Goal, Gadget, & Good News: OBG-A
Block 2 almost complete! SO much learning and support from an amazing team. It has been a humbling several weeks and it will be a humbling 4 years ahead, but everyday I am truly so excited and happy to wake up early and work, learn, and help our patients and my team as best I can. Here is this block’s iteration of Goal, Gadget, and Good News. As always, the goal is small, the gadget is only a gadget if you are admittedly basic, and the good news—as tempted as I was to just highlight that PSLs are back—is about women’s health. Enjoy!
Goal: Just go to bed
My goal this time around is to kick a bad habit: staying up just to stay up. After a long day at work and then more studying at home, I feel like I have earned some “let’s re-watch Sex and the City time.” It’s this nightly debate of what is self-care and quality of life and what is just being stubborn. When I have to be up well before dawn, re-watching Miranda treat Steve like dog instead of getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep is totally ridiculous. But I do it. And so my goal is this month (I started last night) is to really weigh sleep against other pass-times. Kev and I watching Fleabag with a home-brewed beer a few times a week or making time for The Righteous Gemstones* on Sundays is actually a treat. Solo re-watching bad television in leiu of sleep is just making poor choices. (Above is a photo of me that Annalise snuck while I thought I was sneaking a nap at the birthday party last weekend post-24hr call…)
Gadget: Exfoliating Sugar Cubes
These are a real game changer. Alison gave me these for my birthday and I am in love. I have lived in a few different places where I either have no tub or a tub I would not dare sit in (sorry Lewis St apartment). These little cubes bring the luxury of bath salt/sugar scrubbin’/soakin’ without the time commitment or equipment (*tub*) needed. Treat yourself to softer skin and some expedited luxury.
Good News: “The Contraceptive CHOICE Project “ and Young Women’s Bright Futures
The CHOICE Project is a study that now dates back almost a decade, but its impact on clinical practice is still evolving. When using a standardized script, more adolescent women chose short acting forms (ie pills) of contraception, but more than a third of adolescent women opted for a LARC (long acting reversible contraception i.e. IUD or nexplanon). This is significantly greater than the <6% of women age 14-19 who have ever used a LARC. More importantly, 81% of adolescents (age 14-19) continued a LARC after one year compared to only 44% 1 year continuation rate of short-acting reversible methods (ie pills). So why is this in the good news sections? This study is a scientific but a beautiful demonstration of how thoughtful and proactive young women are when given the same options as their more adult counterparts. Teen pregnancy in the United States is higher than any other developed country in the world, the vast majority of which are unintended. However, this suggests that adolescents do take their reproductive health, the gravity of unintended pregnancy, and the importance of planned pregnancy seriously. Us healthcare providers just need to be sure we are offering the same contraception options we discuss with adult patients. Of course, LARCs are not for every young woman, and the findings do not obligate young women to accept LARCs. The findings do obligate providers to offer all patients, adolescents or adults, the full spectrum of options when discussing contraception.
-Ari
*This (so far) is an excellent and completely outrageous show—almost Cohen brothers meet Eastbound and Down. And as Danny McBride discusses on the Armchair Expert podcast, the television show in no way attacks faith or the parishioners of the Gemstones’ family church. It is about hypocrisy, family, and self-reflection and it is very entertaining.