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I havent had a baby yet but in terms of general hospital treatments I dont mind whether its a teaching hospital or not. As long I am being treated by an experienced professional I dont mind if student observes. They do ask if you have a problem with it and if you do then they wont have students there.

@mrsjyw: The main hospital for my practice is a teaching one. I have no problem with that since I grew up with some medical issues and remember students observing my appointments.

Also, it's not necessarily your OB when you deliver. My practice always has one doctor at the hospital on a given day. When I reach a certain point, I start visiting other doctors in the practice to become familiar with them in case they're covering the hospital on the day I deliver.

My husband is a resident, so perhaps my answer is biased.

In Boston, the teaching hospitals are the best hospitals. At teaching hospitals, attending physicians train residents, fellows, and med students. What that normally means is more hands on deck to assist and more help if needed. It does not mean that residents (and definitely NOT med students) are running your care. The attending physician (here, the OB), is still oversees and managers your care.

Also, FWIW though there "may" be a medical student at your birth, it's actually more likely that a resident (ie, graduated medical school, gets paid to work) would be assisting with your birth.

This is interesting to me because we've been talking a lot about this. The city we live in only has two hospitals: one is a teaching hospital and one is private. I lean more towards the teaching hospital because I feel like they have the experts. They have the people who are teaching others. They seem to have more innovative programs, like a free doula program. Also, my current OBGYN is a director of the OB program and I would like to not have to change as soon as I get PG. On the other hand, my husband is adamant about using the private hospital. He sees the teaching hospital as a greater risk for me and baby. Also, he madetgw point that not all law professors are the best practicing lawyers (we both are lawyers). While this is true, it seems like doctors who are teaching would have to remain more up on new techniques, etc.

I don't mind a teaching hospital. I think residents have plenty of training and supervision. Maybe not the ones in their first month...but I don't think they just say, here's your medical degree, it's your first day of work, do everything on your own!!! Or maybe they do. I think I may feel differently if I were high risk.

The only concern I would have with a teaching hospital is intervention & cesarean rate. And who would be doing the delivering since it's not as likely that it's actually "your" ob.

So I guess I would look at and compare those rates of each hospital.

I totally get that residents are qualified, but given their lessened experience I wouldn't want to have unnecessary intervention just b/c they want to error on the side of caution. =/

I may be biased because I am a nurse, and obviously I had to be taught and learn how to do my job. I am more than willing to allow students/residents learn using my case. In Canada though, all hospitals are considered teaching hospitals, so there is no other option, though when you consent to treatment you can designate wether or not you will allow students on your case.

I think more important than whether it is a teaching hospital is the overall quality of your experience with your specific hospital in your town, as it is clear from the answers above that there is a big range. My DH is a med student so we initially planned to go there. But we heard mixed reviews about it and nothing but raves about a private hospital so that is where we ended up. I had a great experience!

I asked my in-laws (both physicians) about this once, and they both said that, in general, they feel more confident about the care in teaching hospitals. As other posters have mentioned, you have a bigger team, so there are just more people around watching and ensuring that everything is ok. And more people to contribute to making the best decisions for you. Plus, teaching hospitals tend to have many more formalized standard operating procedures in place designed to ensure proper care, whereas private hospitals tend to be more likely to let your individual doctor just do his/her own thing (which is fine in most cases, but also means that there's not the same safety net if something slips his/her mind or s/he misses something...)

I am a physician (an anesthesiologist), so I'm biased too, but I am all for teaching hospitals. As everyone has mentioned, I feel more comfortable having more eyes around to watch for anything going wrong. In my experience, students NEVER make decisions, they are basically observing and occasionally doing something hands-on, usually with an anxious resident watching them like a hawk. I had an awesome experience delivering at the teaching hospital (it wasn't where I trained or where I work now, but it was great) and plan to go back for the next birth. There are going to be both great and (unfortunately) lousy attending physicians in both teaching and private hospitals, but in teaching hospitals, there is more of an obligation to keep up with the current literature and standards of care, so their practice might be a little more up to date.

I did request that the attending anesthesiologist rather than the nurse put in my spinal, but that's because I know her. I also would have let a resident do it, I had an anesthesia resident put in my spinal for another procedure. (And it was her first day! She did great though.)

You have to do what you're comfortable with - as a resident on OB, when a patient requested that the attending put in their epidural, it was always insulting even though I tried not to take it personally. Also - while on my OB rotation, I put in roughly 40-50 epidurals per week, while the attending might do 1-2 per week, give or take.