When OB Closes: The Uncomfortable Truth About Emergency Obstetric Competency
Health care professionals are expected to be prepared to stabilize and/or treat any type of patient who presents to an emergency setting, including a pregnant patient or has recently given birth.
A rural ER physician recently posted about attending an in-service on precipitous delivery and postpartum hemorrhage. The hospital’s obstetric unit closes December 31st. The post went viral, and the sentiment was clear: ER doctors do not want to deliver babies.
The physician’s frustration is understandable. But embedded in that refrain is an assumption worth interrogating: that emergency physicians managing childbirth represents a failure state, an aberration to be lamented rather than a reality to be addressed.
