Dr. Sara Kostant is an OBGYN at Maternal Fetal Medicine Associates in New York City who has been with the practice for a year and a half. She and Dr. Fox discuss her experiences working for numerous hospitals across the country, including her residency in Omaha, Nebraska and time spent as an OB Hospitalist at Hackensack University Medical Center.
Dr. Sara Kostant is an OBGYN at Maternal Fetal Medicine Associates in New York City who has been with the practice for a year and a half. In this episode, she and Dr. Fox discuss why they each chose to ignore the advice to avoid becoming an obstetrician. They both found that, during medical school, many physicians advised against obstetrics and gynecology because of the long and unpredictable hours. However, Dr. Kostant explains that she loves the hands-on aspect of her job as well as being an important part of women’s health care and lives in general. Before medical school, she job-shadowed an obstetrician who was a family friend, and was amazed while watching a C-section. From there, she went on to continue to be interested in the specialty during residency, and decided to pursue it despite discouragement from others. Dr. Fox echoes this experience, and adds “if you’re able to find a work environment that’s not gruesome or too physically taxing, it works out fine,” and that because you’ll spend 20-50 years in your career, you should do what you love. Dr. Kostant notes that all medical specialties work long hours, and that she found she loved the job even during overnight calls during residency.
Dr. Kostant grew up in Los Angeles and attended Yeshiva University – Stern College for Women in New York. She then returned to LA for medical school at University of Southern California before moving on to residency at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. She explains that prior to residency, she had never lived anywhere outside of New York or LA, and was impressed by the program and found the other residents to be warm and friendly. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, she enjoyed the “warmth of a community hospital” paired with the benefits of being exposed to many high-risk patients transferred to the hospital from more rural areas. She also found the Midwest was less homogenous than she originally thought, and notes that many of her patients were Sudanese refugees.
Dr. Kostant also spent time as an OB hospitalist at Hackensack University Medical Center, where her job was “like being an ER doctor” but reserved for labor and delivery. There, she worked twelve-hour shifts on the labor and delivery floor and helped deliver private patients, residents’ patients, and any other patients who arrived at the hospital and needed assistance. She comments that while she liked this job, she also enjoys that in her current role she has a chance to establish a connection with a patient and doesn’t have to “start from scratch” when they go into labor.
When she’s not at work, Dr. Kostant enjoys exploring her neighborhood in Williamsburg, especially trying new coffee shops, restaurants, and bars. She also enjoys exercising and traveling. She says she tries to pick an interesting destination each year, particularly somewhere she can enjoy hiking, and in the past has visited Argentina and Chile.
