I'm sure that when OB's are
hanging out in the hospital anyway, they aren't just sitting in the
doctor's lounge watching Oprah while waiting for Mrs. Jones to crown.
They are tending to the other 5 women who are in labor at the same
time, being called down to the ER to check on OB/GYN-related cases,
doing emergency c-sections, and much more.

Naomi


Actually, sometimes they do just hang out in the lounge and wait. Even
if they are in your room, they don't DO anything but sit in a corner
and watch.
I've had 7 babies, all in the hospital. #1,2,3 and 7 were OB attended,
#4,5&6 were CNM's.
My midwives labor sat, once I was active they were there with me from
that point until the baby was born and settled in nursing. My OB's
appeared briefly here and there to see what was going on and left until
it was time to catch.
With #7 he saw me in the office in the morning, sent me up to the floor
for induction, showed up again around lunchtime to check progress,
showed up around 4 to break my water, reappeared a couple times between
5 and 6:30 because it looked like she might be coming and his parting
words to the nurse the last time he examined me were "Let her push,
I'll be in exam 2 doing charts".
The final moments of the birth went like this:

Me- "She's COMING!!!"
baby now visible on perineum and me pushing like mad
Nurse "DR. M!!!!!"
Dr M literally comes running and skidding into the room and quickly
gowns and gloves while I push and the nurses take the bottom off the
bed. He sits down and I push for about 2 minutes and my baby is born.
Placenta comes on it's own within 10 minutes. He catches that, examines
me for any tears, congratulates me and leaves. He was a very nice guy,
respectful of my wishes (how many OB's out there would induce a grandp
multip VBAC with pre-eclampsia ?) but he was a surgeon/doctor not a
midwife.
I'd say all in all that OB spent less than 30 minutes with me during my
whole labor and birth. Now I did have 2 doulas and my husband and at
least 1 nurse with me most of the time. I was pre-eclamptic and a VBAC,
someone needed to be attentive to me and the baby.

He had nothing else to do. He was not the OB on-call for his practice.
He was there just to catch my baby, another doc was covering the other
births.

I don't expect OB's to labor-sit although there are few here and there
that do when they can.
You definitely need to use a midwife or hire a doula (or 2) if you want
hands on labor support.