Flight surgeons have to give FULL exams to aviators both in and out of
the military.  Every year Rob had to bend and spread em.

Pam S.

They don't "need" the large fingers.  They just seem to "have" large
fingers when they poke where they poke.

Orthopods do tend to run big, as it takes a lot of strength to do some
of the things they need to do.

We have midwives, yes, but they are mainly just sorta specialist nurses, and
they are there in the delivery ward as nurses first. Private midwives exist,
but they aren't covered by medicare, whereas obgyn services are, so only the
truly rich can have the services of a midwife of their choice and/or see
them outside of the actual delivery ward. Even my priavte insurance only
covers about 50% of their fee, and even at 50% discount, it was still
horrendous. Although I guess you can refuse to see the obgyns, even public
patients see an obgyn at least 5 times during the pregnancy, childbirth and
recovery phase. Having private insurance, I got to see the obgyn once a
month for the first 6 and a half months, every fortnight up until the eight
month, and then every week for the ninth month. Being over 30, I got a
'nuchel fold' ultrasound (that checks for a common down's syndrome marker)
as well at 12 weeks as well as the standard two at 18 weeks and 35 weeks.
The obgyn got to see and interpret all these ultrasounds, but most of the
time he just checked my pee, checked my blood pressure, checked to see
everythign was progressing as normal and towards the end, poked around my
tum to make sure Cary was pointed int he right direction (ie, pointed to the
Out). If I didn't have the private insurance, my GP would have taken care of
the more routine appointments, and I woul have been allocated an obgyn in my
area rather than being able to nominate (there's only 3 to choose from
unless I went to Sydney for all the appointments and birth)

Whilst the midwife in the birthing ward was very encourging and
enthusiastic, she couldn't actually give me any sort of medical procedure,
because it would first need a diagnosis and thats what doctors do. So even
though it was quite clear fairly early on in the labour I was going to need
assistance gettign Cary out, she couldn't even put me in the stirrups
without getting the obgyn's OK first. The only thing she could do was to
give me advice and let me have the gas amount the orginal doc had dialled
up - which stopped being effective long before Cary come out. She would have
had to get a doc's permission to turn the amount of, but I"ve only found
that out after the birth. I had to *ask* for it to be turned up, which I
didn't do. The only thing I did ask for was an epidural, which I got,
because I couldn't really think straight about much else, but all the
midwife could do was cheer me on and catch the baby on the way out. Anythign
remotely like medical intervention needs a doc. Stupid system.

Next time, I'm going through the public system. From what I"ve seen the
service is just as good or better than the private system, and I don't have
to pay a gap between what my insurance covers and what the people charge.
And if I never see the first midwife I had again, it will be too soon. She
was a class A1 certified 100% biatch.

Yowie

I was born at home and delivered by my father, the midwife had been
there earlier and said I wouldn't arrive for a few hours, so she'd gone
home to have breakfast. I think my father did well because he was
supervised by Figaro, our cat.

My ex had an episode of sudden and severe abdominal pain. We headed off
to the ER.

Let me write out one of the unwritten laws of emergency medicine: "It is
impossible to diagnose abdominal pain in a woman of childbearing age
without at least two consultants."  Our primary physician, an excellent
internist, happened to be in the hospital, and came in to add his
impression along with that of the emergency physician, general surgeon,
and gynecologist.

Michael, the internist, had recently had a bad wrist sprain playing
tennis.  Unfortunately, in the midst of the pelvic, his wrist partially
dislocated with a loud POP, followed by separate screams from patient
and physician -- his hand had really jerked.

Comedy entered, as all three of us happened to be under treatment by the
same hand surgeon.  My ex waved a furious finger, and told our internist
"you don't touch me down there again until you have a note from Bruce
[the hand surgeon]."

Soon after, she and I were off to see the hand surgeon, and told him the
story.  We had forgotten some of his background:  he didn't initially go
into orthopedics and subspecialize in hand surgery. His first residency
was OB/GYN.

When he heard the episode, he was laughing so hard that tears ran down
his face. He called the internist and choked out dire warnings, probably
audible to everyone in his office.