Welcome

I have written humorous essays about my life as an obstetrician. Some of these stories can be found on my blog. These essays have been published in a book titled Adventures in Obstetrics.

My stories read as though they were written by David Sedaris if he were an OB/GYN physician (and I was a better writer). The humor in the stories is wry and at times irreverent. All of the humor comes from the serious themes of my career as an obstetrician.

Some of my stories explore the cross-cultural conflicts that I encounter as an Asian American.  I am a fourth generation Japanese-American.  As a native Californian, I can only speak English and some Spanish.  I thus find myself in some culturally awkward situations.  In Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum I asked the curator if she could direct me to a Rembrandt painting called The Night Watch.  She replied, “Oh my God, how did you learn to speak English so good?”  I replied, “Did you mean to ask how I learned to speak English so well?”  She said, “Yes, yes!”  I then told her, “I was listening to an English audio app and fell asleep.  When I woke up I was talking like this.”

I hope that these stories will make you laugh. I emailed one of my more poignant stories to a nurse anesthetist in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. John called me on the phone and to my surprise, he was not laughing. He was not happy with me at all. He was emotionally spent after reading the story of my battle with lung cancer. He cried during the reading and cried again later that day. I told him that maybe he was just a big baby. He is still not happy with me. I will share that story with you in the future.

If you are in healthcare, you will enjoy these stories. You know what it is like to have to deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses who are bleeding, wrong site surgery, fetal loss, new doctors, etc. Stop working on your electronic health record and take a four-minute break for some comic relief reading, then get back to doing two more hours on EPIC.

If you are not in healthcare but have a sense of humor and a curiosity of obstetrics, you will enjoy these stories.

Gary Matsumura