Delivering at Shady Grove Hospital versus Medstar Georgetown

[Anonymous]

I am debating whether to stick with my current OB practice (Simmonds, Martin, Helmbrecht) that delivers at Shady Grove, or to switch to the Georgetown OB group and deliver at Medstar Georgetown.

Originally I was set on delivering at Shady Grove because it's known as a lower intervention hospital than Sibley, for instance, and generally gets favorable reviews online, including on this forum. However, I've realized that overall, the OBs at my current practice are very much on the young side, and many new hires aren't even board certified yet. That makes me nervous if things go south during delivery and urgent/important decisions need to be made. I also can't find another OB practice that is calling to me that delivers at Shady Grove, particularly because Capital Women's Care is now out-of-network with my insurance.

Currently my MFM doctor is with the Georgetown practice and I'm super impressed with her, and it looks like the Georgetown OBs all have stellar reviews online and other than two new hires, they all seem like seasoned, well respected doctors. So I figured I might switch to the Georgetown OB general practice and deliver at Medstar, given my hangups about Simmonds. However, given that Georgetown is a teaching hospital, a similar "lack of experience" issue concern arises in that I understand residents are completely involved in your delivery, including any c-section, and an anesthesia resident is often the one inserting the epidural. That scares me. I also understand that junior residents do your cervical checks, which also scares me when I compare that to a long-standing labor and delivery nurse at Shady Grove doing them instead.

On the flip side, in favor of Georgetown, I've been assured that an attending is always present during delivery and is the main lead on c-sections, and I know Georgetown is known for serving high risk pregnancies, so I imagine they have to be on top of their game and must see a lot of complicated cases, which could translate to good experience for all, including residents.

Does anyone have any insight into delivering at either of these hospitals? My main concern across all of this is having an OB present during delivery who isn't pressuring me into unnecessary interventions but can make good decisions and be a good surgeon if things go south rapidly during delivery. My mind goes to the worst possible case scenario and that makes me nervous about resident involvement at Georgetown (albiet with attending oversight). On the other hand, having a brand new not-yet board-certified OB at Simmonds without any oversight (as they would be the primary OB) may not be much better. Or is Shady Grove preferable due to their nurse involvement after all? (You can see how I'm going back and forth with this decision all day long!)

If anyone could share their experiences I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I am unhappy at Bloom and would also be interested in experiences delivering at either of these hospitals.

[Anonymous]

Following

[Anonymous]

I didn't have my baby at either of those hospitals, but I did have an emergency C-section at a teaching hospital done by a resident. It healed beautifully. My understanding is that they aren't allowed to actually do procedures on patients until they've proven that they can do them well. There was also an attending in the room the whole time supervising and prepared to take over should the need arise.

Delivering at a high-risk hospital means everyone is prepared for emergencies, not just the doctors -- all the staff has a lot of experience making sure all the moving parts fit together smoothly. That was a big pro to me.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you so much for this vote of confidence regarding teaching hospitals and the work residents can do! I appreciate it very much.

[Anonymous]

I had a pregnancy go south at 32 weeks and delivered at Georgetown. I had a week long hospital stay there being watched by the MFMs like a hawk and then when home for a couple of weeks before eventually delivering in an urgent c section and my daughter spent two weeks in their NICU. This was (I cannot believe it, ten years ago). They also supported me through month 8 of my second pregnancy. I moved to another state at that time and they were very helpful in making sure I was transferred to the new MFM practice with all the necessary context.

Obviously, because of all of the above, I'm very happy I was at Georgetown to start with (I was just with their regular OBs before it got scary).

The biggest con to GT to me (like by far) is how long everything takes there. I was always waiting for awhile before appointments and getting there is a PITA. Also the food truly leaves a lot to be desired. But seems like small potatoes compared with the saving our lives part!

The pros are that the NICU is level 4 and onsite and that you're really getting a very high standard of care. Of course with the teaching hospital not every person there has a depth of experience but there is always SOMEONE there with a depth of experience. I felt very very very much like I was in capable hands, and I didn't mind the teaching hospital thing so much because you know, doctors have to learn to create experienced doctors.

The way it would work (and this was annoying I'm NGL) is whenever you need like, a check in (this for me happened like every four hours because I was very high risk) first a medical student would come in and take vitals/ask questions. Then a resident would come in and ask all the same questions and sometimes recheck vitals. Then an OB or MFM would come in and ask all the same questions and sometimes recheck vitals. So this got repetitive, especially when they were waking me up at 6am. But they got to learn and like that's how it should be. A med student's evaluation should not be sufficient. And it never was! So all just to say you will be around inexperienced people but ALWAYS being supervised by very experienced people.

My pregnancy issues were atypically presenting preeclampsia (my BP wasn't THAT high, I seemed KIND OF ok) and my baby was IUGR (stopped growing normally around week 31 ish). The whole time I was hospitalized I basically felt fine and was more worried about my daughter than me as my symptoms all seemed very mild. On the day I delivered (36+5) I walked in for one of my multiple weekly appointments at that point and they said my fluids had decreased and it was go time. I sat there feeling totally fine for a few hours getting my epidural and starting the pitocin. And then I got HELLP syndrome rather quickly with again, no symptoms. I had been seeing nurses/residents but like immediately my MFM came in when they found that and told me they were going to still try with labor but you could just feel the level of vigilance around me increase at that point. Then the pitocin kicked in and I had one single contraction. I had been listening to my baby's heartbeat in hospital rooms for weeks at this point and I heard the decel. I said to the nurse who was talking to me 'I think that's bad' and she joked about how it was fine and there were a bunch of people monitoring me and if it was bad they would be in there and literally as she was saying that like eight people, including my MFM, charged in and stopped the pitocin and said it was c section time.

I am only going in to this level of detail to show you that while it may feel at times like a resident is taking care of you, it was never just a resident.

This is long and I think rambling, sorry! Mostly saying that Georgetown felt like the safest place to have a baby and while I sometimes regretted that choice while stuck in GT traffic and sitting in the waiting room in the end it felt like the best choice I'd ever made in my life.

[Anonymous]

Oh I'm PP and my MFM was Dr. Daphnie Drassinower who I believe is still at GT who I loved loved loved

[Anonymous]

I delivered at Gtown. No experience with Shady Grove. Pros of Gtown is the nicu. Hopefully you won’t need it but if baby does you’ll both be in the same hospital. That said it is a teaching hospital so expect a lot of people in the room. I think for mine there was the doctor a resident two med students and the nurse plus the pediatrician, ped resident and another med student. Plus someone doing research kept coming in to ask if I’d join a study. Overall a good experience but not for someone uncomfortable with a lot of strangers around

[Anonymous]

I’d go with the teaching hospital. My first was born at INOVA Fair Osks, a community hospital. I wasn’t closely attended to by the OBs. There were complications afterwards.
Number two was at a teaching hospital and we received close careful attention. I had a c-section with residents and a CRNA student did my epidural. All of this was done with the supervision of attendings. Everything was well done and I healed smoothly. We needed the NICU. I can’t say enough good things about my latest experience in comparison to my first!

[Anonymous]

The construction is done at GT which makes it a little easier

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh I'm PP and my MFM was Dr. Daphnie Drassinower who I believe is still at GT who I loved loved loved

OP here. Thanks so much for your super detailed response, it was so helpful! Dr. Drassinower is my MFM and I absolutely love her!! She's the reason I'm even entertaining this entire switch to the GT OBs! So glad to hear that she was so involved in your delivery when you needed her the most and I'm so happy to hear about how attentive everyone was in general to help you and your sweet baby!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't have my baby at either of those hospitals, but I did have an emergency C-section at a teaching hospital done by a resident. It healed beautifully. My understanding is that they aren't allowed to actually do procedures on patients until they've proven that they can do them well. There was also an attending in the room the whole time supervising and prepared to take over should the need arise.

Delivering at a high-risk hospital means everyone is prepared for emergencies, not just the doctors -- all the staff has a lot of experience making sure all the moving parts fit together smoothly. That was a big pro to me.

I can't speak for either hospital, but I agree with PPs last point. I am a medical professional and my role at several hospitals has been part of a team that responds to emergencies. I tell all my friends to deliver at hospitals that deal with high risk pregnancies or have high level NICUs if they are able to. Those that work there respond better to worst case scenarios.

[Anonymous]

I delivered both my babies at Georgetown, albeit 15+ years ago. But it was still a teaching hospital back then and I had excellent care.

[Anonymous]

I had a high risk pregnancy this summer and delivered at Georgetown.

No regrets, I thought the residents were great, especially the one who did my spinal for my c section.

Baby also needed a NICU stay.

I felt better being at a teaching hospital since the med students and OBs were up to date on medical guidelines etc.

[Anonymous]

I chose shady grove rather than Georgetown for a couple reasons,1) Georgetown doesn’t do any abortions and I was worried about wanting one in case of chromosomal issues or other family genetic issues, 2) I didn’t want a resident to operate on me nor did I want residents in the room at all, 3) I wanted to choose my c section ob, which I planned on scheduling due to previous birth injury and that ob was at shady grove.

Of course it never goes to plan. I ended up having another vaginal birth but thankfully the ob who I had never met before (part of capital womens) was able to help me deliver easily and fix some of my previous injuries. I am so, so grateful to him — I will never forget how much he positively changed my postpartum period.

The nurses there were fine but I wasn’t super impressed.