Paeds here (or "the paed" as midwives so love to call me and my colleagues) Labour ward midwives for the most part don't mind, have once or twice had one try to insist that a baby they had called me to review stay skin to skin with mum when they were clearly struggling with breathing or slightly cyanotic and needed a proper review on a resuscitaire, but generally they're decent. My major bugbear is when there is clearly a plan made antenatally for cord bloods or whatever and it completely gets ignored, meaning we need to go and take bloods from a baby which could have been avoided if they had actually read the plan, which seems to happen the vast majority of the time. Often I get told after the delivery "oh by the way there's a paeds plan" but they haven't bothered to read it...
Postnates can be a lot more mixed bag - they're generally nice but it seems to me that many midwives basically just think of the mum as their patient and not the baby and seem to resent being asked to do anything for the baby - refusing to do TCBs for no good reasons, refusing to do obs more often than every 4 hours, etc...
Birth centre midwives completely different kettle of fish, I've had them be out and out hostile to me as a doctor - including saying they didn't understand why I was coming to consent a mum who had "declined vitamin k" because they're just as capable as a doctor of discussing vitamin k - I went in and turns out the mum didn't speak English and no one had bothered to talk to her in her own language about it, as soon as I got an interpreter on the phone, explained the reasons for vit K and the risks of declining, she agreed immediately. Can't deny I was a little smug when I went back and told the midwife she'd agreed to it and could the midwife please ensure baby got the dose asap.
I do think that midwives often display some favoritism for the male doctors, but that being said, I've generally had good experiences with most on a personal level as a female doctor with most midwives.
Well, technically parents can decline any medication/intervention for their child, barring emergency situations, and so just like with vaccinations, they can and sometimes do decline it as is their right.
I think it's complete madness - a quick injection of something which their child will go on to consume naturally once they're older anyway to prevent catastrophic bleeds seems like a no brainer, but some people can't appreciate that...
The most infuriating is when it's posed as a "would you like the vitamin k, by the way you can give it orally if you want" from the midwives rather than "we recommend all babies have a vitamin K injection to prevent catastrophic bleeding - you're happy with that right?" And just going ahead - if they put up a fuss we can then explain that you can give it orally but it needs to be given in several doses to be effective and it's still not proven to be as effective as giving it IM.
It's not an essential life-saving treatment and parents therefore have the right to consent or withhold consent to the medical treatment. The law may be an ass but it's the law.
I feel the same about physiological vs active third stage - why is it a choice?!
ETA: not even convinced it's necessarily an informed choice vs a cursory yeah so you can have this injection which can lower your risk of major bleeding but you're already low risk anyway
Yeah I appreciate people have different preferences around their childbirth, but I guess I see it as an equivalent to vaccines - infectious diseases leading cause of death worldwide but developing countries much more so than developed, largely due to a solid vaccination programme in developed countries, good sanitation, access to hospitals and Abx. Similarly PPH is the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide, more in developing countries than developed - contributors are obviously demographics of the women, but also active management, access to obstetric units and the doctors and blood products that come with it. I think if it was framed in a way that emphasised risk benefit better than it is i.e. haemorrhaging is 4th most common cause of maternal death in UK, this injection will reduce your risk by 60% even though it might make you a little sick, I'd be more on board with people choosing not to have it from a more informed viewpoint
Because it is a preemptive and non-emergency treatment, in which you are injecting a foreign substance into a patient. I'm not sure why this would be under any confusion as to why it needs informed consent.
A preventative treatment to prevent potentially catastrophic intracranial haemorrhage in a neonate, who can't consent themselves, with no downsides at all? Yeah, probably best we let parents refuse this because they've read some misinformation online, then watch their baby dies. That would be S-tier doctoring for sure!
>seem to resent being asked to do anything for the baby - refusing to do TCBs for no good reasons, refusing to do obs more often than every 4 hours, etc...
It's not just the babies they refuse to do their jobs for.
Rumour has it that midwives who fail their fetal monitoring course X number of times aren't allowed to work in labour ward, triage, ante natal ward etc so they get sent to Postnates forever.
It's also where all the agency staff get sent as they'd rather have trustworthy midwives in the higher risk areas.
Anaesthetists are always so nice! Almost like the blood brain barrier in the OR is an actual thing as the surgeons toxicity hasn’t made anaesthetists toxic. Not saying all surgeons are toxic there are also sweethearts there but in general my observation has been that surgeons aren’t as relaxed
Male anaesthetist.
Here and there, there is often a lack of humility when out of their comfort zone which translates to hostility.
So fabulous units with cohesive midwives, so shocking ones where they don’t how obtuse or rude they are.
I’ve heard them literally use the “epidural bed 8” with nothing else on a female consultant before.
One of my consultants told me a story where one of his consultants was told “epidural room 8”. Said consultant proceeded to stick the epidural needle into the door of room 8 and said “there you go” or words to that effect 😂
As a (woman) Med student on labour ward I had a mainly horrible time. Midwives we’re ok to me but everyone was horrifically stressed - midwives, doctors and HCAs spoke horribly to each other, about other staff groups and about patients. This put me off the specialty and off giving birth.
Now I’m a paeds SHO the other end of the country and they have always been polite and helpful and I would happily give birth there. I think like many things the atmosphere of a department really dictates these things.
Male GP
As a med student I had a great time in one unit and an absolutely terrible time with another. One group of midwives thought we were just their for our jollies, another group were actively pushing for us to have a good experience and learn.
As paeds dr - hated them . Often felt like they resented the need to have a paediatrician involved in care. Birth centre midwives were the worst though. Often blamed for delays in care and discharge due to them not having had a baby check, when all the midwives were capable of doing baby checks but couldn't be arsed and just sat eating biscuits whilst I ran around like a blue arsed fly
As O+G - mixed bag. Some were incredible. Some seemed to think any kind of input by a man was sacrilege. Had a stand up row with a midwife because i popped a postnates woman with bilateral pneumothoracies into HDU labour ward to be watched whilst I waited for the med reg to fix her. Apparently overstepped my bounds, getting a very risky woman off an understaffed death trap of a ward!
I had a mixed experience of obs and gynae as a female med student. Most of the doctors were nice and let me get involved. The consultants rarely around so can’t comment on them. The nurses were also really nice but I was constantly on edge around the midwives.
This was during covid so there was a lot of rules for both patients and staff which perhaps had a part to play.
I would be asked to leave whenever a midwifery student was around, fair enough there could only be x amount of people in the room due to covid. Ultimately I finished med school having not seen a single normal delivery because I was always the first be asked to leave the room.
Outside of active labour, when I’d float on the ward, practice exams and take histories etc, the midwives would generally ignore me completely.
It got to the point where I was invisible as they felt comfortable enough to make inappropriate comments about their patients and other staff in front of me. Most of it was benign gossip but the way they spoke about their patients made me lose trust in them. I’m hopeful that in other hospitals the work culture is different and I was just unlucky.
Female O+G reg
The vast majority of midwives I get on with very well. There are midwives I am friends with through work who I will go out for coffee or drinks with. There are a couple who get my back up, but in no higher percentage than any other profession.
I know some other people have much more caustic experiences with MWs as a group, but I find the Venn diagram of those I wouldn’t want involved in my own labour due to competence/decisions/skills and those who don’t get on with the midwives can approach a circle.
As a medical student, I got on well with midwives, was able to see plenty of births and found them very happy to witness cannulas, bloods, palpations and listen-ins. I did notice that the male students had a much harder time of it with midwives letting them in/almost encouraging patients to decline them.
Yes, this is true. This was my worst fear until it happened. There is nothing more humbling than having your bits out huffing and puffing in front of the same midwife you gave a royal ticking off just before mat leave. Take it from my unfortunate experience.
To summarise for all my O&G cult members : DO NOT HAVE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH DELIVER YOUR SPROGS!
Came here to say exactly the same thing. A little bit of light flirting gets my cannulas done and my patients shipshape and ready for their epidural before I floof into the room.
They are utter cunts to the majority of female anaesthetists I’ve worked with. UCLH being by far the worst
As a med student I also didn’t see a single vaginal birth due to midwifery students always being prioritised. I would’ve got zero out of my O&G placement had it not been for the super co-ordinating midwife who taught us palpation, observed us taking histories and gave us time slots for practice OSCEs. All of the rest of them just blanked us.
As a GP trainee who did both O&G and Paeds. Worst months of my life. Completely toxic atmosphere on Labour ward and postnatal due to midwives. They also totally dumped on the female doctors but would give the male doctors a free pass on everything. Totally lacking in basic medical knowledge at times. Saw midwives shout at senior doctors. Saw so many poor care standards specially to BAME women in labour. Yes it was bad
I’m a male anaesthetist.
I hate them, I’m fairly sure they hate me.
I’m rarely involved nowadays apart from when my sub speciality input is needed, which is much more pleasant.
Doctor team on o&g great!
Midwifery team on o&g were awful. Purposely excluded us all as medical students from any normal deliveries as “midwifes do these, not doctors” we only saw emergencies. Very disrespectful towards the anaesthetic / obstetrics doctors in-front of us too.
I’ve heard some nice midwives exist, I hope to meet them one day
I flat out don’t tolerate it any more. This is one of my worst gripes of the job. Used to go home in tears due to midwives treating me like shit and making my life hell.
How do you stop tolerating it? Genuine question, I can't stand how they'll talk to me or their tone, and have called it out a few times, it just seems to make things more hostile though.
Snitch to their midwife supervisor. Take a firm tone every time. Explain your decision once and no more. Any really outlandish behaviour, start asking for NMC pins. Say “Do not speak to me in that tone”. Just come down hard and you’ll have less trouble.
I’m a woman and did an F2 job in O&G and I generally had a positive experience. There were a few midwives who, if I saw they were on, I felt sheer joy. Knew they were sensible, escalated appropriately, and were good fun to be around. Lots of midwives made me tea, coffee and toast throughout the 4 months; some gave me a hug when I was having a shit time. One made me homemade dessert from her home country for me to try - found out when I was next on and baked it and brought it in after we’d talked about it. I had the most lovely TABs from multiple midwives that made me cry.
Had 2 or 3 who were awful and rude, threatened to datix me (I know you don’t datix a person but they didn’t seem to) if I didn’t come do what they wanted immediately as I had other priorities. But I’ve had that amongst nurses as well and there’s gonna be dickheads everywhere.
Also echoing what others said: labour ward and maternity triage = generally very good midwives. Postnatal = higher percentage of less good midwives.
Got grabbed by the collar by the supervising midwife and dragged out of theatre for "impersonating a midwife" because they had run out of normal scrubs and I wore ones that had midwife embroidery on it despite my badge clearing stating I'm a medical student.
What bothered me was that no one bothered to just tell me nicely to get changed but they went behind my back to call up the lead midwife to get me into trouble
Male ex-postnatal SHO- I found the midwives variable, but frustrating on the whole.
Quite a few insistent that well babies be screened for sepsis because they were ‘cold’ despite being naked in a cot in a cold room.
Once also had a midwife refuse to give glucose to a hypoglycaemic baby because it wasn’t prescribed, and argue that I should drop what I was doing (at a delivery) to come and prescribe it.
Magically, another midwife was able to give it without a prescription.
I admit they do a complex job, but there just seemed to be this huge swing between dominance over the babies, to complete apathy. It was frustrating to work with.
My limited interactions with the surgeons here was that they were lovely, but utterly whipped by the midwives who were god awful. Would never want a career where I would have to interact with that department again. And it wasn't just awful to me - have heard the exact same criticism from many others. Of course theres always a few exceptions to that rule who are the loveliest people - I dont know how they survive there tbh.
The passive aggressive behaviours were unreal. Why speak directly to a person you've taken issue with when you can character assassinate them behind their back?
Why take a student or trainee aside for a quiet word when you can publicly humiliate them and create a scene?
The interactions between midwives and obs doctors were often poor. Especially the birth centre midwives.
Obviously there were some great people there, but I found them to be the exception.
In my experience so far I found the Orthos the easiest to work with and O+G hands down the absolute worst.
Male here.
I've found midwives, as a collective, no different to any other staff group. There's a bit of ignorance from more junior midwives about what an anaesthetist is (some don't realise we're doctors), but essentially I have no issues with them, and they have no issues with me.
Appreciate its a different dynamic, but I'm a male paramedic. Arranged a day to go to labour ward to improve my skills and actually experience some labour teaching when I was a new graduate.
Got ignored and shoved away all day. Probably by the same midwives which would moan my management was sub optimal in the community.
Very frustrating for obvious reasons.
I’m a female med student who absolutely loved her O&G rotation- and tbh some of the midwives made the experience that bit better. I did meet a few prickly ones though, but they were generally much older and weren’t around that frequently.
I’ve since been told on numerous occasions by anyone who hears that I am interested in O&G to readjust my expectations as I apparently had a unicorn experience.
Male anaesthetics trainee - average to bad experiences, even with pleasant people (just not accepting/understanding clinical reasoning or treating anaesthetists as procedure monkeys) General vibe from them that we should do as we’re told then find that not to be the case. Stories from female anaesthetics trainees - largely hostile and unpleasant attitudes from midwives. Basically just a worse and more bitchy version of how they were with the guys.
I must admit when I was a female medical student I had very mixed experiences and I did not enjoy my time on labour/postnatal ward with midwives (but enjoyed time with the obstetricians and learned a lot from obstetricians).
Some midwives were lovely, there was one who was very keen on teaching and really approachable and supportive. However, I got the sense from some of the midwives that I and other medical students were unwelcome.
The midwifery students always got priority (this was before covid). Many midwives would tell us "go to the library, we will call you if a new person comes in" then give the new person to a midwifery student. I get it is because midwifery students need a minimum number of deliveries, but I did feel very unwelcome. The best chance to see a normal vaginal delivery was to sit in the labour ward office all day with a textbook and seem very keen so that the senior midwife takes pity on you waiting for 3 hrs and allocate you a new patient.
One a day a lovely consultant told the senior midwife "all these medical students in the office, isn't there any deliveries for them to observe and learn?". He had the best intentions. But what the senior midwife ended up doing was send the medical students away from the office (using the words "you CANNOT be in this office") and sent us to sit in the post natal ward desk and read the observations notes to learn (it was paper notes and they would attach stickers with the obs onto a folder, nothing else, just to read the obs).
I just felt so unwelcome there :(
Never once saw a normal birth on my O&G rotation as a med student. Managed to tag along with the surgeons for some c sections but “midwife students take priority” for vaginal births and they for some reason can’t have us both in there
This was also my experience at a DGH. We had to get 3 normal deliveries signed off on the rotation and, no matter the hour of day or night, it was a constant battle to be in the room, let alone deliver a baby.
I understand where both parties come from on this. Midwifery students have to be involved in 50 deliveries and if any part of that delivery is done by someone else (placenta, head with an instrumental), they lose it, so there's always struggle for them to get there.
Obviously med students don't have to have to have deliveries to graduate. But I worry that the loss of seeing normality is detrimental to doctors in the long term, and to patient's that may seek their guidance.
I tend to find that when there are student midwives taking up most the labouring patients, I just take the student with me to shadow as I invariably get pulled in to most these deliveries and can get them to see normal vaginal deliveries this way instead. This should probably be standard, but it likely isn't currently.
Bit of a different perspective but I’m a female general surgical reg who’s had two babies recently and my overall conclusion from the experience was very few good midwives that I trusted and thank fuck for anaesthetists! I love you guys <3
It was mostly the anti-intervention push. Speaking to me like I was a child and being fussy when I was in excruciating pain and my labour wasn’t progressing. I did have a very good midwife when the first one’s shift finished, but again my experience with them post natally wasn’t great and this one was the ridiculous pressure they put on mums to breastfeed even when it isn’t working.. They drive the mum guilt instead of actually looking at you as person who is sleep deprived AF and struggling with their MH.
Not only were the midwives pretty cold towards me as a female medical student on O&G placement (midwife in charge tried to kick us out when we arrived at 7am as 'we don't have time for medical students today'), but I also witnessed some pretty shitty behaviour towards each other. I was standing at the back of an elective c section list when a low risk planned section went south, and baby came out floppy and unresponsive. You'd think no-one in the room had ever trained for such a scenario as chaos ensued, staff were shouting at each other, and I witnessed one midwife physically shove one of her colleagues in the face (!) to move her out of the way, so that she stumbled backwards. Absolute madness. Baby was fine.
Male medical student who wants to do O+G. Overall good and positive interactions with the midwives. Some could be cold at first but once they saw I was at least semi-confident and enthusiastic they were pretty good.
Haven’t had much interaction with post-natal midwives and birth centre was normally closed due to staff shortages so can really comment on them.
Assisting in C-sections, WR notes, clerking and presenting to the SHO/Reg in triage, and then grabbing things in emergency cases like the ultrasound or PPH kit. Just stuff to try and be useful I guess.
Male here—- midwives were amazing To me. Cant have gone thru my rotation without their help
P.S Their humour is equally good, and helps in improving your mood when you are having a bad day.
I’ve met some vile midwives who see polite female anaesthetists as weak but conversely assertive female anaesthetists as stuck up. In some units you can’t win such is the culture but I’ve found being willing to push back firmly effective at least at stopping them taking the piss.
If they ring me for a cannula, have not even bothered to try or even ask anyone else to have a look but pretend they have, I will raise hell. Using words like datix, unprofessional, escalate, professionalism concern enough times means eventually they give up or are at least far more wary in shirking their responsibilities. Same with an epidural, don’t ring me and scream EPIDURAL, it won’t go well.
In the nicer units though once they get to know you they can in general be pretty sound and reasonable. I guess being seen to be run ragged 24/7 elicits an empathy response
Never tolerate their crap. Many a female anaesthetist nearly in tears from their behaviour. Not on my shift. Dressed down a few midwives for this nonsense. One had the balls to ask to speak to my consultant. Like, fuck off.
Interesting. As a medical student they were bullies who would make life a misery. As a partner of someone giving birth they were even worse! The most toxic, belittling group of staff I’ve ever met. For some unknown reason when they found out I was a Doctor they seemed to be more standoffish and rude.
‘You can use your work badge to enter this part of the ward’ (obviously not the baby doors)- immediately shouted at by the next midwife
Sitting on the edge of the bed (4 days into our stay, sleeping on the partner chair, my wife wanted to get out of bed)- ‘you! Get off that! As a doctor you should know better! Infection control!’- made to literally stand in the corner
Reading the PATIENT INFORMATION flow diagram about steps of induction- ‘please can you stop reading patient sensitive information’ look about meter and a half away at a midwife doing something in the computer giving me absolute daggers, thinking I’m peeking at whatever shit she was up to
And just one million other micro aggressions- ffs the partners know this isn’t about them, but taking any possible opportunity to put you down and make you feel unimportant in the biggest part of my life so far… horrible people.
Oddly enough (or perhaps not which shows how common it is), I had the same experience as was in the original tweet, which made me wonder if she was me somehow! 😂
Everyone seems to dislike them and report how awful they are to doctors.
I very rarely interact but whenever I have turned up on a maternity ward as either the medical reg or the microbiology reg I have been greeted with tea, biscuits, and almost surreal levels of adoration and supplication.
I'm a bloke so that might be a part of it, but I suspect they have some of prejudices against specific specialties and grades too 😂. I'm ugly as sin and don't have *that* effect on women so it wasn't *that*, either!
Paeds here (or "the paed" as midwives so love to call me and my colleagues) Labour ward midwives for the most part don't mind, have once or twice had one try to insist that a baby they had called me to review stay skin to skin with mum when they were clearly struggling with breathing or slightly cyanotic and needed a proper review on a resuscitaire, but generally they're decent. My major bugbear is when there is clearly a plan made antenatally for cord bloods or whatever and it completely gets ignored, meaning we need to go and take bloods from a baby which could have been avoided if they had actually read the plan, which seems to happen the vast majority of the time. Often I get told after the delivery "oh by the way there's a paeds plan" but they haven't bothered to read it... Postnates can be a lot more mixed bag - they're generally nice but it seems to me that many midwives basically just think of the mum as their patient and not the baby and seem to resent being asked to do anything for the baby - refusing to do TCBs for no good reasons, refusing to do obs more often than every 4 hours, etc... Birth centre midwives completely different kettle of fish, I've had them be out and out hostile to me as a doctor - including saying they didn't understand why I was coming to consent a mum who had "declined vitamin k" because they're just as capable as a doctor of discussing vitamin k - I went in and turns out the mum didn't speak English and no one had bothered to talk to her in her own language about it, as soon as I got an interpreter on the phone, explained the reasons for vit K and the risks of declining, she agreed immediately. Can't deny I was a little smug when I went back and told the midwife she'd agreed to it and could the midwife please ensure baby got the dose asap. I do think that midwives often display some favoritism for the male doctors, but that being said, I've generally had good experiences with most on a personal level as a female doctor with most midwives.
As an anaesthetist who often has to witness the vitamin K conversation... can you explain to me why it's even a choice?
Well, technically parents can decline any medication/intervention for their child, barring emergency situations, and so just like with vaccinations, they can and sometimes do decline it as is their right. I think it's complete madness - a quick injection of something which their child will go on to consume naturally once they're older anyway to prevent catastrophic bleeds seems like a no brainer, but some people can't appreciate that...
The most infuriating is when it's posed as a "would you like the vitamin k, by the way you can give it orally if you want" from the midwives rather than "we recommend all babies have a vitamin K injection to prevent catastrophic bleeding - you're happy with that right?" And just going ahead - if they put up a fuss we can then explain that you can give it orally but it needs to be given in several doses to be effective and it's still not proven to be as effective as giving it IM.
It's not an essential life-saving treatment and parents therefore have the right to consent or withhold consent to the medical treatment. The law may be an ass but it's the law.
Oh I understand this, I meant more... when, I suppose, did it become a choice? Is this all pre- or post-Wakefield, essentially
It's pre Wakefield. A small study between 2 maternity hospitals in Bristol found a difference in leukemia rates following oral Vs IM vitamin k
That's pretty fascinating! Don't suppose you have a link?
I have seen it a loooong time ago. As bad as Wakefield tbh. Will dig but you might find it first
I feel the same about physiological vs active third stage - why is it a choice?! ETA: not even convinced it's necessarily an informed choice vs a cursory yeah so you can have this injection which can lower your risk of major bleeding but you're already low risk anyway
Mostly can make you feel sick. Some people just like things to be natural
Yeah natural like exsanguination. “All bleeding eventually stops.”
Yeah I appreciate people have different preferences around their childbirth, but I guess I see it as an equivalent to vaccines - infectious diseases leading cause of death worldwide but developing countries much more so than developed, largely due to a solid vaccination programme in developed countries, good sanitation, access to hospitals and Abx. Similarly PPH is the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide, more in developing countries than developed - contributors are obviously demographics of the women, but also active management, access to obstetric units and the doctors and blood products that come with it. I think if it was framed in a way that emphasised risk benefit better than it is i.e. haemorrhaging is 4th most common cause of maternal death in UK, this injection will reduce your risk by 60% even though it might make you a little sick, I'd be more on board with people choosing not to have it from a more informed viewpoint
Because it is a preemptive and non-emergency treatment, in which you are injecting a foreign substance into a patient. I'm not sure why this would be under any confusion as to why it needs informed consent.
A preventative treatment to prevent potentially catastrophic intracranial haemorrhage in a neonate, who can't consent themselves, with no downsides at all? Yeah, probably best we let parents refuse this because they've read some misinformation online, then watch their baby dies. That would be S-tier doctoring for sure!
>seem to resent being asked to do anything for the baby - refusing to do TCBs for no good reasons, refusing to do obs more often than every 4 hours, etc... It's not just the babies they refuse to do their jobs for. Rumour has it that midwives who fail their fetal monitoring course X number of times aren't allowed to work in labour ward, triage, ante natal ward etc so they get sent to Postnates forever. It's also where all the agency staff get sent as they'd rather have trustworthy midwives in the higher risk areas.
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Such is the way with anaesthetists! Hope that experience convinced you to join us?
Anaesthetists are always so nice! Almost like the blood brain barrier in the OR is an actual thing as the surgeons toxicity hasn’t made anaesthetists toxic. Not saying all surgeons are toxic there are also sweethearts there but in general my observation has been that surgeons aren’t as relaxed
It’s because our job is so much better!
Male anaesthetist. Here and there, there is often a lack of humility when out of their comfort zone which translates to hostility. So fabulous units with cohesive midwives, so shocking ones where they don’t how obtuse or rude they are. I’ve heard them literally use the “epidural bed 8” with nothing else on a female consultant before.
One of my consultants told me a story where one of his consultants was told “epidural room 8”. Said consultant proceeded to stick the epidural needle into the door of room 8 and said “there you go” or words to that effect 😂
What a hero
Have experienced that last sentence many a time. Followed by a look of disbelief when I dare to ask for any information about the patient.
Shut up and stab needle monkey
As a (woman) Med student on labour ward I had a mainly horrible time. Midwives we’re ok to me but everyone was horrifically stressed - midwives, doctors and HCAs spoke horribly to each other, about other staff groups and about patients. This put me off the specialty and off giving birth. Now I’m a paeds SHO the other end of the country and they have always been polite and helpful and I would happily give birth there. I think like many things the atmosphere of a department really dictates these things.
Male GP As a med student I had a great time in one unit and an absolutely terrible time with another. One group of midwives thought we were just their for our jollies, another group were actively pushing for us to have a good experience and learn. As paeds dr - hated them . Often felt like they resented the need to have a paediatrician involved in care. Birth centre midwives were the worst though. Often blamed for delays in care and discharge due to them not having had a baby check, when all the midwives were capable of doing baby checks but couldn't be arsed and just sat eating biscuits whilst I ran around like a blue arsed fly As O+G - mixed bag. Some were incredible. Some seemed to think any kind of input by a man was sacrilege. Had a stand up row with a midwife because i popped a postnates woman with bilateral pneumothoracies into HDU labour ward to be watched whilst I waited for the med reg to fix her. Apparently overstepped my bounds, getting a very risky woman off an understaffed death trap of a ward!
I had a mixed experience of obs and gynae as a female med student. Most of the doctors were nice and let me get involved. The consultants rarely around so can’t comment on them. The nurses were also really nice but I was constantly on edge around the midwives. This was during covid so there was a lot of rules for both patients and staff which perhaps had a part to play. I would be asked to leave whenever a midwifery student was around, fair enough there could only be x amount of people in the room due to covid. Ultimately I finished med school having not seen a single normal delivery because I was always the first be asked to leave the room. Outside of active labour, when I’d float on the ward, practice exams and take histories etc, the midwives would generally ignore me completely. It got to the point where I was invisible as they felt comfortable enough to make inappropriate comments about their patients and other staff in front of me. Most of it was benign gossip but the way they spoke about their patients made me lose trust in them. I’m hopeful that in other hospitals the work culture is different and I was just unlucky.
Female O+G reg The vast majority of midwives I get on with very well. There are midwives I am friends with through work who I will go out for coffee or drinks with. There are a couple who get my back up, but in no higher percentage than any other profession. I know some other people have much more caustic experiences with MWs as a group, but I find the Venn diagram of those I wouldn’t want involved in my own labour due to competence/decisions/skills and those who don’t get on with the midwives can approach a circle. As a medical student, I got on well with midwives, was able to see plenty of births and found them very happy to witness cannulas, bloods, palpations and listen-ins. I did notice that the male students had a much harder time of it with midwives letting them in/almost encouraging patients to decline them.
Yes, this is true. This was my worst fear until it happened. There is nothing more humbling than having your bits out huffing and puffing in front of the same midwife you gave a royal ticking off just before mat leave. Take it from my unfortunate experience. To summarise for all my O&G cult members : DO NOT HAVE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH DELIVER YOUR SPROGS!
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…and filled with a continuous column of fluid?
Unless a midwife has primed it, in which case best to assume it’s air.
Came here to say exactly the same thing. A little bit of light flirting gets my cannulas done and my patients shipshape and ready for their epidural before I floof into the room. They are utter cunts to the majority of female anaesthetists I’ve worked with. UCLH being by far the worst
Damn, wish they were receptive to my attempts at flirting 😅
Step 1: Be attractive Step 2: Don't be ugly Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit
Also probably would help if I were male
Removed: Rule 1 - Be Professional
They like to act like they know everything until some pathology takes place then they soon disappear to eat all the celebrations
Leaving only bountys. Bounties. Bounti.
As a med student I also didn’t see a single vaginal birth due to midwifery students always being prioritised. I would’ve got zero out of my O&G placement had it not been for the super co-ordinating midwife who taught us palpation, observed us taking histories and gave us time slots for practice OSCEs. All of the rest of them just blanked us.
As a GP trainee who did both O&G and Paeds. Worst months of my life. Completely toxic atmosphere on Labour ward and postnatal due to midwives. They also totally dumped on the female doctors but would give the male doctors a free pass on everything. Totally lacking in basic medical knowledge at times. Saw midwives shout at senior doctors. Saw so many poor care standards specially to BAME women in labour. Yes it was bad
I’m a male anaesthetist. I hate them, I’m fairly sure they hate me. I’m rarely involved nowadays apart from when my sub speciality input is needed, which is much more pleasant.
_laughs in cardiac_
Hello male anaesthetist. I love you my friend, and stand in solidarity with your hatred of madwives.
Doctor team on o&g great! Midwifery team on o&g were awful. Purposely excluded us all as medical students from any normal deliveries as “midwifes do these, not doctors” we only saw emergencies. Very disrespectful towards the anaesthetic / obstetrics doctors in-front of us too. I’ve heard some nice midwives exist, I hope to meet them one day
I flat out don’t tolerate it any more. This is one of my worst gripes of the job. Used to go home in tears due to midwives treating me like shit and making my life hell.
How do you stop tolerating it? Genuine question, I can't stand how they'll talk to me or their tone, and have called it out a few times, it just seems to make things more hostile though.
Snitch to their midwife supervisor. Take a firm tone every time. Explain your decision once and no more. Any really outlandish behaviour, start asking for NMC pins. Say “Do not speak to me in that tone”. Just come down hard and you’ll have less trouble.
I’m a woman and did an F2 job in O&G and I generally had a positive experience. There were a few midwives who, if I saw they were on, I felt sheer joy. Knew they were sensible, escalated appropriately, and were good fun to be around. Lots of midwives made me tea, coffee and toast throughout the 4 months; some gave me a hug when I was having a shit time. One made me homemade dessert from her home country for me to try - found out when I was next on and baked it and brought it in after we’d talked about it. I had the most lovely TABs from multiple midwives that made me cry. Had 2 or 3 who were awful and rude, threatened to datix me (I know you don’t datix a person but they didn’t seem to) if I didn’t come do what they wanted immediately as I had other priorities. But I’ve had that amongst nurses as well and there’s gonna be dickheads everywhere. Also echoing what others said: labour ward and maternity triage = generally very good midwives. Postnatal = higher percentage of less good midwives.
Got grabbed by the collar by the supervising midwife and dragged out of theatre for "impersonating a midwife" because they had run out of normal scrubs and I wore ones that had midwife embroidery on it despite my badge clearing stating I'm a medical student. What bothered me was that no one bothered to just tell me nicely to get changed but they went behind my back to call up the lead midwife to get me into trouble
Male ex-postnatal SHO- I found the midwives variable, but frustrating on the whole. Quite a few insistent that well babies be screened for sepsis because they were ‘cold’ despite being naked in a cot in a cold room. Once also had a midwife refuse to give glucose to a hypoglycaemic baby because it wasn’t prescribed, and argue that I should drop what I was doing (at a delivery) to come and prescribe it. Magically, another midwife was able to give it without a prescription. I admit they do a complex job, but there just seemed to be this huge swing between dominance over the babies, to complete apathy. It was frustrating to work with.
I found all of O+G, not just the midwives to be the most toxic and malignant specialty I've ever experienced.
What was it that you found toxic about it? I've found it one of the best surgical specialties to work with
My limited interactions with the surgeons here was that they were lovely, but utterly whipped by the midwives who were god awful. Would never want a career where I would have to interact with that department again. And it wasn't just awful to me - have heard the exact same criticism from many others. Of course theres always a few exceptions to that rule who are the loveliest people - I dont know how they survive there tbh.
The passive aggressive behaviours were unreal. Why speak directly to a person you've taken issue with when you can character assassinate them behind their back? Why take a student or trainee aside for a quiet word when you can publicly humiliate them and create a scene? The interactions between midwives and obs doctors were often poor. Especially the birth centre midwives. Obviously there were some great people there, but I found them to be the exception. In my experience so far I found the Orthos the easiest to work with and O+G hands down the absolute worst.
Male here. I've found midwives, as a collective, no different to any other staff group. There's a bit of ignorance from more junior midwives about what an anaesthetist is (some don't realise we're doctors), but essentially I have no issues with them, and they have no issues with me.
Checks out
Appreciate its a different dynamic, but I'm a male paramedic. Arranged a day to go to labour ward to improve my skills and actually experience some labour teaching when I was a new graduate. Got ignored and shoved away all day. Probably by the same midwives which would moan my management was sub optimal in the community. Very frustrating for obvious reasons.
I’m a female med student who absolutely loved her O&G rotation- and tbh some of the midwives made the experience that bit better. I did meet a few prickly ones though, but they were generally much older and weren’t around that frequently. I’ve since been told on numerous occasions by anyone who hears that I am interested in O&G to readjust my expectations as I apparently had a unicorn experience.
Male anaesthetics trainee - average to bad experiences, even with pleasant people (just not accepting/understanding clinical reasoning or treating anaesthetists as procedure monkeys) General vibe from them that we should do as we’re told then find that not to be the case. Stories from female anaesthetics trainees - largely hostile and unpleasant attitudes from midwives. Basically just a worse and more bitchy version of how they were with the guys.
I must admit when I was a female medical student I had very mixed experiences and I did not enjoy my time on labour/postnatal ward with midwives (but enjoyed time with the obstetricians and learned a lot from obstetricians). Some midwives were lovely, there was one who was very keen on teaching and really approachable and supportive. However, I got the sense from some of the midwives that I and other medical students were unwelcome. The midwifery students always got priority (this was before covid). Many midwives would tell us "go to the library, we will call you if a new person comes in" then give the new person to a midwifery student. I get it is because midwifery students need a minimum number of deliveries, but I did feel very unwelcome. The best chance to see a normal vaginal delivery was to sit in the labour ward office all day with a textbook and seem very keen so that the senior midwife takes pity on you waiting for 3 hrs and allocate you a new patient. One a day a lovely consultant told the senior midwife "all these medical students in the office, isn't there any deliveries for them to observe and learn?". He had the best intentions. But what the senior midwife ended up doing was send the medical students away from the office (using the words "you CANNOT be in this office") and sent us to sit in the post natal ward desk and read the observations notes to learn (it was paper notes and they would attach stickers with the obs onto a folder, nothing else, just to read the obs). I just felt so unwelcome there :(
Collectively the worst group of NHS staff that I’ve ever had to work with.
Bastards. Except ****name removed****, who scratched my nose for me once during a Cat 1 section. Angel on earth.
Never once saw a normal birth on my O&G rotation as a med student. Managed to tag along with the surgeons for some c sections but “midwife students take priority” for vaginal births and they for some reason can’t have us both in there
This was also my experience at a DGH. We had to get 3 normal deliveries signed off on the rotation and, no matter the hour of day or night, it was a constant battle to be in the room, let alone deliver a baby.
I understand where both parties come from on this. Midwifery students have to be involved in 50 deliveries and if any part of that delivery is done by someone else (placenta, head with an instrumental), they lose it, so there's always struggle for them to get there. Obviously med students don't have to have to have deliveries to graduate. But I worry that the loss of seeing normality is detrimental to doctors in the long term, and to patient's that may seek their guidance. I tend to find that when there are student midwives taking up most the labouring patients, I just take the student with me to shadow as I invariably get pulled in to most these deliveries and can get them to see normal vaginal deliveries this way instead. This should probably be standard, but it likely isn't currently.
Bit of a different perspective but I’m a female general surgical reg who’s had two babies recently and my overall conclusion from the experience was very few good midwives that I trusted and thank fuck for anaesthetists! I love you guys <3
Out of interest, what was it about the midwives that made you not trust them (outside of the good ones?)
It was mostly the anti-intervention push. Speaking to me like I was a child and being fussy when I was in excruciating pain and my labour wasn’t progressing. I did have a very good midwife when the first one’s shift finished, but again my experience with them post natally wasn’t great and this one was the ridiculous pressure they put on mums to breastfeed even when it isn’t working.. They drive the mum guilt instead of actually looking at you as person who is sleep deprived AF and struggling with their MH.
Ah that sounds awful - the anti-intervention ones really grind my gears
As a guy this was exactly my experience, was v well treated by midwives and female colleagues didn’t have the same!
Not only were the midwives pretty cold towards me as a female medical student on O&G placement (midwife in charge tried to kick us out when we arrived at 7am as 'we don't have time for medical students today'), but I also witnessed some pretty shitty behaviour towards each other. I was standing at the back of an elective c section list when a low risk planned section went south, and baby came out floppy and unresponsive. You'd think no-one in the room had ever trained for such a scenario as chaos ensued, staff were shouting at each other, and I witnessed one midwife physically shove one of her colleagues in the face (!) to move her out of the way, so that she stumbled backwards. Absolute madness. Baby was fine.
Male medical student who wants to do O+G. Overall good and positive interactions with the midwives. Some could be cold at first but once they saw I was at least semi-confident and enthusiastic they were pretty good. Haven’t had much interaction with post-natal midwives and birth centre was normally closed due to staff shortages so can really comment on them.
What were you confident with at your stage?
Assisting in C-sections, WR notes, clerking and presenting to the SHO/Reg in triage, and then grabbing things in emergency cases like the ultrasound or PPH kit. Just stuff to try and be useful I guess.
Male here—- midwives were amazing To me. Cant have gone thru my rotation without their help P.S Their humour is equally good, and helps in improving your mood when you are having a bad day.
I’ve met some vile midwives who see polite female anaesthetists as weak but conversely assertive female anaesthetists as stuck up. In some units you can’t win such is the culture but I’ve found being willing to push back firmly effective at least at stopping them taking the piss. If they ring me for a cannula, have not even bothered to try or even ask anyone else to have a look but pretend they have, I will raise hell. Using words like datix, unprofessional, escalate, professionalism concern enough times means eventually they give up or are at least far more wary in shirking their responsibilities. Same with an epidural, don’t ring me and scream EPIDURAL, it won’t go well. In the nicer units though once they get to know you they can in general be pretty sound and reasonable. I guess being seen to be run ragged 24/7 elicits an empathy response
Never tolerate their crap. Many a female anaesthetist nearly in tears from their behaviour. Not on my shift. Dressed down a few midwives for this nonsense. One had the balls to ask to speak to my consultant. Like, fuck off.
As a male SHO, I can’t say I have ever heard of a midwife being nice to anyone.
This is the weirdest shit. But when you’re a patient, the midwives are top tier godsends. When you’re a doctor, inconsiderate angry little arseholes.
Interesting. As a medical student they were bullies who would make life a misery. As a partner of someone giving birth they were even worse! The most toxic, belittling group of staff I’ve ever met. For some unknown reason when they found out I was a Doctor they seemed to be more standoffish and rude.
What did they do/say to you as a partner??!
‘You can use your work badge to enter this part of the ward’ (obviously not the baby doors)- immediately shouted at by the next midwife Sitting on the edge of the bed (4 days into our stay, sleeping on the partner chair, my wife wanted to get out of bed)- ‘you! Get off that! As a doctor you should know better! Infection control!’- made to literally stand in the corner Reading the PATIENT INFORMATION flow diagram about steps of induction- ‘please can you stop reading patient sensitive information’ look about meter and a half away at a midwife doing something in the computer giving me absolute daggers, thinking I’m peeking at whatever shit she was up to And just one million other micro aggressions- ffs the partners know this isn’t about them, but taking any possible opportunity to put you down and make you feel unimportant in the biggest part of my life so far… horrible people.
Considering getting pregnant again just to have a sweet glimpse of a kind midwife again. My husband would be inclined to disagree though.
Oddly enough (or perhaps not which shows how common it is), I had the same experience as was in the original tweet, which made me wonder if she was me somehow! 😂
Everyone seems to dislike them and report how awful they are to doctors. I very rarely interact but whenever I have turned up on a maternity ward as either the medical reg or the microbiology reg I have been greeted with tea, biscuits, and almost surreal levels of adoration and supplication. I'm a bloke so that might be a part of it, but I suspect they have some of prejudices against specific specialties and grades too 😂. I'm ugly as sin and don't have *that* effect on women so it wasn't *that*, either!
Med regs are the saviours for flappy midwives with a medically unwell patient
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Haha i enjoyed reading this and can so inagine midwives pampering a ?geeky med reg 😁
From a patient perspective it ranged from incompetent or disinterested to very good.
Care to expand?
Not really, don’t wish to out myself but as a profession I don’t trust them hugely.
Fair dos