Last summer, I spent bits and pieces of my days in an operating room watching cesareans, labia reconstructions, and uterine polyp removals, along with a number of other surgeries. When I wasn’t in the OR, I was fortunate enough to shadow Dr. Lizellen La Follette in her private practice and follow her in the Labor and Delivery ward of Marin General Hospital (MGH) for a many number of vaginal deliveries. So, after discussing vaginal births v. cesareans, and the way that doctors approach a labor, Dr. La Follette and I decided work on a study together that would look at vaginal births after cesareans (VBAC). The study plans to determine if there is an association between epidural use and cesarean section among women who are attempting to VBAC, which is an area of obstetrics that is currently under-researched. We hypothesized that women who receive an epidural will have a different rate of successful VBAC than those who do not receive an epidural.

Though I thought I’d be working side by side with Dr. La Follette all summer, I found myself mostly doing independent research. I worked in the Medical Records Office of Marin General Hospital for hours (5+) at a time reading through old patients’ charts, looking for information we might find useful for the study. I reviewed 14 years of patient data in Marin General Hospital, a general medical and surgical hospital in Greenbrae, California with 235 beds. Ultimately, we had over one thousand charts pulled, and each was very different. Depending on the year, the charts varied in format. Additionally, I had to learn how to read and understand doctors’ notes within the charts and the nurses’ flowsheets. This provided us with a huge amount of data, up to 30 data points per patient researched.

To complete every field of this “mega” excel spreadsheet, I had to sort through pages and pages of notes that were barely legible, decipher acronyms and errors in notes that were taken during the delivery. Some charts would indicate that an epidural had been used, but upon further investigation I would find that the patient had a quick second stage and that the epidural couldn’t be used because of the baby’s rapid descent into the pelvis and vaginal canal.

Ultimately, the work that I was doing this summer was incredibly challenging. I was held to an incredibly high standard since I had already shadowed Dr. La Follette, and I was expected to understand large amounts of information that I had not previously learned. Eventually, I was discussing patient charts with Dr. La Follette on a regular basis, even over the phone, and using terminology that made me think and feel like a doctor. This experience was invaluable, and has been instrumental in reconfirming my desires to attend medical school and study obstetrics and gynecology. Since I was Dr. La Follette’s go-to on this study, and was leading the research, I was constantly learning and required to explain to others, even Dr. La Follette, the direction in which the study was going, and the focus of our findings.

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to spend my summer working with such unique data that will be at the forefront of OB research. More importantly, Dr. La Follette was an incredible mentor and taught me more about medicine and research than I could have ever hoped. The amount of work that I accomplished is so exciting and I am very proud of how hard I worked and how much I learned.

Finally, none of this could have really been possible without the support and funding that I received from Scripps and its donors. I wouldn’t have been able to accept the position had it not been for the funding that I received, and for that I am grateful.