With support from The Iolanthe Trust, I was able to undertake The Essential Knowledge for Obstetric Medicine Short Course, Kings College Hospital, London in January 2023.
I hoped this new blended course would enable me to increase my knowledge of maternal medicine but also understand how such a course could be adapted to deliver a training afternoon programme locally and build confidence in midwives caring for women with complexities of pregnancy.
The course began in person over two days in London, consisted of 300 learning hours over twelve weeks and ended with another two days in London. The cohort was made up of 60% midwives and 40% medical colleagues working across the country and abroad. The first two days of lectures focused on improving understanding of the physiological and pathophysiological influences which impact on women’s health during pregnancy, critical evaluation, and appraisal of common medical disorders in pregnancy (respiratory, cardiac, renal, inflammatory disease, neurological disorders, haematological & metabolic disorders) to maternal mental health, and the importance of multidisciplinary working together in our local units.
Over the following months weekly online tutorials covered a wide variety of topics relating to maternal medicine, case studies, journal clubs and the opportunity to discuss and evaluate current research to enable us to develop critical thinking to use in our course assignments. We were grouped into Action Learning Teams where we worked collaboratively on case studies and preparing for an Oral Presentation (which was a formative assessment at the end of the course).
We returned to London to complete the final part of the course with incredibly informative sessions on the current obstetric landscape and maternal medicine networks, the social-political landscape and policy making, clinical research in obstetric medicine and global health. Within designated groups we presented our case studies, submitted 3,500 word assignment, and participated in simulations of deteriorating pregnant women within our team roles.
I am so grateful to have had the opportunity from Iolanthe to undertake such learning in a course that had such a high calibre of excellent speakers, was really well organised and thought through.
The opportunity to work with midwives, doctors, paramedics across a national and international spectrum to consider the complexities of medicine and pregnancy together was one of the highlights of the course.
The way we got to know each other, and network to establish connections that will continue when we return to our units, was so beneficial.
I feel really enthused to share this learning and develop training days for the whole team when back in Bristol. This will benefit pregnant women with underlying medical conditions throughout their journey in our maternity
services.
