Marc Luber: Hey what's up everyone. Welcome to Careers Out There. I'm your host Marc Luber
and we're helping you find a career that fits you. Today we're looking at the career path
of an obstetrician gynecologist - OBGYBN - you know - doctors who deliver babies and who
care for women. Our guest is Doctor Carmen Woods Hollowell who has offices in Park City,
Illinois and Lindenhurst, Illinois. You're watching a short version of the interview
with Doctor Hollowell. If you want to learn more about being an OBGYN, you can see the
full version of the interview at Careers Out There dot com. Alright - let's meet Carmen!
Let's dive right in and get to the stuff that people watching at home are wondering. There's
so many different careers out there. You've chosen to be an OBGYN. Tell us - I think a
lot of us know the main thing that you do - you help bring life into the world! That's
an incredible responsibility.
Doctor Carmen Woods Hollowell: It is.
Marc Luber: And an amazing one! Talk about that and the role that that plays in your
career.
Dr. Woods Hollowell: It is an amazing career. I'm one of the few people I think who can
say I go to a birthday party every single day. I'm at a party every day all day - which
is a wonderful thing - but it bears with it a lot of responsibility as well. My job entails
taking care of women and only women throughout their entire reproductive span from when they're
young women and adolescents, child bearing age, then when they're older, middle aged,
pre-menopausal until they're elderly. So I take care of people through the entire spectrum.
Marc Luber: And what is that care? Other than delivering babies which is the big thing everyone
thinks about, what are the other responsibilities that you have?
Dr. Woods Hollowell: Anything that a woman would have that's unique to her be it hormonal,
be it physical, physiological...it pretty much is the entire spectrum.
Marc Luber: OK. Walk us through a typical day. What is a normal day for someone who
does what you do?
Dr. Woods Hollowell: That's a great question because there is no such thing as a normal
day which is why I like it. My day could start off in surgery operating on a patient with
a cyst or an abnormal mass or a problem. I could then go into a delivery. There are office
responsibilities and we see patients...so it varies day to day. It's the kind of job
that there isn't the same thing every day and I like it for that reason. If you work
for a hospital and you're a hospital based practice, they will set the tone for you and
they will dictate how much time in you're in the office, how much time you're in the
hospital physically working and how much time you have off. When you're in a private setting
such as myself, which means that I'm self-employed, I dictate that schedule. And the obstetrics
portion, or delivering the babies, as you can well imagine you have no control over.
So everything else is kind of geared towards that. There will be certain days that I'll
operate, certain times that I'll operate which is called block time and there are certain
times that I'm in the office seeing patients. And that's a certain amount that's allocated
out daily. A certain number of hours daily. There are some days that's all office and
some days are all hospital and some days are a combination of the two. And weekends for
most people are either no office hours or very short and limited office hours and lots
of hospital work.
Marc Luber: What's your favorite part? What's the most fun thing? If you were telling someone
that's watching right now that's not really sure, what's the most fun and rewarding part
about what you do?
Dr. Woods Hollowell: I think it's multi-factorial. I think definitely bringing a new life and
bringing a new member to a family that wanted this child very badly, tried for many years
to conceive...or didn't and it was a surprise and a shock to them and yet that's a wonderful
part. But taking care of families through generations - the day to day, the kind of
the mundane, me seeing somebody every year, hearing about their children, that to me is
just as special as the big glow points of delivery and introducing someone to their
families. So it's all special, just in a diferent way.
Marc Luber: Hey everyone - if you want to learn more about being an obstetrician gynecologist
OBGYN, you can see the full interview at Careers Out There dot com. Thanks for watching. I'm
Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you there.
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