Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Take that, students

It's midterm week, and I'm preparing the exam for my large lecture course. Now is the time when I get to retaliate against the students who have been irritating me with their insufficiently rapt attention and their stupid questions and remarks. (E.g., Me: What's your intuitive understanding of what consciousness is? Student: It's that voice in your head telling you what's wrong and right.) And yet, I find I'm not that inclined to make the questions super hard. Maybe it's some kind of newly awakened maternal instinct. Maybe I'm just too tired to deal with all the outraged e-mails that inevitably follow a nice, tough exam. Whatever. There's always the final exam.

Meanwhile, today I randomly picked an OB from the office where I want to be seen. (Receptionist: And what's the purpose of your visit? Me:..........Uh........I'm pregnant?) It's in the same suite as my clinic, and you might think I'd never want to see the place again. But it's so damn convenient. Plus, I started out with an OB in that office, long ago when I thought could just get pregnant, no problem. I like the sense of returning after a detour down the hall to the Land of Pain and Suffering. I set up an appointment for November first. It feels very odd to randomly choose someone, but I have no friends to advise me, and it turns out to be rather hard to find information sans personal referrals. It also feels very odd to not have an appointment for three weeks. How am I supposed to believe Bun Bun is okay until then? But I guess that's what I have to do.

20 comments:

  1. http://castleconnolly.com/

    i find all my doc's on here that aren't referred to me. is pretty hard to get on this list, so the doc's on here are the very best.

    are you gonna get a doppler so that you can check up on bun bun? or just go with the flow? i'll be forced to do the latter, since dh thinks i'm already neurotic enough (the nerve, hmph).

    re: hard exams. mommyhood is turning you into a softie my friend. i'm all for giving the hardest tests ever (during my one stint of teaching in korea, that is). but i think it runs in the family, bc my sister is a prof, and she likes to stick it to her students. and when they complain, she cuts them off at the knees. yes, we must be related, she and i.

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  2. You're graduating to the OB! That's awesome.
    fwiw, I was given pretty decent advice about picking an OB (my gyn doesn't do babies): look at the hospital where they deliver and do research . I chose the OB who delivered all of the labor/delivery nurses' babies at the hospital I liked, and I love her. If you think you might want to go for natural birth or birthing center, you can always call those places and find out who they recommend, because not all OBs are into that (but me? I'm all about highly medically supervised, drugged up labor). And convenience? That's a perfectly perfect way to decide, too. (also, I think you said you were in OH, where I'm from, so if you are in NE OH and want recs I can get some from my oodles of friends with kids)

    On the hard test -- my sis is ALSO a prof, and she basicall kicks her undergrad students' asses regularly. But she's really nice to her grad students, so I guess it's all about pickig targets wisely.

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  3. Congrats on going to a regular old OB - you know, the kind that fertiles go to! I love that motherhood is making you all soft on your students... cracks me up.

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  4. I don't think it really matters-- when you actually give birth, it'll just be whoever is on call anyways. In the meantime, I am sure they are all qualified to look at your chart and doppler your baby for a few seconds once a month... :)

    Mine was randomly chosen because she just happened to be on call for my ectopic. I like her a lot.

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  5. Plus, if the midterm isn't too hard, they may be lulled into a false security before the final.... then you can really get 'em! (insert evil laugh here)

    Did you check out www.ratemds.com? It might at least give you some basics on different doctors in your area.

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  6. Yea for graduating!! I hope that you like the OB you chose, it's going to be a tough switch to the close watch of an RE to the lax OB care. I don't know how I'm going to do it...

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  7. The whole phenomenon of deciding how hard to make the exam is very familiar to me. I used to think (and this may be a language-teacher thing...or a this-language-teacher thing) that my job, when testing and quizzing my students, was to make sure they could manipulate in the most complicated ways possible the words and constructions they had learned. Never mind that the linguistic mazes I was having them create WEREN'T THINGS THAT PEOPLE EVER ACTUALLY SAID...if they could do this, then they really knew their stuff. On an equally unhelpful note, in my secondish year of teaching, I gave a 6th-grade Spanish class a quiz in the form of a logic puzzle. The facts needed to complete the logic puzzle had to do with what they were being quiz on (some verb conjugation, I think?), but the logic puzzle format? Pure fun. FOR ME. I thought that, since their dorky-arse teacher loved logic puzzles, this would be something enjoyable and different for the kids as well. Instead, a great many of them totally panicked, as this had nothing to do with what they had studied (although there were also a few nerdheads who waded their way through it), and it was a colossal failure. Guess maaaybe the goal of being a teacher isn't to land all the kids in therapy. Your students, on the other hand? Totally old enough to benefit from a little suffering. Have at it!

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  8. Congrats on graduating! The time between appointments is really hard, but I guess you would KNOW if something was wrong. At least that's what I try to tell myself.

    I agree with Sienna...don't go all soft on your students! Both my parents are profs and I encourage them to be hard on their students (not that I know anything about teaching. Maybe I'm just trying to get some fair play after some of my really hard college classes that I suffered through :)

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  9. Yeah on graduating! I did pretty much the same thing, called up and took the 1st availible OB cause I know the chances of that person actually delivering my baby is nill. I picked the best hospital in the area that had a really good high risk OB dept--in case I need it! The wait between US is brutal but I resisted getting the home dopler cause I know I'd drive myself crazy with it.

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  10. Yes, I am in the very early days of a one month b'twn appts drought and it sucks. I was SO anxious the last time this happened. Hopefully your systems keep kicking in to remind you Bun Bun is a-ok.

    As for choosing an OB, hey, I like your methodology! And if you don't click with this doc for any reason, you can always find a different one. xoxo

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  11. Um, I meant SYMPTOMS. Tho it would be AWESOME if your "systems" would kick in too, c'mon, systems! haha

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  12. Moving to monthly appointments was *hard*. But then, I would get sick to my stomach before each appointment, rather than look forward to it, because that was the only time I might learn something was wrong (as I never had any symptoms of concern). Can't win for losing, man. Try to take comfort in the "no news is good news" facts of pregnant life, as in no symptoms of concern means nothing to be concerned about. Once you have that anatomy scan and see a big plump baby around 20 weeks, you will be able to breathe a little better. I think most people are, anyway.

    And as for the OB...you'll see much more of residents, students, and nurses when you deliver than you will of your chosen OB (unless you go with a midwife or birthing center). So convenience is a great reason to choose a practice. I also factored in a personal recommendation (because I was lucky enough to have one) and my research indicating that my chosen practice is more "holistic" about birthin' babies than many (i.e., low C-section rate, few episiotomies, etc.). You will need a C-section due to your surgery, right? So, really, you can pick your hospital and an OB who does surgery there who has a shred of bedside manner at your first visit and you're all set. See how easy that was?

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  13. Nice job on acquiring the OB. Must be nice to hear yourself say you are pregnant, even if a bit surprising each time I bet.

    Contrary to popular opinion, I say make the test easier. I've taught an undergrad class for 6-7 semesters and dealing with the onslaught of complaints (they are very entitled, these kids) is probably more than a pregnant Bunny wants to deal with. But that's my lazy ass opinion.

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  14. Did your re give you any recommendations? Mine said he would if I ever get there. good luck!

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  15. Could your clinic recommend anyone? That's what I plan to do if/when I get pregnant again, since my gyno doesn't deliver and my clinic is based at the hospital I would want to deliver at anyway.

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  16. Glad you are graduating to the regular OB! It's hard to find a good one and when you do you end up dealing with the other ones in the practice as well..so the only advice I can give is to make sure you can stand all of them :)

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  17. Congrats on graduating to the OB! There's a lot to be said for convenience.

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  18. I usually pick my docs blindly, too. If I don't like them, I move on. However, I've been pretty lucky with them so far. All of these people commenting above me have far better advice.

    I'm just so excited that you're moving on to a regular OB!

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  19. I think convenience is a good factor, in absence of recommendations. And if you don't like him/her, you can still pick someone else...

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  20. Ah, Bunny the graduate.

    It is so great to see you here. I really think it is a good sign they moved you on - no reason to worry. You just plain old pregnant now.

    It is a weird transition to become a normal patient. Nov 1 may as well be when the child arrives, for crying out loud.

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