Wiki for midwifery education.

Some time ago, way back in 2007 I did a course called facilitating online learning communities through Otago Polytechnic and Manakau Institute of Technology. I became very interested in open access education and making resources available for those who have an interest to study. I started this blog at that time and, for a while, was an enthusiastic contributor to online discussion fora etc. Laterly I have been very involved with developing a new programme through Otago Polytechnic for undergraduate midwifery education and have not been very active at all online discussions or posting on this blog. It all just takes too much time.
However I did start a repository for material that I felt could be useful for midwifery education. I commenced a wiki in wikieducator to store this material and to make it accessible to any who wishes to use it. I have tinkered with this wiki from time to time and it has grown over time.
I am aware that this wiki does not get much exposure. I know this blog is rarely frequented also but, in an effort to raise the profile of this wiki I am posting here. Any midwives, or midwifery educators who wish to add content to the wiki are welcome to do so.
Go and have a look and see what you think, follow this link.

Wise womens' web: rural midwives communties of practice

I have just realised how to post a document in google docs as an open document on the web and have loaded up my thesis.
So if you are ready to be bored here it is

Opportunities for postgraduate study for midwives in New Zealand

On the 5th of August 2009 I attended and educators forum, organised by the new Zealand College of Midwives. The principal focus was to brainstorm ideas about how government funding for formal midwifery postgraduate education could best be directed. This was an exciting day and one I had waited a long time to see.

Way way back in 1994 I embarked on a long process of self development. I was working at Balclutha Maternity as an LMC midwife and the new direct entry degree midwives were just graduating. I realised that my midwifery education had been a very long time ago, in a different time and a different country. I never went to college of University, in fact i left school when i was 15 years old with just enough qualifications to get into practice based Registered Nursing when I was 17. In 1994 I went to Polytech for the very first time and started papers towards a Bachelors Degree in Midwifery which I obtained in 1998. Around 2002 I started doing papers towards a Masters Degree in Midwifery. In 2004 when I became a midwifery lecturer my employer paid the remaining costs of my Degree but all the other study I did was self funded.

I could see that this was inequitable back then. Nurses at Balclutha were able to do a Masters Degree and have their education funded but the Clinical Training Agency. Local doctors too got funding from the government through this source but midwives did not have access to this funding, we had to pay for it ourselves.

Since 2007 the government have started to make small amounts of funding available to support continuing education for midwives. Making sure that this funding is dispersed equitably is a challenge. The midwifery workforce is about equally divided between those who are employed by a facility and those who are self employed and claim directly form the government. Funding needs to reach all midwives not just those who are employed by a District Health Board. First of all the Midwifery First Year of Practice programme began. This has provided a mentorship relationship for midwives who are newly graduated. In 2009 a new postgraduate course was funded for employed midwives who are caring for women with complex health problems. Now the CTA are looking at what they can offer to other groups of midwives, particularly rural midwives. The details have not been completed and however next year there will be further opportunities for midwives to engage in study without having to meet the whole cost of this themselves. Exciting times!!
Find out a bit more about midwifery education in New Zealand here

Learning to be a midwife in second life

Lately I have been involved, on the periphery, of a project to devlope a birthing unit in Second life. my colleague Sarah Stewart has blogged extensively around the development process for this birthing unit. The development of the birthing unit is now complete for normal birth scenarios. It may be that in the future, if more funding is available, that scenarios are developed which challenge students a little more. They may get to deal with more complicated scenarios, perhaps even where referral is necessary. For now it is great that students have chance to explore normal birth in a primary birthing unit. The SLENZ group who have been running this project have produced this excellent video help you see what the possibilities are. It is very exciting and anyone can use it.

Midwives sharing the cream of what they know

One of the comments on my post about the Group B Streptococcal pamphlet I developed suggested I should feel free to share more pamphlets. Now I do have more pamphlets that I developed a few years ago, one on gestational diabetes, one on third stage, but none of these have been kept up to date and, as all midwives will know it is quite a challenge to keep the information we share current and up to date with the latest research evidence. Although I keep as well informed as I can be on all the issues pertaining to LMC midwifery practice I cannot develop information on everything. I did study GBS in some depth as a postgraduate paper a few years ago and I have committed to trying keep the Group B Streptococcus pamphlet current and up to date.

I know that other midwives have studied a variety of topics, one of my postgraduate class members studied herpes, and produced some good concise information at that time on the implications of genital herpes in its various forms. I think it would be wonderful if we as midwives had a place where we could share the information we have spent so much time and energy developing. Of course we can publish in journals and that is a great way to share, but not all of us have the time or energy to commit to this activity. I wanted to create a place where midwives could easily share information and make it available to a wider audience. To this end I have created a group in SCRIBD where anyone can join and upload information that might be of use to midwives and to women. As discerning midwives it will be for us to decide if the information on this site is evidence based, and if it is of use to us and the women we care for.

I completed a Master of Midwifery degree a couple of years ago and the subject of my research was how midwives access and share information. Many of the midwives I spoke to said that they would love to share information that they had discovered when they had come across some particular issue in practice, but they did not want to write up a journal article. This idea of how we can share information has been something that I have pondered considerably over the last couple of years. I believe midwives have a lot of knowledge and information that would be of considerable use to others and I believe that this group may be a good place to start sharing. I welcome your thoughts and comments and if you feel the urge please join the Midwives Group in SCRIBD. At the moment there is only me and my GBS pamphlet there but I do hope that this is something that grows.

Image: Sharing the ice cream, from Clappstars photos ion Flickr.com

Group B Streptococcus the confusing and nasty bug

Group B Streptococcus is a concern for women during childbirth and for those who care for them. The issues surrounding Group B Streptococcus are complex and the outcome of serious infection in the newborn is severe and sometimes fatal. It is a difficult issue to discuss with women during pregnancy and women need to be informed so that they can make an informed decision about screening for Group B Strep and the possible use of prophylactic antibiotics. Some years ago I developed a pamphlet for my own practice to help me to inform women about this issue. Other local midwives have found this pamphlet useful and I have recently updated the pamphlet to meet new local guidelines. I want to make this available to anyone who might find it useful and loaded it as a PDF onto Google Docs. Google docs will only allow access to PDF files to those who have a Google docs account and have been invited to view. I have now uploaded it onto SCRIBD and hoping this works
GBS Pamphlet 30th June 2009

Video about moodle

Usually I would not post this here as this is my midwifery blog. The blog I use for matters to do with e-learning, education etc is my Fled blog. However it is ion Wordpress and not all embed codes work in Wordpress so I am posting this here. It is a hard decision to make but i do think i will need to leave Wordpress and return to blogger for my Fled blog as it is frustrating not being able to do some of the things I need to do.