Some health systems explore laborists idea
... why not hire doctors who will work only in the hospital, mainly delivering babies?
By hiring what have been called "laborists" and paying their malpractice insurance costs, the hospital could take the pressure off community doctors and possibly help with two related problems. Nationwide, fewer doctors, including obstetricians, want to serve "on call" for hospital emergency rooms. And rising malpractice insurance costs are causing some obstetricians to retire or cut back on OB services.
I've wondered this myself for a while now. Why not have doctors whose only function is to remain in the hospital with the laboring women? Essentially OB-midwives. Since 1-on-1 labor support is the most effective "labor intervention" in terms of reducing c-section and other complications, it makes sense.
It's not as if a woman is delivering with the OB she's grown to trust. In most practices she's rotated through a bunch of doctors anyhow.
Many of my family members who have been hospitalized in the past ten years have not been treated in-hospital by their doctors, but by hospitalists who are affiliated with their doctors. This simply carries that trend forward.
Plus, the doctor would be *in the hospital* with the laboring woman. It never made sense to me that doctors swear the only place to deliver is in a hospital where a doctor can attend you...only when you're in labor, where is your doctor?
I love this idea. HMOs and hospital boards will be cleared of the stupid administrators that come up which such cost cutting measures as women fresh from delivering babies, attack them. Yes, what a laboring women wants is a complete stranger to deliver her baby. That is ideal. If you have read Spiritual Midwifery, this idea is even more repugnant -even violent.