Category / Nursing & Midwifery

BU’s best wishes to Dr. Padam Simkhada (HSC Visiting Faculty)

PG research, Publishing

Dr Padam Simkhada, senior lecturer in ScHARR at the University of Sheffield was awarded the CEA Award of Global Health Research for his contribution to global research at a special ceremony at the Mahatma Gandhi University, India just before last Christmas. Dr Simkhada has been Visiting Faculty at BU in the School of Health & Social Care since 2010. He is involved in various BU projects, including the Fellowship awarded by the charity Wellbeing of Women, in association with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), for research into Nepalese maternity services and women’s health from an international perspective. The research team consists of Lesley Milne, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery, Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at BU, and BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Padam Simkhada.

 

Dr. Simkhada is also co-supervisor of HSC PhD student Ms. Sheetal Sharma.  Sheetal Sharma’s poster presentation recently won the best poster prize at a conference in Birmingham for the poster Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention.   Sheetal is supported by Bournemouth University with a studentship and a Santander grant.

Dr. Simkhada has published over 70 research articles on issues such as reproductive and sexual health, migration and sex trafficking and maternal and child health.  Furthermore, he has been working to improve the quality of health research among higher education institutions in Nepal.

This Global Health Research Award for Dr. Simkhada has been reported widely in the media in India, Nepal and in England.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

Password? Not another one!

Publishing

The increasing volume of academic activity on the internet coupled with a growing obsession about privacy and data protection means for many academics a rapidly expanding number of online accounts and associated passwords. This is, of course, over and above our regular dose of accounts and passwords as citizens of the virtual world. The average adult in the UK must have at least 25 internet accounts, for the bank/building society, supermarkets, phone companies, social media, airlines, trains, insurance companies, eBay, the website of the parents’ council of your children’s school, your electricity provider, the council tax, etc.

I feel as an academic, the burden is even worse. Every single time another scientific journal invites me to review a paper it opens an on-line account for me. Every time I apply for a grant from a funding body to which I have not previously applied, I am required to set up an account with a new password. When you apply for 20-odd grants every year and review manuscripts for a similar number of different journals the number of accounts and passwords add up rapidly. Then there are the other accounts and passwords related to work for sites such as this BU Research Blog, BRIAN, Survey Monkey, for the university for whom you act as external examiner, for Drop Box, the British Library, ORCIC, ACADEMIA.EDU, ResearchGate, Researchfish, Linkedin, and the list goes on.

These last few months I was reminded how non user friendly some systems are. First, I received new secure email account for my part on a REF sub-panel. The account name chosen for me is different from what I would have chosen and what I am used to at Bournemouth University. The importance of confidentiality for the REF work is clear so my password has to be different from anything I use elsewhere. Secondly, a few weeks later I attempted to put my name done for the tri-annual conference of the International Congress of Midwifery in Prague next year. It turns out you cannot join the conference without opening an on-line account first. The account name was automatically chosen for me and so was the password. Unfortunately, both are impossible to remember, neither the account name nor the password (which was case sensitive) were ones I would have selected personally.

There is some hope as some journals allow you to choose your own account name and password. Elsevier has brought most of its journals into one account, with your own email as the account name and all with the same password. Similarly a group of English-language journals in Nepal called Nepal Journals OnLine (NepJOL) use one account name for all participating journals. For the rest of my account names and passwords I can only follow the advice given by Stephen Fry on an episode of QI: “Write it down somewhere on a piece of paper”. The underlying idea is that the people who try to steal your internet account details sit in a bedsit in London or Hong Kong and won’t come to your office or living room to steal a piece of paper with computer addresses. The people who try to break into your house or office are looking for objects with a street value, such as your TV, phone or laptop, they are generally not interested in a piece of paper with some scribbles on it.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Jib Acharya awarded funded place on Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) workshop in Morocco

PG research, Training


Congratulations to Health & Social Care PhD student Mr. Jib Acharya who has been offered a funded place at the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) workshop. The SUN workshop will be held in Morocco in early February 2014. The British Council and CNRST have launched a new five-year programme to encourage international research collaboration between ambitious young researchers from the UK and eighteen countries around the world. The forthcoming SUN workshop is a part of this programme. One leading team of researchers from the University of Southampton and from Morocco proposed this bilateral workshop to be held in Morocco to bring together early career researchers to discuss their research and start to build international relationships.

The selection committee wrote to Mr. Acharya: “the selection was challenging. The selection panel (UK and Moroccan coordinators and mentors), has chosen 16 applications that would contribute to and benefit from the workshop most”. The British Council and CNRST will cover the costs related to the participation to the workshop, including: travel (both international and local), visa, accommodation and meals.
Jib is delighted with his award. He commented: “It will give me a chance to build up networks with participants at this workshop. It will help to establish personal and institutional relationships.”

Jib’s PhD thesis is based on A comparative Study on Nutritional Problems in Preschool Aged Children of Kaski District of Nepal. His research applies a mixed-methods approach and he is supervised by a team of three BU supervisors: Dr. Jane Murphy, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Dr. Martin Hind.

BU present at European Midwives Association Education Conference

At the end of November Stella Rawnson and Catherine Angell (both Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at BU) attended the European Midwives Association Education Conference in Maastricht, the Netherlands. This two-day event brought together 300 midwife educators from universities across Europe, from Norway to Greece and Ireland to Hungary.

Stella presented ‘The best people for the job’ which focused on our experience of introducing new methods for assessing the suitability of applicants to BU’s BSc Midwifery programme. This generated a considerable amount of interest and discussion. It was clear that student selection was an issue for educators from a wide range of countries, both in terms of identifying competence in numeracy and literacy but also assessing applicants’ communication and ‘people skills’.

Catherine’s presentation was entitled ‘Loosing the luggage; strategies that enable effective learning around infant feeding for student midwives’. This identified how we have used education theories to develop a programme that enables students to ‘unlearn’ negative or unrealistic ideas about infant feeding before embarking on new learning around this subject. This fitted well with a key theme that emerged from the conference relating to the role of emotion in enabling and blocking learning.

The conference included keynote presentations from Prof. Cees van der Vleuten, who spoke about evaluation and assessment of health sciences students, and Prof. Raymond DeVries who discussed the value of academic skills in midwifery. The conference highlighted the considerable differences in terms of length of midwifery programme, entry route and content between different countries in the EU. However, it also enabled us to learn from sharing some of the challenges that we experience in areas such as recruitment and assessment, and in terms of developing curriculums against shifting models of care and changing political priorities. Naturally it also provided an excellent opportunity for networking and identifying potential collaborations.

Winter in Maastricht

Winter in Maastricht

Social/Medical Model and the concept of ‘Normal’ Birth

Publishing

The December issue of The Practising Midwife included the slightly more theoretical article ‘Normal birth: social-medical model’.[1] The paper is written by Ms. Jillian Ireland, midwife and Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Union Learning Rep. at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Faculty at Bournemouth University in collaboration with BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen.

The paper argues that someone’s perspective of birth is not simply semantic. Thus, whether a midwife describes her role as being ‘with woman’ through labour or as someone who ‘delivers’ women of babies does not just demonstrates a more or less currently politically correct description. No, it suggests having different perspectives or world views of pregnancy and childbirth. Sociologists recognise two different approaches as two different models, a social model and a medical model of childbirth. The social model stresses that childbirth is a physiological event that takes place in most women’s lives. The medical model highlights that childbirth is potentially pathological. In the latter view every pregnant woman is potentially at risk, hence she should deliver her baby in an obstetric hospital with its high-technology screening equipment supervised by expert obstetricians. In other words, pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect.

The Practising Midwife’s paper argues that having some understanding of the underlying sociological models of pregnancy and childbirth can help politicians, journalists, policy-makers, midwives, doctors, and new mothers (and their partners) to put issues around ‘normal birth’ into perspective. This paper builds on previous work by the second author on the medicalisation of childbirth and the social/medical model published in Sociological Research Online[2] and Midwifery.[3]

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health


References:
1. Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, The Practising Midwife 16(11): 17-20.
2. van Teijlingen, E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociological Research Online, 10 (2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html
3. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.

BU Professor at COST Action Training School (Malta)

Publishing, Research Integritiy, Training

Bournemouth University contributed to the successful Cost Action Training School 2013 earlier this month (see: www.um.edu.mt/events/costactiontraining2013/). The Training School ‘Writing for maternity services research, theory, policy and practice: Integrating new theoretical insights from the iR4B COST Action’ was held at the University of Malta.
The 24 trainees who were successful in their application came from a wide-range of European countries. At the Training School each trainee was linked to one of six experienced trainers, three from Ireland: Prof. Declan Devane, Dr. Valerie Smith, and Prof Cecily Begley, and three from the UK: Prof. Soo Downe, Dr. Lucy Firth, and BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. These trainers brought to the Training School not only their extensive experience as writers, but also that of scientific editors, reviewers for academic journals, and PhD supervisors.

(photo by Mário Santos, Portugal).

The Training School included presentations on how to incorporate notions of salutogenesis and complexity into maternity care and midwifery publications, issues around writing academic English as a non-native English speaker, plagiarism, how to start writing an academic paper for a MSc or PhD thesis, and many more related topics.
In their feedback some trainees stressed that this is the kind of helpful information every postgraduate student and budding academic should know about. Others said “I wish I had known that before as no one ever addresses these issues.” The trainees discussed the outlines of their papers, and they were given ample time to draft papers under the watchful eye of their trainer. All trainees have committed to submit a paper derived from the Training School by early Spring 2014.
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is one of the longest-running European frameworks supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe. For further information on OST in general see: http://www.cost.eu/ ).

Bournemouth University was represented by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen based at the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health in the School of Health & Social Care.

Under-grad Midwifery Students and Examination of the Newborn – a pilot project.

BU Challenges, Fusion, Training

Five pre-registration midwifery students were successful in their application to take part in a pilot project which will equip them with the knowledge, skills and competency to undertake  examination of the newborn prior to qualification as a midwife. Midwives have always undertaken an initial examination of a baby soon after birth and the 24 hour ‘medical’ examination was traditionally undertaken by junior doctors or GP trainees. Following a change in doctor’s hours and a call for more holistic midwifery care, midwives began to take on the role of examining newborns following a period of rigorous training and education delivered through universities throughout the UK. Bournemouth University, for many years now, has been actively involved in educating midwives into this role, both locally and as far a field as Brighton and Gloucester. Currently the under-graduate midwifery curriculum does not offer this learning to its midwifery students although there is a strong push nationally for students to qualify with the skills. Two universities have already embedded the skills into their three year curriculum and BU will begin to educate and train students with the necessary skills/competencies in 2014 with a brand new midwifery curriculum. In the meanwhile we are fast tracking five motivated students. The students (Bex, Jenna, Katie, Luzie and Jeanette (not in photograph)  have to access all the post grad teaching and learning days (x5) which started last week. As well as undertaking an assessed presentation (6th day) with their qualified colleagues, they will have to undertake 30 newborn examinations under the watchful eye of their midwifery mentor who already has the qualification.  The unit leader (myself) will undertake their final assessment in practice in conjunction with their mentor. If successful the students will be awarded with 20 CPD credits for use after qualification.

Undertaking the pilot will be demanding for the students as they will still have to obtain their EU midwifery numbers, but it will not be at the expense of the pilot. Their under-grad training takes precedence.Furthermore a number of conditions were attached to the offers of a place:  the pilot cannot be used as mitigation for any referred  unit  in their 3rd year and the credits cannot be used to top up their degree should they not achieve the requisite 120 credits for completion.  All the students expressed strong commitment to obtaining the necessary skills and they have until September 2014 to complete. The pilot will pave the way for the new curriculum and will help with exposing any shortfalls in practice. I am immensely proud of the students for taking on this extra work. They have so many competing demands on their time and this will be just another. However it will provide the students with the skills to examine newborn babies when they are newly qualified midwives, which in turn will benefit women and their babies.  If anybody is interested in knowing more about the pilot please contact me on:  lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk

Breastfeeding poster presentation at Royal College of Midwives conference

Publishing

Dr. Catherine Angell, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery attended the annual RCM conference on November 13-14 in Telford.  Catherine presented an academic poster to highlight some of BU’s key research in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health.  The poster (Fig. 1) reported findings of a survey of users of the Healthtalkonline webpages on breastfeeding.  These webpages are based on breastfeeding research conducted at BU can be found here.  BU research has fed into research-based training modules for midwives, lactation consultants and other professionals.  Currently the breastfeeding webpages receive around 37,000 hits each month, representing around 1,500 individuals.

The problem with clicks on webpages is that it suggests interest but it does not constitute evidence of changing knowledge or behaviour.  Dr. Angell teamed up with BU colleagues Prof. Vanora Hundley, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Senior Lecturer Alison Taylor as well as Prof. Kath Ryan from La Trobe University Australia to study the effect of the webpages.

To ascertain the impact of the webpages the team developed and conducted an online questionnaire survey of users of the breastfeeding webpages between Nov.2012- Feb. 2013.  A questionnaire study was administered after ethical approval had been granted. The survey was completed by 159 people, mainly from the UK, but also from other parts of the world such as Australia and New Zealand (12.6%) and the USA/Canada (2.5%).

BU was also represented at the RCM conference through BU Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland.  Jillian is a community midwife working for NHS Poole, who presented a poster on the benefits to mothers and staff of the RCM Bournemouth & Poole Community choir.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

 

IVF failure is hard to accept!

 

On today’s BBC webpage is a very interesting article under the title ‘I wish IVF had never been invented’ (www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24725655).  The article lists comments, experiences and/or feelings from readers of Magazine about the frequency with which In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) fails.

The article reminded me that some years ago colleagues at the University of Aberdeen and I published a series of articles on the often difficult decision for couples to end IVF treatment after having tried for a long time (1-3).  We noted that couples embarking on their IVF  programme are full of optimism with unrealistically high expectations. Then we noted that IVF yield only a 20-25 percent pregnancy rate per cycle, today the success rate is still less than one in three for women under 35 according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), in short many couples leave the IVF clinic childless. We also noted that IVF treatment can also be a source of tension for couples.

We concluded at the time that the decision to end IVF treatment is a complex interaction between (a) the experience of diagnosis of infertility; investigations and IVF treatment; and (b) the emotions around involuntary childlessness. Our results indicated the need for improved psychological preparation of couples who decide to end IVF treatment.

 

We commented that IVF clinics should adapt their systems to facilitate the needs of this client group and consider a policy, which would help couples ‘plan for the end’ in the beginning. Finally, our study suggested that health care staff involved in IVF care need to examine their roles in providing an environment, which (1) encourages realistic expectations to ensure realistic decisions; (2) offers accurate and consistent information; and (3) deliver an efficient support system, which encompasses listening skills and recognises grief for which at present, there appears to be little validation. Only then, can reflective practice improve service provision for those who decide to end IVF treatment. Reading the various comments on the BBC webpages today suggests to me that many of our original recommendations still have currency!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

References

  1. Peddie, V., van Teijlingen, E., Bhattacharya, S (2004) Decision making in in-vitro fertilisation: How women view the end of treatment Human Fertility, 7: 31-37.
  2. Peddie, V.L., van Teijlingen E., Bhattacharya, S. (2005) A qualitative study of women’s decision-making at the end of IVF treatment, Human Reproduction, 20 (7): 1944-1951.
  3. Peddie, V.L., Porter, M., van Teijlingen E., Bhattacharya, S. (2006) Research as a therapeutic experience? An investigation of women’s participation in research on ending IVF treatment, Human Fertility, 9(4): 231-238.

CMMPH PhD students steal the show at the GLOW maternal health conference

PG research

The second Global Women’s Health Conference, held in Birmingham on November 1st, highlighted the work that still needs to be done to reduce maternal mortality. Prof Wendy Graham from the University of Aberdeen opened the conference outlining the progress to date but reminding us that there was much still to do. Her hard hitting presentation showed the unacceptable conditions of birthing rooms in many countries. She urged the audience to remember that “we do not want universal health care of poor quality.”

Rachel Arnold

This was followed by a short film produced by BU Visiting Professor Gwyneth Lewis, which tells the story of Mrs X and why she died in childbirth.

A number of presenters highlighted hospital conditions and disrespectful staff as a disincentive for women in seeking facility birth. However, Rachel Arnold, PhD student in CMMPH,  reminded the audience that the carers were women too. She noted that it is all too easy to blame health care professionals, forgetting the challenging conditions that they have to work in. In her excellent and moving presentation Rachel presented quotes from midwives and doctors in Afghanistan that brought a number of audience members to tears.

BU Prof Vanora Hundley presented work from Pakistan evaluating a decision tool to support policy makers and programme managers who are considering the potential role of clean birth kits in their strategy for care at birth.

Sheeta;

Sheetal Sharma

While PhD student Sheetal Sharma’s poster presentation Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention stole the day winning best poster prize.   Sheetal has a unique international supervisory team led by BU and her PhD is supported by Bournemouth University with a studentship and a Santander grant.

The event was also an opportunity to publicise next year’s international conference on Midwifery and the post-MDG agenda, which will be held at Bournemouth University.

BU well represented at Global Women’s (GLOW) Research Conference

PG research

 

At tomorrow’s Global Women’s (GLOW) Research Conference at the University of Birmingham BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health is very well presented.  Prof. Vanora Hundley presents her poster Clean Birth Kits to promote safe childbirth, which reports the views of policy makers and district health officers in Pakistan regarding the potential for CBKs to facilitate clean birth practices.

 

PhD student Sheetal Sharma also presents a poster on her thesis under the title: Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention.  Sheetal’s work is supervised by BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley, BU Senior Lecturer in Midwifery Catherine Angell, BU Visiting Fellow Dr. Padam Simkhada (ScHARR, University of Sheffield) and Dr. Elisa Sicuri from CRESIB (Barcelona Centre for International Health Research) in Spain and Prof. José M. Belizán from IECS (Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy) in Argentina.  Sheetal’s PhD evaluates a community-based health promotion intervention in Nepal which aims to improve the uptake of maternity care.  The intervention is sponsored by the London-based Buddhist charity Green Tara Trust (see: http://www.greentaratrust.com/ ).

 

Whilst PhD student Rachel Arnold will give an oral presentation of her PhD research under the title:  Afghan women: a qualitative study of the culture of care in an Afghan maternity hospital.   This PhD, supervised by BU Professors Immy Holloway and Edwin van Teijlingen and BU Visiting Professor Kath Ryan (La Trobe University, Australia), analyses the culture of care within a maternity hospital in the Afghan capital Kabul and examines the perspectives of midwives, doctors and cleaners on their role and care within that hospital. In a country striving to reduce the high rate of maternal mortality the provision of quality intrapartum care for women in Kabul’s maternity hospitals is vital.

 

BU Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen will also take the opportunity at the GLOW conference to promote the forthcoming BU conference on what will happen after the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 ‘Midwifery and the post MDG agenda’ (http://postmdgagenda-eorg.eventbrite.co.uk/ ).

 

Vanora Hundley is Professor of Midwifery

Edwin van Teijlingen is Professor of Reproductive Health Research

 

Twenty years after the publication of Changing Childbirth, where are we now?

Twenty years after the publication of Changing Childbirth, an eminent panel of clinicians, politicians and consumer representatives assembled to review the legacy of this key Changing CHildbirthmaternity report. The session, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was held at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London – an appropriate place given the balance of power at the time of the report.  BU Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen were invited to attend as part of the selected audience at the session.

The session started with the panel reminding the audience that maternity services prior to the publication of Changing Childbirth in the early 1990s were anything but women focused. Several speakers noted that this report was the first to put women at the centre of maternity care, and many of the recommendations regarding patient-centred care across the NHS followed on from it. As the president of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Lesley Page commented: “It was common sense, but hugely radical.”

Changing Childbirth was the government’s response to Sir Nicholas Winterton’s ground-breaking review of the maternity services (Health Select Committee report 1992). The review was unique in seeking views from women – as Nicholas Winterton noted, his Parliamentary committee also made history by letting women who came to give evidence breastfeed during the hearing.

Baroness Julia Cumberlege reflected on how she had been determined that the Health Select Committee report would not simply be another filed document but would have an impact. Twenty years on has the report had an impact? 

The discussions covered a wide-ranging number of maternity care issues at the time of Changing Childbirth’s conception, many of which are still issues today in the UK.  We’d like to highlight two of these issues where BU has made an academic contribution.  First, the observation that we need to be cautious in making assumptions about choices that women perceive they have in childbirth. Profs van Teijlingen and Hundley’s research has demonstrated that women often cannot envisage or value potential choices if these options don’t exist in their current environment.1,2   

The second BU contribution to the debate is around the closure of small maternity units. One of the panel members compared the centralisation of maternity services to that of banks and supermarkets.  A comparative study was published in 2010 by Prof. van Teijlingen and BU Visiting Fellow Dr. Emma Pitchforth under the title ‘Rural maternity care: Can we learn from Wal-Mart?’.

Overall the panel was positive about the legacy of Changing Childbirth – that is, a more humanised maternity services. However, all present expressed disappointment at the failure of the NHS to introduce continuity of carer, something that women who gave evidence stated they valued highly. As Nicholas Winterton said: “We have made progress but we should be making further progress – It is unfinished business.”

Vanora Hundley is Professor of Midwifery

Edwin van Teijlingen is Professor of Reproductive Health Research

 References:

  1. Hundley V, Ryan M and Graham W (2001) Assessing women’s preferences for intrapartum care. Birth 28 (4): 254-263.
  2. van Teijlingen E, Hundley V, Rennie AM, Graham W, Fitzmaurice A. (2003) Maternity satisfaction studies and their limitations: “What is, must still be best”, Birth 30: 75-82.  
  3. van Teijlingen ER and Pitchforth E. (2010) Rural maternity care: Can we learn from Wal-Mart? Health & Place 16: 359-364.

 

 

 

Fresher’s, midwifery students and photographs!

Fresher’s week for midwifery students started with a hard copy photograph. The image had to depict themselves and what midwifery meant to them.  This was used as an ice-breaker for the very first session and students had five minutes to share their photo with the person next to them, before that person fed back to the group the student’s name, and how the photo depicted their commitment to midwifery.  The students were wonderfully creative and inventive. Many had accessed the 6 C’s and based their image around the values of care, compassion,  commitment and communication, all important attributes that midwives bring to the profession. Some photographs depicted the students with midwifery related objects such as stethoscopes, pinards, and fob watches, whilst others were shown working with children/adults and one even washing an elephant on an international placement! All shared a common theme, enabling and facilitating others.  

As an ice-breaker it worked particularly well as the room hummed with animated conversation, but there was a secondary purpose to the activity. It was also a  ‘dummy’ run to see if it would work as an interview activity for the forthcoming 2013-2014 selection days for under-graduate pre-registration midwifery students. The interview process to select new students consists of a number of activities, one of which was a team activity. In previous years students were asked to participate in fictionalized scenarios, which consisted of survival on a lifeboat with limited provisions, being stranded in a forest in the snow after a plane crash and latterly a ‘real life dilemma’ based around prioritizing staff requests for holidays in August or having Xmas and New Year off.  Students had to work as a team and after a twenty minute discussion agree on priorities relating to the particular scenario. These activities enabled the interviewers to see which prospective students were team players, which students actively contributed and whether anybody in particular dominated proceedings. During the 1:1 interview which followed, students were asked about how they felt they had contributed. It was interesting to compare interviewer gradings with the student’s own insight into their participation.

This year the current admissions tutors were keen to try something new – hence the photograph activity.  Prospective candidates will be asked to bring along a photograph to their interview and will have been directed to draw links to one of the identified 6 C’s and to articulate it during their presentation. Each candidate will be partnered with one other during the activity and then asked to feedback each others’ thoughts to the whole group. Interviewers will score the candidates on the following: Communication (verbal & non verbal), how the particular ‘C ‘ was verbalized, creativity of the photograph, listening skills and how the role of the midwife is identified. Ultimately as the activity will be time restricted it is hoped that the candidates will be able, through their photographs to summarize, with reference to the 6 C’s, the values and attributes of a midwife. 

If anybody is interested to know more about the process, please contact Midwifery Admission tutors on the West campus: Susan Mant on smant@bournemouth.ac.uk, and Sarah Emberley on semberley@bournemouth.ac.uk and on the East Campus: Jan Stosiek on jstosiek@bournemouth.ac.uk and Jane Fry on jfry@bournemouth.ac.uk. 

 

 

Beijing and Hong Kong with the Fusion Investment Fund Study Leave Strand. Dr. Rick Fisher, HSC/BUDI

Fusion, Research themes

I applied to be seconded to the BU Dementia Institute, with the objective of raising the profile of the Institute on an international stage. This activity builds on  my current role as chair of the HSC International Strategy Group. The Fusion Fund award was granted to enable me to be released from some of my work commitment within HSC to spend two days per week with BUDI over a period of six months. Contributing to the Fusion Strand ‘Mental health and wellbeing across the lifespan’ the intention was to proactively seek academic and research collaboration with colleagues overseas.

Serendipity?

The intended strategy for this undertaking was to identify overseas areas where there was an opportunity for such collaboration to take place. This would be achieved by undertaking a targeted literature review of existing research centres. An initial reading of primary literature identified that dementia is a growing concern in China. At this time, through my role as a member of BU’s International Task Force, I was aware of a delegation visiting Beijing. A leading light in gerontology, Professor Du Peng, who I had identified through my reading, is Professor of Psychology at Renmin University in Beijing. A small flurry of email exchanges resulted in Dr Biao Zeng from BU’s Psychology department being able to meet with Professor Du, paving the way for a visit to take place later in the year.

I also, with the aid of Professor Anthea Innes, identified Professor Timothy Kwok, of the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing (JCCPA) as a potential collaborator. Timothy and Anthea have previously explored comparative research opportunities. The JCCPA is located in Hong Kong; I could have a ‘free’ stop over with my chosen airline, thereby maximizing the funding. Initial email exchanges with Prof Kwok resulted in an agreement to meet during my trip.The meetings were scheduled for the week beginning September 9th. In the meantime I was introduced to Prof Junqi Yan, who was able to arrange for me to visit a neuro-rehabilitation centre in Beijing, thus adding another opportunity to the visit.

 Visit to Renmin University, Beijing.

Situated in the North of Beijing, Renmin University, (formerly the People’s University of China) is a high-ranking educational establishment and is branded as China’s flagship for Social Sciences and Humanities education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Students relax on campus

 

 

                      Views of Freshers’ Week

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

On a bright, warm Monday morning Biao Zeng and I met with Prof Du,  Prof James Sun, Chair of the Department of Psychology and Associate Dean of the School of Sciences and also Pro Hu Ping who is Associate Dean in the Department of Psychology. Besides his role as head of Population Studies focusing on Gerontology,  Professor Du is also  Director of Academic research for the entire university.

 

     L-R  Prof Sun, Prof Du, Prof Hu, Dr. Rick Fisher, Dr. Biao Zeng

 We had a very positive meeting in which we discussed a number of opportunities. Prof Du and I discussed possibilities of a bid to a recently announced ESRC call for collaborative research between China and the EU.  He is also in the process of setting up a multidisciplinary centre for the study of ageing and has a sociology/social policy background. Prof Du also demonstrated a project, funded by Samsung, in which it is possible to simulate the difficulties older people and those with a physical disability experience as a result of poor building design. This project appears to have some parallels with research being conducted at BUDI.

Prof Sun, who is also Deputy Director of Leadership Studies, is very positive about collaborative ventures. He is keen to foster PhD studentships and a variety of models of faculty exchange. Our meeting was followed by what Prof Sun described as a ‘simple’ lunch, served in the university private dining room, with exquisite presentation.

In all, this was a very positive visit and I am developing a proposal to maintain the keen interest shown in the ESRC bid.

 Visit to Beijing United Family Rehabilitation Hospital

 On the following day I met with Prof Yan and three of his PhD students. We discussed some of their research projects, which included a study into the pressures and health risks being experienced by the fledgling middle management in China’s burgeoning industrial landscape. We travelled through (very slow) Beijing traffic to visit the newly-established Beijing United Family Rehabilitation Hospital. Privately funded and catering for Beijing’s upper strata, this is dedicated to the rehabilitation of those who have neurological impairment. We were met by Dr Jason Zhou, Assistant Chief Medical Officer and Director of Neuro-rehabilitation. Dr Zhou was enthusiastic about the excellent facilities in the hospital which include hydrotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy and he is keen to explore collaborative opportunities for both research and education.

 

                                       Beijing United Family Rehabilitation Hospital.

  Dr Jason Zhu (left) and Prof Junqi Yan next to the hydrotherapy pool.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing

 The following day was spent travelling to Hong Kong. Here I was to meet Professor Timothy Kwok. Besides his work as Director of the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing  he is Professor in Medicine and Therapeutics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His primary research interests centre around the prevention of cognitive decline in elderly people. On arrival I was shown around the Centre by Research Officer, Bel Wong Pui Sze . The centre is arranged  over three floors with good access for wheelchair users throughout. It comprises two levels of day centres; people attend according to the degree of their dementia. There is also a residential facility offering respite care. A major feature of the Centre is in the ways in which it seeks to support those with dementia and those who care for them at home. These include a variety of literature, short courses and a telephone support line. It also aims to raise awareness of dementia within the general public of Hong Kong.

 

 With Prof Timothy Kwok, at the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing

 

   Respite room at the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing

Prof Kwok has numerous interests focused on elderly care and dementia. We had positive discussions regarding a number of ventures and he expressed considerable interest in collaborating on a Chinese language version of the Dementia Educational Game being developed with Fusion Investment Fund monies, by myself, Dr Christos Gatzidis (DEC) and Jonathan Ferraris.

 

                     Goodnight to Hong Kong

In all, this was a positive experience  that has the potential to deliver collaboration across both China and Hong Kong. The next step is to translate some of this bonhomie into measurable outputs.

I would like to thank the BU Fusion Investment Fund for giving me the opportunity to undertake this venture.

rfisher@bournemouth.ac.uk


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The portrayal of childbirth in the mass media

Fusion

Marilyn Cash from HSC’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health recently delivered a paper on the Portrayal of Childbirth in the Mass Media, at the Reimagining Birth International Research Symposium held at the Humanities Institute University College Dublin, Ireland.  The research symposium brought together academics, medics and artists from around the world to explore how childbirth has been portrayed/represented/imagined in the worlds of art and medicine. 

The symposium provided an opportunity for contemporary critical debates into the visual culture of childbirth.  This was a unique opportunity for researchers and practitioners to explore/discuss the visual and sensorial culture of birth, and to contribute to our reimagining of this fundamental personal life experience for mother and child.  Central to the vision of the symposium is the ambition to build connections between interested parties, providing a forum for transcending current knowledge silos and contributing to innovative change in this important personal/cultural domain of human experience.

The paper is part of an ongoing collaboration between academics in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health and the Media School and the University of Stirling, exploring the medicalisation of childbirth.  As a direct result of the symposium academics from the group have been invited to present at the Perinatal Care Online Conference to be held in November 2013. For further information please contact a member of the Media and Childbirth research team (which includes: Prof Vanora Hundley: vhundley@bournemouth.ac.uk, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen: evteijlingen@bournemouth.ac.uk, Dr Ann Luce: aluce@bournemouth.ac.uk, Dr Marilyn Cash: mcash@bournemouth.ac.uk , Prof Helen Cheyne: h.l.cheyne@stir.ac.uk, Dr Catherine Angell: cangell@bournemouth.ac.uk .

HSC student wins Santander Travel Grant to go to Yale

PG research, Post-award, Training

Mrs. Anita Immanuel has just been awarded a travel award from Santander to visit the Yale Cancer Centre in the USA. Anita studies the quality of lives of adults in Dorset who have survived cancer of the blood or immune system. Cancer is a devastating disease and with the advances in treatment patients are living longer, however left with debilitating side effects which can negatively affect their quality of life.

Anita’s research will identify any unmet needs in this group of patients and will give a better understanding into comprehensive survivorship care thereby maximising quality of life. This study uses a mixed methods approach in examining the quality of lives of these patients who have been treated for a haematological cancer. Data will be collected across three Dorset hospitals: The Royal Bournemouth Hospital, Poole Hospital and Dorset County Hospital.

Dr. Helen McCarthy, Consultant Haematologist at The Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Anita’s clinical supervisor, highlighted: “At Yale Cancer Centre Survivorship Clinic, Anita will be introduced to their comprehensive survivorship care programme which can help improve the quality of lives of adults treated with cancer in Dorset.

Dr. Jane Hunt, the lead supervisor and senior lecturer at Bournemouth University’s School of Health & Social Care added: “The survivorship programme at the Yale Cancer Centre Survivorship Clinic integrates a multidisciplinary approach for following up patients treated for cancer by leading experts, which differs significantly from our own. I am convinced Anita’s PhD study will benefit from collaborating with the Yale experts.

BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Anita’s third supervisor, commented “We are grateful to Santander for this funding. We know Anita’s research will significantly contribute to the underdeveloped area of research on adult haematological cancer survivors”.

For more about Santander Awards see: http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/graduate-school/pgt-santander-mobility-awards/