The first two years of medical school are typically didactic in nature — focused on classroom training in the basic sciences. For second-year medical student Alex Mastroyannis, that was only part of the experience. During his first year at GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) he performed part of an ultrasound, scrubbed in for a minor surgery, and even cut an umbilical cord after delivery. Thanks to the Prenatal Partners program, first- and second-year students like Mastroyannis have the opportunity to gain clinical experience in obstetrics and gynecology (OBGYN) that would otherwise be unlikely until their third year of medical school.
The program, which is advised by Charles Macri, M.D., director of the division of maternal fetal medicine at the GW Medical Faculty Associates (MFA) and professor of OBGYN at SMHS, pairs medical students who are interested in getting first-hand experience in the specialty with willing expectant mothers who are patients at the MFA. About 20 students participate annually — assisting patient-partners with a variety of tasks throughout their pregnancy, from keeping track of appointments to designing birth plans.
“A lot of the mothers appreciate the extra support because they are young or single, but that isn’t always the case,” says Alissa McInerney, a third-year student who co-directed the extracurricular program last year. McInerney’s partner was a pregnant mother who had recently moved to the United States from Ireland and was expecting her second child while her husband was out of the country for work. McInerney attended her partner’s monthly appointments, helped her navigate the nuances of U.S. health care system, and even signed her up for prenatal yoga classes in her neighborhood.
“It offers a little extra support to mothers, and is a great way for us to jump right in and start talking to patients,” McInerney says. “You get to be a part of the whole process.”
Mastroyannis, who is directing the program this year, exchanged cellphone numbers with his partner early in the year so that he could reach her with appointment reminders and be available to her for non-medical questions related to her pregnancy. “At one point, I was able to help clear up a mix-up when some of her medications were sent to the wrong pharmacy,” he says. During his spring semester finals, Mastroyannis got a call from his partners’ husband saying that she was in labor and asking if Mastroyannis could come to the hospital. Twenty minutes after he arrived, she delivered. The father even let Mastroyannis cut the umbilical cord.
Macri has advised Prenatal Partners for nearly a decade. The goal of medical school, he says, is for students to learn the subjects that are presented to them, but that this is “one more thing that the school and the MFA offer for students to take advantage of and learn about a particular field.”
After Mastroyannis’ partner delivered, he considered giving her celebratory balloons. When he realized that the family did not have a rear-facing infant car seat, which is required by law in D.C., he asked the couple if they would rather have him pitch in towards the purchase. They said yes, and he was able to provide one last bit of assistance — this time postnatal — to his Prenatal Partner.
