The Need for Obstetricians to Spread Out
It has become increasingly obvious in the medical community that there is a sizeable gap in the amount of care obstetricians can administer to their patients. If there is anything remotely wrong with your yearly check-up, obstetricians are forced to refer you to another surgeon, rather than continue with your care themselves. This is largely due to the specializations that Accreditation agencies and Obstetrics boards have laid out for the profession: obstetricians do not have to be qualified in any other type of specialty aside from “women care”, which noticeably excludes prominent problems like breast cancer. Women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer may initially go see their obstetrician, but are thereafter referred to many different surgeons and specialists, rather than remain with only one doctor.
It is surprising that thus far, the health industry has not seen a need to expand the specialty of obstetricians to include that of mammology, to at least stay with their patients as they battle cancer. Many obstetricians can only initially diagnose a problem area in the breast, but have to refer their patients to a specialist in order to continue their treatment. Aside from the fact that after the first specialist, patients are forced to continue the journey of surgeon after surgeon and doctor after doctor, the initial obstetrician has no way of knowing whether their patient followed up after their initial diagnosis. This is a growing problem within the medical community, as other realms of cancer treatments do not require patients to “doctor-jump” around within clinics and hospitals. Cancer is difficult enough – the medical community should be working to make the process easier, rather than more complicated.
Starting from the early twentieth century, obstetricians were the first of the new wave of specialist doctors who paved their own way out from general doctors who monopolized the medical field. At this point, there was no need for too many specialists because there was still so little known about the human body (amazing what a few decades can do). However, obstetricians became the women’s go-to doctor and were equipped in dealing with the intricacies of the human body. It now appears, however, that obstetricians have not evolved as much as other specialties have, since these doctors remain unable to follow up with their patients on any complications. While this may just call for an even further specialization in mammology, obstetricians should not give up the fight. Many general surgeons have expanded their own specialties to include that of new diseases, indicating that obstetricians could follow the same path.
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