All entries for Tuesday 12 April 2016

Community Midwives out in the Field

We recently started a new block of Core Clinical Education, the second of three blocks for all second-year students. And with the shift to a new hospital comes a whole new set of speciality-introductions and mini-rotations through various wards and services. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been lucky enough to spend a few days shadowing community midwives to get a very clear idea of the challenges that they face and the responsibilities that they bear – it is a lot more than I ever imagined.

Although we spent an entire block in the first year studying reproduction and child-development, we have not had much of an opportunity so far in the second year to apply much of what we’ve learnt within clinical practice. The majority of the patients whom we’ve seen so far in hospital have been elderly with complex health needs and have usually required lengthy stays, discharge planning and that sort of thing. Understandably, my clinical partner and I were very excited to spend a few days with community midwives outside of hospital as the type of medicine that they are involved with is entirely different from what we’ve been used to.

As I understand it, there are various types of midwife. Community midwives are usually associated with GP practices or other non-hospital care services and are normally out “in the field”, meeting with pregnant women (and their partners/family who are usually present to provide support) in surgeries at several points throughout the pregnancy. These meetings tend to be fairly routine, and involve things such as assessing maternal and foetal health, advising the mother on the best practices to promote health for her baby, and detecting and acting on any early-warning signs.

My days shadowing the community midwives were a very interesting and eye-opening experience. Whereas our GP surgery had been based in a very affluent and comfortable part of Warwickshire with a very specific demographic, the community midwives whom I shadowed covered a less-well-off area. This presented a very different set of issues for the midwives to confront. Their attitudes were unfailingly supportive, and they were adept at dealing with many varied social circumstances – sometimes in languages other than English, reflecting the national diversity of the areas they covered.

What struck me most, other than the fact that they all work so hard! – was feeling absolutely honoured to be working with individuals in a health service who are so clearly committed to ensuring that every child really does get the best start in life. These midwives made countless home visits, they squeezed patients into appointments even though they were really busy, they helped patients find the right resources to solve housing and schooling issues and conducted myriad other, immensely helpful small acts that hopefully make each mother’s life just a little bit less stressful. Getting out of our small bubble and seeing the true diversity of our society, the challenges that everybody faces and using our tools to hopefully make their health even a tiny bit better is such an important part of our education, and I am so glad to have had the chance to see it on this level.

John

Megan Earle : 12 Apr 2016 15:10 |  Tags: John Mbchb Midwives Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem