Laborists, nocturnalists, weekendists: Will the “ists” preserve the rewards of OB practice?

Lifestyle and the ObGyn

Many surveys reveal that a key factor influencing the choice of specialty among medical students is how they perceive a specialty’s accompanying lifestyle.⁷ Today, the work life of an ObGyn is dominated by on-call obligations that typically extend for 24 consecutive hours, followed by an ambulatory office session.⁸ ObGyns are being challenged to evolve the specialty by reducing the reliance on extended work shifts. We need to develop, implement, and evaluate multiple models by which we can reduce night and weekend obstetric call—and three promising such models are the laborist, the nocturnalist, and the weekendist.