What motivates men to become OB/GYNs?

Why do you care?

Is you life so void you have nothing to do but think about this, and post your weird thought here? Or did your ex girlfriend marry one and you are jealous?

I have a buddy who is an OB. He loves to see new life. He says that is what attracted him the most during rotations.

The dollars dude.. it's all about money.

guy who wonders wrote:

Why do you care?

I don't care, really. More curious than anything. I also find it surprising that men are able to sustain OB/GYN practices when they are competing with well-trained, experienced female doctors in the same field.

I can understand the comment about these doctors enjoying witnessing the conception and birth of new life, but so much of their time is spent seeing patients for routine appointments, follow-up etc. How can a male doctor, even with numerous years of education and experience, ever expect to really understand and relate to their patients? How many of these doctors are driven by their concern for the health and welfare of women? Very few, I bet.

Again, how many dudes would see a female urologist? I sure the hell wouldn't.

big red flag wrote:

I personally don't understand why a guy would choose to treat people (i.e., women) he can't possibly relate to on a physical, biological, emotional or societal level. It is just the financial benefits of practicing in a flourishing medical field and guaranteed job security? Is it a love for children and birth? Then why not pediatrics?

How many men go to see female urologists?

How many people do you know that have a cardiologist or endocrinologist? Now how many women do you know that DON'T have an OB/GYN? It's supply and demand. The jobs are out there.

This is from a sampling of two OB/GYN guys, but the consensus is "Because of the babies."

OP, you raise an important question, but you're justification of it makes you look like an absolute dumbarse. Can an oncologist relate to someone who's dying of cancer? Can a healthy, fit cardiologist relate to a morbidly obese person with CD?

No. MOST OB/GYNs do what they do because they enjoy that area of medical science - maybe it's the babies, maybe it's something else.

But you're right about one thing. It IS astounding that so many doctors go into OB/GYN considering they get sued ALL. THE. F@#$ING. TIME. by scumbag system abusers. Like, last summer, a morbidly obese woman who got pregnant in vitro sued an OB/GYN because "he waited too long to perform a C-section" and the kid got cerebral palsy. The jury awarded the woman something like $60 MILLION. So, this fat in vitro (which both increase the rate of C-section/birth complications) mother sued the doctor and got awarded all this dough when she has NO F@#$ING IDEA what kind of knowledge or work it takes to be an OB/GYN, and fully blames the doctor for not making 'the correct' decision when it was her fatass that put him between a rock and a hard place in the first place.

Juries look at cases like this and go "OMG it was a CHILD!" and immediately sue the doctor for all he/she is worth.

No sir. I'm wouldn't be an OB/GYN.

big red flag wrote:

I personally don't understand why a guy would choose to treat people (i.e., women) he can't possibly relate to on a physical, biological, emotional or societal level. It is just the financial benefits of practicing in a flourishing medical field and guaranteed job security? Is it a love for children and birth? Then why not pediatrics?

How many men go to see female urologists?

A better question is why anyone, man or woman, becomes a proctologist. To go through all that schooling and training to spend your life peering up bungholes. Now that's a mystery. And don't tell me about the money: there are plety of other specialties that must make at least as much. Are there any proctologists here that want to chime in?

But doctor wrote:

big red flag wrote:

How many men go to see female urologists?

A better question is why anyone, man or woman, becomes a proctologist.

I've gone to a female urologist. No problem at all.

And I had a college classmate who became a proctologist--but, as he says, he was "THIS CLOSE" to becoming a gynecologist...

PS When it comes time to pick your primary-care physician (or whatever they're calling GPs these days), my advice to men is that they always choose a female.

Two words: prostate exam.

big red flag wrote:

How can a male doctor, even with numerous years of education and experience, ever expect to really understand and relate to their patients? How many of these doctors are driven by their concern for the health and welfare of women? Very few, I bet.

Most oncologists have never had cancer. Most cardiologists have never had any kind of serious heart problem. Is your assumption that these specialists cannot relate to their patients because they haven't been through what their patients are going through? Should only leukemia survivors treat leukemia?

big red flag wrote:

How many men go to see female urologists?

Quite a few, apparently:

Btw, you do know that a lot of women go to see urologists, right?

big red flag wrote:

How many men go to see female urologists?

But my OB/GYN is a male and in fact, I've always gone to a male OB/GYN. I prefer it that way.

711711711 wrote:

You do realize though that that $60 million is being footed by regular consumers, such as yourself, not the insurance industry. They're going to be jacking up medical insurance on all doctors so they're going to have to pass that along to patients, either directly or through medical plans. Malpractice suits are one of the main reasons why health care is so ridiculously expensive in the U.S. compared to all the other industrialized countries, which aren't as litigious. It pisses me off when people are awarded huge settlements, even if they were screwed over, because it raises the cost of living for everybody else and encourages them to find someone to blame so they can get a free ride through life as well. No baby is worth $60 million, even if the doctor was at fault.

Whoa Whoa Whoa

I am not defending the lawsuits. Hold Up. I hate them, as well. That being said, if the doctor does something awful, fvcking string him up.

In my post, I was just saying that the OB was not left to foot the bill. What I was implying is that by becoming an OB, you aren't taking a huge risk of being on the hook for a $60 Million payout. All businesses can get sued for stupid things like people slipping, etc. Hence the E&O and Malpractice insurance policies.

Now, the $60 Million baby thing is another story. I wouldn't say a baby isn't worth $60 Million. My babies were worth more than that to me, no amount of money could make up for them.

I suspect your $60 Million payout is lacking any documentation. If you have it, I'd love to see it. What jury awards $60 Million to a woman without some heinous crime taking place in the delivery unit?

What interests me the most about the specialty is that it:

-(anecdotally) it is a less competitive area of medicine

-The patients I'm treating generally aren't sick. I'm just the expert on the birthing process and its complications and they are coming to me to make sure things go as easy as possible.

-I'm a people person so I get to talk to a lot of patients on all of their regularly scheduled visits leading up to the birth.

-Miracle of Life

What interests me the least and may be the deal breakers for me:

-People telling me I'm a pervert for wanting to look at Vaginas a lot

-Potential slew of really disgustingly sick vaginas that I treat as a GYN

no clue... wrote:But my OB/GYN is a male and in fact, I've always gone to a male OB/GYN. I prefer it that way.

Yep, spoken like a true female drone of the pervasive, oppressive, patriarchy.

no clue... wrote:

big red flag wrote:

How many men go to see female urologists?

But my OB/GYN is a male and in fact, I've always gone to a male OB/GYN. I prefer it that way.

I know many women who do. I've always found this interesting. Why do you feel that way?

word from a spinster aunt wrote:

Yep, spoken like a true female drone of the pervasive, oppressive, patriarchy.

Seriously. Don't give into the oppressive patriarchy. Instead, listen to this man who is telling you how you should feel.

OB/Gyns do a lot more than deliver babies - many of them do, anyway.

I know many OB's who are men and none are perverts. Most of them enjoy surgery, but for a variety of reasons chose not to go into general surgery. Unlike pediatrics, it is a very different, surgical field. Most of them enjoy, or at least at some point in their careers enjoyed, participating in births - catching babies, as we used to call it in med school. At our facility, though, most of the routine deliveries are done by midwives and the OB is the fireman who comes in STAT if there is an emergency.

I know several OB's who don't do any deliveries and specialize in oncology, incontinence and a variety of other specialized area of surgery. So I'm not sure why you would think that a men going into OB would raise any 'big red flags' as you put it. Most of us in medicine, very early on in our training, quickly get over being self-conscious or embarrassed by seeing genitalia of either sex. It's just part of the job and after about the 10,000th pelvic exam or hernia exam or whatever, believe me, you don't really get all that worked up over it.

Jibberman wrote:

That being said, if the doctor does something awful, fvcking string him up.

You realize there is a difference between a doctor making an honest mistake and a doctor being negligent. In both cases "something awful" can happen, and in both cases the patient, or his family, should be awarded compensation. BUT a mistake does not mean the doctor should lose his license, practice, savings, etc.

If a teacher makes a mistake, a kid might go around thinking that the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor. If a doctor makes a mistake, someone can die. The stakes are much higher, but doctors are still humans and WILL make mistakes. Its just a fact of life, and will continue until the iDoc comes out.