On the set of "Scrubs?"

As I sat on the examination table this morning for a routine prenatal visit, I was woken out of my morning fog with a gentle tap on the door and greeted by a young woman who couldn't have been a year or two older than me (mid 20s). Having to go to a free/reduced cost clinic at a major metropolitan hospital, I'm very used to seeing a different doctor every visit so it wasn't a red flag to see a new face. However, I could immediately tell she was very unsure of herself.

In a small voice she introduced herself as a medical student, and was very quick to say that the resident doctor would be in after her. I think she was afraid that I would be scared by her inexperience and would demand to see a "real doctor" and storm out of the room. But I couldn't be more happy to be her first patient without a doctor over her shoulder! I was excited that she would probably remember me out of the thousands of potential patients to come in her career.

On her clipboard she had written out all of the questions she was supposed to ask in these neat little bullet points. (Later, the resident doc would let her put this information into the computer system after she double checked it.) Then she grabbed the hand held doppler to measure Maverick's heartbeat. I felt sooooooo bad for her because she couldn't find his heart! She felt my tummy and quietly said, "I think his head is up here" pointing up toward my rib cage. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was really down in my pelvis.

I could almost feel her wanting to shrink in height after struggling to find his heartbeat for 10 minutes without success. Part of it was that she didn't have the wand in the right place, and she wasn't pressing very hard either (afraid to hurt me I suppose). She kept apologizing profusely, and I kept reassuring her that I was glad to help her learn. After I explained to her that I was a science teacher who thrives on hands-on learning, she relaxed more and we had fun conversations about college biology lab classes.

After measuring a few more things with uncertainty, she got up to get the resident doctor and the poor thing stubbed her toe on a doorstop and almost smashed her head into the door. We both just laughed and blamed it on being Friday the 13th. :)

Fortunately the resident doctor was awesome about trying to boost her confidence. I was afraid that the doc would come in and take over with lots of rolling eyes or something. The doc had her measure everything again (heartbeat found this time with a little guidance!) and was very calm about directing her through it all.

Granted, by the end of the appointment I did sort of feel like one of the helpless creatures I watched being dissected from my chair in a college lecture hall. But that's okay. I hope I was a good first patient for her!

By the way the exam showed that I'm about 2cm dialated and about 60% effaced. The doc wants me to take it a bit easier because she wants to slow my progression only for the reason that the closer we can get to 40 weeks, the better. No long shopping trips for me!