funny stories at the dinner table all the time. I don't do that. Even if they are funny, it's not.
Whether that's good or bad. OBGYNs have a super high burnout rate because we have all these stories.
Mentor: Even the happy stories, you don't really tell them. If anyone else were to tell the same story at the dinner table, the doctor broke the confidence if they heard it first. It's all private.
We talk to each other a lot. I think that's a pretty open door. We've all had truly terrible obstetrical, heartbreaking situations. You rely on your partners to carry you through because we all have them.
