Funny where life takes you!

Since learning a big life lesson a few years ago, I have seen my life through a very different lens.
I used to think that I had  to plan and organise every detail of my life in order for things to happen.
After a fairly major wake up call at the age of 38 and a realisation that no matter how much I organise things, it rarely works out how I want it to. I discovered that life / the universe / god / fate - whatever you want to  call it, has its own plan for me and that I just need to go along for the ride. I always thought I needed to create my own opportunities and whilst there may be an element of that, I have found that by going along with life and not exerting too much energy to fight against it, life has taken me to places I never even thought I would go. The universe does know best, I just need to hang on for the ride and what a ride it is!!!!

Reflecting on my new role after 12 weeks

Well tomorrow is my final day  in this Nurse Manager of Clinical Information Systems role. What a steep learning curve it has been. The best words to describe it would be overwhelmingly busy, anxiety creating and finally appreciative. Appreciative of what other people do in my organisation, Appreciative for the opportunity to stretch my comfort zone, improve my skill set and learn new things. Things I have learnt: how to manage new data bases, extend my excel knowledge, analyse data, have a broader understanding of the organisation, that IT systems and problems often scare people and that it is very important to make them feel comfortable and less scared. I have also learnt that I'm not good at feeling uncomfortable, out of control and I had to sit in that place of uncomfortableness for over 8 weeks before I even started to feel like I was managing this new role. Am I glad I did it? 8 weeks ago I would have said I needed my head read, but now I can appreciate the journey and take the positives away with me, so yes I am glad I took the role on. Would I do it again, probably yes but this time I would have more realistic expectations of myself. Thank you to the people who were patient with me and assited me along the way.

Being a maternity consumer

After describing my experience of feeling like a student again in my previous post I have recently found myself on the receiving end of maternity care. My grandson was born a few weeks ago and I had the priviledge of being present for his labour and birth. While not everything went to plan, the experience was positive yet exhausting, nerve racking yet exhilerating, weird yet also surreal. Weird from the perspective that I was watching my child have his own child, exhilerating because I  felt the same surge of love that I felt when having my own children and exhausting because there is so much emotional energy required for the mum to birth her beautiful baby and the support people to really be there to support her.
It has done me the world of good to be on the other side of maternity care and has reminded me how important it is for midwives and doctors to never underestimate the power of listening to the women and her support people and making them feel safe to express their concerns. How easy it is to think we know better but how vulnerable you feel when you are the consumer. Even with the knowledge of my profession & my own experiences, I still felt vulnerable. This surprised me and I was a little taken aback by my own vulnerability. Funny how that emotional tie adds another dimension.
Thankfully though we received respectful, collaborative care from maternity health professionals that made us feel safe and listened to and for that I am eternally grateful - thank you Redcliffe Maternity Unit and thank you to the staff, you were amazing and I feel priviledged to work with you.

What were your experiences? Have you felt vulnerable as a consumer and what would you like to see health professionals do to help reduce some of this vulnerability?

Remembering what it feels like to be a student

I have started a new role this week in health informatics. I am hoping to learn new knowledge, fine tune my IT skills and learn alot more about the organisation in which I work. Whilst I knew the new role would be challenging, I have been quite surprised at how out of my depth I have felt. I feel quite useless and don't enjoy not being able to quickly solve problems. It is taking me a long time (in my eyes) to get my head around all the different systems, spreadsheets and jobs.
It has made me reflect on how our students must feel when they start a new course. Some of the students come from high level positions where they are used to being in charge and I think this may make the transition to student even harder.
Whist it is only my first week, I have to learn to sit in this new role and appreciate that I won't always know what to do, that feeling like I know nothing is part of learning and that having to ask for help often is OK - its what I tell my students but somehow it is much harder to  swallow when you are this side of the lesson.
All up it has been a positive yet sobering experince so far to be back in what feels like a student position and I will remember this feeling when I return to my Midwifery education position to help me improve my teaching. I think it is humbling to swap positions every once in a while to appreciate another point of view. How have you handled this situation. What lessons did you learn?

We've gone live!!!

Well the Virtual Maternity Care project has finally gone live with the successful launch of the new Cabooture maternity website. We have achieved the first online registration for public maternity clients in QLD with the first women booking online at 7.30am on the 1st day. We are receiving approximately 10 new registrations a day.
Online maternity care aims to enhance & redesign how we provide maternity services & I am currently developing a research proposal to design a best practice model to engage maternity clients through social media so watch this space.
We sit on the cusp of a very exciting time in maternity services and may very well be creating new roles for midwives that do not currently exist - the e-midwife.

Women want immediate access to quality information from maternity health professionals within the place they will birth their babies.

Have a look a the website and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
http://www.health.qld.gov.au/caboolture/maternity/default.asp

Caring for our midwives

I had the priviledge of coordinating some education days for the midwives I work with. My aim for the days was not only to provide education for them but more importantly to nurture and reenergise these midwives that work so tirelessly to provide wonderful care for the women in our service. What struck me the most was that as midwives, we care so much for others but often forget about ourselves.  I encourage every midwife / maternity health professional to think how can we best care for each other. What do you do that makes a positive difference to your fellow colleagues?

It is my mission this year to make every midwife in our service feel appreciated by doing the little things to ensure they know they are appreciated.

Virtualising maternity services

I have the priviledge of being involved with a 6 month project to virtualise maternity services at a local hospital. It is very exciting to be part of what could potentially revolutionise how we provide maternity care. Maternity care is about wellness, not illness and as such, how much of the care we provide could be offered online? (Online booking in registration & clinical information, education, virtual tours, question and answer opportunities, virtual community chat rooms) Could we improve some of that isolation that new mum's experience with online chat session with the opportunity to ask questions, moderated by a midwife or child health nurse.
While we will never replace face to face maternity care and the relationship that is built up with these encounters, we need to think differently about how to provide services that can be done off site (in the virtual world) to an increasing number of pregnant women and their famiies with no increase in funding and resources.