Women of Southern California: We are at risk for losing one of the truly supportive OBs in our area.
If you are a woman who prefers hospital births, your options are about to shrink even more.
On Friday, August 21st, Dr. Stuart Fischbein wrote on his blog http://supportdrfischbein.blogspot.com/:
So, met with the chief of staff, current and future as well as the head of the OB committee today. Bottom line is the OB committee does not want me to even offer the option of elective VBAC or vaginal breech delivery to women at either campus. If I were to agree to this then they seemed to suggest the disciplinary action might just go away. This is going to be a dilemma for me. An intolerable situation facing many private practice physicians today. Compromise your values to pay your overhead or compromise your practice to keep your values. In the meantime they are supposed to reinstate the midwives but I suspect it will not happen until early next week.
One thing was made clear to me today. The hospital believes the OB committee is the final arbiter of standards in this community and since none of them would offer a breech delivery then for me to do so is beneath the standard. Good outcomes and innovation are not relevant. They also essentially said that skewing your informed consent process is OK because allowing patients the option of VBAC affects other personnel such as anesthesia, peds and nursing and puts them at risk. While I do see their point, they did not want to hear that the patient has rights and is the one we are supposed to serve. There was no place for discussion of the risks of repeated c/sections or evidence supporting our midwifery model today. That was my take anyway. Will keep you posted.
VBAC Facts has already made a contribution to his Legal Defense Fund and I hope you will contribute, even if it’s just $5 or $10. If every person who visited this site made a small contribution, we could quickly raise thousands.
There are so few OBs who remain supportive of VBAC and even fewer who are so vocal in their support.
You might remember Dr. Fischbein from his letter he wrote the AMA: A VBAC Supportive OB’s Response to the AMA’s Statement on Homebirth.
If we continue to lose OBs like Dr. Fischbein, women seeking hospital VBAC will be left with three options: scheduled repeat cesarean, home birth, or arrive at the hospital at 10 centimeters and hope you can put that baby out before they can get you into the operating room.
If this concerns you in the least, please donate via his website: http://www.supportdrfischbein.com/.
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