Obstetrics Flashcards

What is Obstetrics?

Obstetric medicine is the branch of medicine concerned with pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care of women after childbirth. Obstetrics students will concentrate on areas such as female anatomy, urology, reproduction, psychology, surgery, gynecology, endocrinology, diabetes, and anesthesia.

In the United States, an obstetrician is a medical physician with additional training in obstetric medicine. It will take twelve years of training to become a qualified obstetrician made up of a four-year undergraduate degree, a four-year medical degree and a four year paid residency.

A midwife is either a nurse with a four-year nursing degree and an additional one to two years training or has completed a specialized midwife course and has the equivalent nursing qualifications.

Careers in Obstetrics

Obstetrics is perhaps considered to be one of the more desirable areas of medicine.  For a start, your patients are generally healthy, in that, they are of reproductive age and you are of course getting involved with a natural healthy bodily process in bringing a new life into the world rather than dealing with sickness, per se.

That being said, obstetrics is not plain sailing. No woman should go through childbirth without health care as the complications and risks involved are just too great regardless of the fact that the majority of births are natural and require limited medical intervention.

Whilst deaths of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth are rare these days it does still happen, occasionally. Dealing with the death of babies (either unborn, stillborn or born) in obstetrics is, however, by no means rare at all.

Obstetric medicine with the advances of radiology gives women information about birth defects prior to birth, which will always be relatively common and affects 3-5% of babies.

Working in an obstetric team also means working closely with parents in determining outcomes for unborn babies - many of them having conditions incompatible with life.  

Happily though, for the most part, working in obstetrics means that you will see the miracle of life happening in your professional life on a daily basis and share in the most precious moments of people’s lives.

If you have what it takes to get involved in obstetrics then salary rates are excellent in this exceptionally rewarding profession. Obstetricians earn some of the highest salaries in America with a median salary in excess of $200,000 and will earn around $50,000 during their residency. Midwives are also high earning professionals in the US and easily outstrip the salary of many experienced UK doctors with a median salary of around $90,000. There are also plenty of roles for dedicated obstetric technicians that require less training and educational entry requirements.

The American Pregnancy Association is a great resource if you are thinking of becoming a midwife whereas The American College Of Obstetricians and  Gynecologists and The American Association of Obstetricians And Gynecologists Foundation are both great for budding obstetricians. You can also watch this video featuring OB/GYN Dr Carmen Woods-Holloway describing her career and work life balance.

Learning Obstetrics

There’s no time to waste in obstetric medicine. In the case of labor, health professionals need to monitor stats in an organized and precise manner with extreme attention to detail. They also need to react appropriately, immediately, and professionally as part of a coordinated team to save both the lives of mum and baby.

Whether you are a doctor or a midwife you need to know your medical and scientific knowledge inside out in order to excel in professional practice.

Brainscape is the ideal tool for obstetric students allowing them to master foundational medical knowledge and tackle the vast syllabus in a manageable way.

Obstetrics in Brainscape

Students can learn content and prepare for medical exams by using the thousands of flashcards prepared by top obstetric professors and medical students, available to use, in Brainscape, for free.

There are also study guides in Brainscape developed in partnership with Next Step Test Preparation that are helping students across America get into med school and nursing college. If you need to ace your exams then check out our unrivaled AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and MCAT Science study guides.    

Brainscape also allows you to create your own learning catalog by authoring flashcards yourself for individual use or for the whole of the Brainscape community.

Learn faster with Brainscape

Brainscape’s confidence-based repetition system known as CBR is revolutionizing learning for students. With CBR you can learn twice as fast and remember longer and here’s how this game-changing education tool works.

Brainscape’s unique system is a hybrid of three learning methods: Active Recall, Metacognition, and Spaced Repetition.

Active recall incorporated in the CBR system like many other computer-aided learning tools is the method of retrieving rather than recognizing information and strengthening your own neural pathways in the process. This process is particularly beneficial for medical students as they need to build on their knowledge and retrieve that information later.

Brainscape also uses spaced repetition which is a proven learning method and is the process of showing you bite-sized pieces of information at intervals by essentially using flashcards rather than a page with lots of information on it. Thousands of academic studies have recorded the effectiveness of this learning technique.

What makes CBR different, however, is its use of the individual learner’s metacognition to power the algorithm. Instead of randomly viewing notecards in Brainscape after each card you will be asked to record an understanding rating from 1-5. If you record a “5” the pack of cards will be shuffled so that flashcard is rarely shown and you’ll optimize your time by learning cards that you rated with lower scores.

This carefully calculated reshuffling is having remarkable results. As a medical student, you’ll be pushed to your limits so it makes sense to make use the most powerful educational tool on today’s market.

How to get started

Getting started learning Obstetrics Medicine with Brainscape is easy.

To start creating your own personal interactive learning catalog then just click on the “make flashcards” at the top of the page and get started today.

Alternatively, there’s loads of great content already created by top contributors whether your studying to become a midwife or a doctor. Select a deck from below suitable for your course and get started now, maybe Amniocentesis, Hypertensive disorders, Developmental Abnormalities, Parturition, Dystocia or Obstetric Emergencies. Whichever, you choose you are sure to find Brainscape an invaluable tool in your medical studies.

Brainscape wishes you all the best in your future studies and Obstetrics career. Happy learning form the Brainscape team.