Category / REF Subjects

Fusion in Action: Clinical Academic PhD scholarships jointly funded with NHS

Fusion Diagram Doing a PhD may appeal to midwives and other NHS health professionals, but it often involves having to make difficult choices. Undertaking a part-time PhD means studying on top of a busy clinical position, but starting full-time study involves stepping away from practice, which may lead to a loss of clinical skills and confidence. The Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) at Bournemouth University has come up with a novel solution making it easier for midwives to undertake a doctorate while still maintaining their clinical skills. This approach is highlighted in the latest publication by Dr. Susan Way and colleagues, describing a process where CMMPH collaborate with NHS partners to apply for a match-funded PhD. [1]  The first partnership was with Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (PHT), with later partners expanded to cover the Isle of Wight and Southampton. Currently there are negotiations with Dorset Country Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Non NHS organisations have also showed an interest with the Anglo European Chiropractic College (AECC) our likely next collaborator.

Dr. Know 2016

This jointly funded clinical academic doctorate allows midwives to combine clinical practice with a research role, working across BU and their NHS Trust. The studentships runs for four years and PhD students will spend two days per week working as a midwife in clinical practice and three days per week working on their thesis. This set up facilitates the co-creation of knowledge. Anybody interested in developing a joint clinical academic PhD with us please contact Dr. Susan Way (sueway@bournemouth.ac.uk), Prof. Vanora Hundley (vhundley@bournemouth.ac.uk), or Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (evteijlingen@bournemouth.ac.uk) .

In addition to providing the individual midwives with excellent education, these studentships are designed to examine an area of clinical practice identified by the collaborating organisation where the evidence is lacking and research is needed. As a consequence the research studies will be directly relevant to practice and will have a demonstrable impact in the future. Hence BU will be able to show that its research and education have a direct benefit to the wider society. Moreover, the studentships currently benefit midwifery practice by building a critical mass of research-focus practitioners, who will translate research findings into practice and so create a culture of evidence-based practice. At BU the model has also been adopted by other professional groups such as nursing, physiotherapy and occupational therapy (OT).

 

The result is a clinical academic doctoral studentship is probably the best practical example of BU’s concept of FUSION, since it truly fuses research, education and practice.

 

Susan Way, Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen.

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1. Way. S., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E., Walton, G., Westwood, G. (2016). Dr Know. Midwives (Spring Issue): 66-67.

Reminder: BUDI lunch time research seminar open to all BU staff and students

You are cordially invited to a BUDI research seminar which is open to all students and staff.
Please feel free to bring your lunch.

 

“Fire safety in the home: local lessons – global reach”

By Dr Michelle Heward

 Tuesday 8 March 2016

13.00 – 13.50pm

EB202, Executive Business Centre

 

Abstract
Objectives: Impairment, disability and dementia are substantial factors in increasing the risk of injury or death from fire in the home. There is, therefore, a concern that the number of people with dementia injured or dying in fires in the home will increase, in relation to the rising number of people living with dementia internationally.

Methods: Mixed methods study. Online survey sent to all Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) in the United Kingdom (UK) (n=55) to establish provision of guidance and resources for people affected by dementia.  Four focus groups: fire service professionals; other professionals; and two with people with dementia and family carers in UK (South West). Explored experiences of home safety risks (including fire risks) and risk reduction strategies, alongside ideas for project outputs such as resources.

Findings: 20 FRSs responded to the survey giving a response rate of 36.4%. A descriptive analysis showed that the provision of guidance and resources for people affected by dementia varies widely across the UK, with few providing dementia-specific information leaflets and resources. During the focus groups, people affected by dementia identified different fire risks and risk reduction strategies to those outlined by professionals. However, a need to understand each person and their individual situation came across in each of the focus groups. This was considered a vital part in determining the individual risks within each home environment. Participants also felt that a range of resources that reflect individual needs would be a useful prevention strategy.

Conclusions: For communities to be truly dementia-friendly there is a need to ensure equity in how services respond to the needs of people affected by dementia. Dementia-specific guidance and resources developed as an output from this project could be shared nationally and internationally to address potential consequences of fire safety inequality in the home. However, there remains a need for cross disciplinary working across all sectors to enable people with dementia and their families, practitioners, policy makers, and the general public to understand and contribute towards effective dementia-friendly communities. This case study of fire safety in the home demonstrates the potential impact of local level studies to improving quality of life of people affected by dementia across the globe.

 

We hope you can join us.

NERC standard grants (July deadline) – internal competition launched

NERC - Science of the Environment 2014NERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures at I:\R&KEO\Public\NERC demand management 2016.

As at March 2015, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.

BU process

As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review. The next available standard grant round is July 2016. The process for selecting an application for this round can be found in the process document in I:\R&KEO\Public\NERC demand management 2016 – the deadline for internal Expressions of Interest which will be used to determine which application will be submitted is 8th April 2016.

NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RKEO submit applications through Je-S on behalf of applicants, RKEO will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.

Appeals process

If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.

RKEO Contacts

Please contact Jennifer Roddis, RKEO Research Facilitator – jroddis@bournemouth.ac.uk or Jo Garrad, RKEO Funding Development Manager – jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.

 

Good week for FHSS publications!

Hundley Cochrane 2016This first week of March has been a good week for FHSS publications.  On March 1st CMMPH Prof. Vanora Hundley published her collaborative paper  ‘Do Cochrane summaries help student midwives understand the findings of Cochrane systematic reviews: the BRIEF randomised trial’.[1]  With colleagues based across the UK and Ireland she surveyed over 800 midwifery students at nine universities.  This results of the study can be found in the journal Systematic Reviews. This is a Gold Open Access journals, hence the paper is freely available for anybody to read across the globe.  To read this paper click here!

PH curious 2016The second FHSS publication is a chapter in a Kindle book on the Importance of public health in low- and middle- income countries, written by Dr. Puspa Raj Pant,CMMPH’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and BU Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada.[2]  Padam Simkhada is Professor of International Public Health and Associate Dean (Global Engagement) for the Faculty of Education, Health and Community at Liverpool John Moores University.  The chapter is part of the Kindle book  with the long title: Public Health for the Curious: Why Study Public Health? (A Decision-Making Guide to College Major, Research & Scholarships, and Career Success for the College Students and Their Parents) edited by Richard Lee Skolnik from Yale University, USA.

The third paper is by FHSS PhD student Clare Farrance with her supervisors Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Dr. Carol Clark.  This systematic review ‘Adherence to community based group exercise interventions for older people: A mixed-methods systematic review’ assessed the views and adherence of older participants attending community-based exercise programmes of over six-months duration.  Reporting that evidence is still very limited, although the preliminary limited evidence is positive regarding long-term adherence rates.  This paper is also Open Access, funded by BU’s Open Access fund.Farrance 2016

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1. Alderdice, F., McNeill, J., Lasserson, T.,Beller, E., Carrol, M., Hundley, V., et al. (2016) Do Cochrane summaries help student midwives understand the findings of Cochrane systematic reviews: the BRIEF randomised trial. Systematic Reviews 5:40 http://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-016-0214-8
  2. Pant, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2016)  Importance of public health in low- and middle- income countries, In:  Skolnik, R.L. (ed.) Public Health for the Curious: Why Study Public Health? (A Decision-Making Guide to College Major, Research & Scholarships, and Career Success for the College Students and Their Parents) Kindle Edition (for more details click here!) 
  3. Farrance, C., Tsofliou, F., Clark, C. (2016) Adherence to community based group exercise interventions for older people: A mixed-methods systematic review To be published. Preventive Medicine (forthcoming)

CfP: Lifestyle and communities: sharing in the digital era

ID-100267211It’s with great pleasure that we invite you to submit an abstract to a special track on “Lifestyle and communities: sharing in the digital era” of the ATLAS annual conference. It will take place in Canterbury, Kent, UK, 14th-16th September 2016.

Please see below for details, or click here… and share!
Led by: Lenia Marques, Jules Hecquet and Dimitrios Buhalis (Bournemouth University, UK)
Supported by: ETourism Lab

The leisure and tourism landscape has been subject to rapid changes in a world where internet and technologies have contributed to shape experiences, relationships, practices and lifestyles. In the network society, the sense of community is also varied and we can interrogate different meanings, values and practices at the heart of changing social interactions. The boundaries between online and offline communities seem to be blurred and they present new societal challenges, which also affect the industry, namely with sharing economy / collaborative consumption practices and communities (such as AirBnB, Uber, Couchsurfing, Meetup, Mealsharing, etc.).

The causes and consequences of such platforms in terms of lifestyle and the sense of community is yet to be studied. Therefore, we welcome papers which may explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

  • Online/offline communities and lifestyle
  • Sharing economy / collaborative consumption and lifestyle
  • Social interaction in the digital era
  • Leisure digital practices
  • Events as online/offline communities of practice
  • Digital technologies in the tourism experience
  • Lifestyle challenges in leisure and tourism
  • Impacts of sharing economy / collaborative consumption in conventional industry production systems
  • Research methods in the context of sharing economy / collaborative consumption

The convenors are looking at possibilities for publication.

For more details, click  here or contact Dr Lenia Marques, lmarques@bournemouth.ac.uk .

http://www.atlas-euro.org/event_2016_canterbury/tabid/248/language/en-US/Default.aspx#track6

*Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network (CHAIN) Demonstration 23rd March 2016

CHAIN – Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network – is an online mutual support network for people working in health and social care. It gives people a simple and informal way of contacting each other to exchange ideas and share knowledge.

The online Directory can be used to identify and communicate with other members. You might wish to do this to draw from their experience, or to elicit an opinion on an issue or something you are doing. Or you might wish to find collaborators or liaise with fellow-travellers or people with specific skills or interests for a wide range of purposes. You can do this quickly and easily with CHAIN, and part of the advantage is that the people you find will usually be happy to help you if they can.

A representative from CHAIN will be visiting BU on 23rd March at 2:30pm in Wollstone Lecture Theatre, Bournemouth House (BG10) to demonstrate how to make the most of being part of the network. All staff are welcome to attend, and please pass the invitation on to your final year students who may be interested in learning more about what CHAIN has to offer.

Contact Lisa Gale-Andrews at lgaleandrews@bournemouth.ac.uk to book your place.

New BU multidisciplinary media & health paper out today!

media childbirth

Today saw the publication “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media, a paper which is truly interdisciplinary, both in terms of its authorship as well as its topics[1]. The lead-author, Dr. Ann Luce is based in the Faculty of Media & Communication, whilst her BU co-authors Dr. Catherine Angell, Prof. Vanora Hundley, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr. Marylin Cash are all associated with the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. Prof. Helen Cheyne, the only non-BU co-author, is based at the University of Stirling.

The paper is a scoping review to assess the influence media have on pregnant women. Much of the academic literature discusses the influence of (reality) television, which often portrays birth as risky, dramatic and painful.  Although many claim that the portrayal of childbirth has a negative effect on society, there is little research evidence to support this claim. It has been suggested that women seek out such programmes to help understand what could happen during the birth because there is a cultural void through the increasing anticipation of negative outcomes. However the impact that has on normal birth has not been explored.  Our paper highlighted three key themes: (a) the medicalisation of childbirth; (b) women using media to learn about childbirth; and (c) birth as a missing everyday life event.  The key conclusions are the media appear to influence how women engage with childbirth. The dramatic television portrayal of birth may perpetuate the medicalisation of childbirth, and last, but not least, portrayals of normal birth are often missing in the popular media. Hence midwives need to engage with television producers to improve the representation of midwifery and maternity in the media.

BMC cover media

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth is an Open Access journal so our paper is freely available to researchers, journalists, childbirth activists as well as pregnant women anywhere in the world.  This paper builds on a growing number of academic papers published by staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the role the media play in health and midwifery, both in the UK [2-3] and in Nepal [4-6].

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1.  Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C., (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40
  2. Hundley, V., Duff, E., Dewberry, J., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 24(4): 444-447.
  3. Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10.
  4. Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2012) Media use for Health Promotion: Communicating Childhood Immunisation Messages to Parents. Journal of Health Promotion 4(1): 1-9.
  5. Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2013) Childhood Immunisation in Nepal: Parents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour & implications for Health Policy. Health Science Journal 7(4):370-383.
  6. Devkota, S., Maharjan, H.M., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Media and Health. In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 169-184.

First BU paper Prof. McConnell

Alison McConnell 2016FHSS Professor Alison McConnell just published her latest paper ‘Inspiratory muscle training improves breathing pattern during exercise in COPD patients’  with her international co-authors from Belgium and Thailand.  The paper concludes that the addition of inspiratory muscle training to a pulmonary rehabilitation programme in COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients with inspiratory muscle weakness resulted in a deeper and slower breathing pattern during exercise. Patients could achieve significantly higher peak work rate and exercise ventilation without increasing dyspnoea sensation.

Prof. McConnell is also author of Breathe Strong, Perform Better as well as Respiratory Muscle Training: Theory & Practice.

Congratultions,

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

New health editorial on Sustainable Development Goals & Nepal

Regmi SDG 2016SDG 17Since late 2015 the world strives to achieve towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDGs bring together the social, economic and environmental aspects of development. There are 17 SDGs sub-divided into 169 targets. One of these 17 goals focuses specifically on health, namely to “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all age”. SDG devotes 13 health-related targets to diverse population health and wellbeing issues including maternal and child health, communicable disease including HIV, non-communicable diseases, substance use, traffic accidents, universal access to sexual and reproductive health, and sanitation.

Nepal is one of the many countries that have signed up to the SDGs. This week BU researchers Dr. Pramod Regmi, Prof. Vanora Hundley,  Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, FHSS, PhD students Sheetal Sharma and Preeti Mahato, and BU Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University) published an editorial under the title ‘Sustainable Development Goals: relevance to maternal & child health in Nepal’ [1]. This editorial written by health researchers working in Nepal highlights some of the weaknesses in the country’s health care system.   These key problems include the persistence of inequalities in health and the limited access to health services and the low uptake of care in many poorer populations especially in the more remote rural regions. For instance, only about one in nine of the poorest women deliver their babies with the aid of a skilled birth attendant (SBA), whilst 81.5% for the richest women benefit form a SBA. Therefore, this editorial stresses the need for a continuum of health care services to be available across the country and for all sections of the society. Moreover, we can only assess whether a country has reached all or any of the SDGs if there is systematic monitoring and regular review of interventions at all levels. Hence, Nepal should develop measureable and time-bond indicators to track its progress towards the SDGs. The country will need support from development partners in both its attempts to achieve the SDGs as well when it tries to collect and analysis data to assess its progress.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingn

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sharma, S., Mahato, P. (2016) Sustainable Development Goals: relevance to maternal & child health in Nepal. Health Prospect 15(1):9-10. healthprospect.org/archives/15/1/3.pdf

 

“Designing ‘Playful’ Business Events” – Dr Phil Crowther (Sheffield Hallam University) visiting BU

Dr Phil Crowther, from Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield Business School), will be on a short visit to BU where he will meet researchers from the Department of Events and Leisure to exchange and explore potential research opportunities (8th March 2016).

“Designing ‘Playful’ Business Events” is the title of his guest lecture, where Dr Phil Crowther explores the very serious nature of play in the design of business events.

We invite you to join this session, to the limit of seating capacity, on the 8th March 2016, Allesbrook Lecture Hall (Talbot Campus), 1 p.m.

For a little bit more on Dr Phil Crowther, please read below his story in the first person.

Would you like to know more details on this visit or to join us in the research meeting programme, please email Dr Lenia Marques, lmarques@bournemouth.ac.uk .

Phil Crowther

My first degree was in Recreation Management from Loughborough University, graduating in 1995. Since then I have enjoyed a career in recreation / leisure / tourism / event management for eleven years, running cinemas, theme parks, and health and racquet clubs as General Manager.  During this time I had the pleasure of designing and delivering such highlights as film premiers, celebrity birthday parties, and large team building events.  During my industry career I completed a part-time MBA in Executive General Management which was my pathway back into universities. Since then I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching, researching, and delivering continuing professional development (CPD) events and consultancy in the area of Event Management.

My teaching focuses heavily on strategy and events, leading teaching on modules such as Event Policy and Planning, Strategic Event Design, and Strategic Event Creation.  My research focusses specifically upon Marketing Events, part of the Experiential Marketing eruption, and I have published a number of journal papers.  I have recently edited a book entitled Strategic Event Creation with colleagues which sets out an agenda for the practice, and teaching, of events.   Most recently completed my PhD entitled ‘Strategic Application of Marketing Events’ which continues to be my main interest.   

 Beyond that I have two fabulous daughter, a wonderful partner, and two amazing dogs called Baxter and Will.  I also have a passion for running and was most recently, in January this year, running the Hong Kong Marathon in pouring rain.

New HEIF project commences: The Wessex Portal and the Dorset Coast Digital Archive

The Wessex Portal was created three years ago and it is an online community to better promote the environmental and heritage assets of the region. The purpose of the website is to highlight work undertaken in Wessex and allow a platform to promote events, volunteering and job opportunities with key stakeholders. Alongside the website, The Wessex Portal promotes the content to a wider audience using social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Mailchimp which are regularly updated to engage with, and reach out to the public and the local community.

Dorset Coast Digital Archive

The Dorset Coast Digital Archive (DCDA) is part of the Wessex Portal. The DCDA is an extensive archive of photographs, newspaper articles, aerial images and historical maps of the Dorset coast that date back as far as 1740. The aim of the DCDA is to showcase this archive and ask members of the public to contribute their own photos to this collection.

A sample image from the archive of a stranded whale on Bournemouth beach from 1890 (Source: Bournemouth University Library)

A sample image from the archive of a stranded whale on Bournemouth beach from 1890 (Source: Bournemouth University Library)

The Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (SciTech) is leading this project. The Archive will promote information and understanding of how the Dorset coast has changed over time. Through support from the HEIF 5 + 1 funding, it will be possible to fully develop the Archive and make is accessible on the internet. The Archive will also be a valuable teaching tool. The current stage of the project involves categorising over 3000 images to make them available online.

Any questions regarding the project can be addressed to Professor Genoveva Esteban gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk or Research Assistant Katie Thompson i7430967@bournemouth.ac.uk

Political Studies Association: Sport and Politics Conference 2016

PSA-logoDept visual

Political Studies Association: Sport and Politics Conference 2016

Conference theme: Social Justice

Sport, Politics and Social Justice

The Department of Sport and Physical Activity are pleased to be hosting this years PSA Sport Special Interest Groiup Conference on the 4th and 5th March at the Executive Business Centre.

This is the 10th anniversary of this academic group and the conference has gradually grown to become an international event with papers being presented by academics from the USA, Turkey, Poland, Hong Kong and the UK.

The conference will aim to unpack and interrogate some of the ideas concerning Sport, as a cultural form par excellence, its inherent political nature, andwhat can only be described as an ambiguous relationship with social justice. Governments and international sports organisations often cite the commonly held precepts of social justice – fairness and/or entitlement – as key aspects and determinants of political bargaining and policymaking concerning sport.

Some might claim that it is the supposed virtue of justice that sits at the heart of sport that gives it such special value manifest in the use of sport in initiatives such as crime prevention, community development and health promotion.

Others might argue that within a wider cultural politics, sport can be understood as an insidious site through which various discourses are appropriated and mobilised in regard to the organisation and discipline of daily life and, from this perspective, that sport may do very little to champion an orientation towards social justice, equality and inclusion.

The Sport, Politics and Social Justice Conference 2016 will provide a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of these issues and more. The conference will explore the inter-relationship between sport, politics and social justice by drawing on research from a variety of academic fields, including: politics, political science, sociology, social policy, political philosophy, criminology, community and youth work, history, law, geography, and sport studies.

If you are interested and would like to attend please contact the conference Chair Andrew Adams +

 

Involving patients and the public in your research. Registration for NIHR webinar now open!

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Training and Coordinating Centre will be hosting a live one hour webinar about involving patients and the public in research on Tuesday 23 February at 11am.

This is an introductory webinar for researchers with little or no experience of patient and public involvement (PPI). This webinar is aimed at aspiring NIHR trainees and early career researchers.

This webinar will include:

  • An overview of what PPI is and why it is important in research
  • Why PPI is important to the NIHR and how best to demonstrate PPI in an application – including signposts to NIHR resources around PPI
  • Q&A session

The webinar will be presented by Philippa Yeeles, Director of Involvement and Engagement at the NIHR Central Commissioning Facility alongside Anne-Laure Donskoy, an NIHR Panel Member and independent researcher.

You can register for the webinar via the following link:

bit.ly/PPIwebinar2016

New NHS article by BU Visiting Faculty Minesh Khashu

FileLaptopImageDataManagement-1024x1024Minesh Khashu (BU Visiting Faculty and clinician in Poole Hospital) and Jeremy Scrivens published their third instalment of a series of online papers on the NHS.  This contribution is called ‘Can We Heal an Ailing Healthcare System? Part 3’.  They deep dive into this idea of transformation through a strengths-based approach.   They consider how we can build an NHS Social Movement by bringing the whole system together to inquire into and extend NHS’s Positive Core.  The blog (online paper) can be accessed here!

For more information you can also follow the two authors on Twitter: Minesh Khashu(@mkrettiwt) & Jeremy Scrivens (@jeremyscrivens)

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

A series of co-incidents

Over 25 years ago during my PhD research comparing the organisation of midwifery and maternity care in the Netherlands and the Northeast of Scotland I wrote a chapter comparing the history of maternity care in the two countries.  I needed to write this not, as I thought at the time, to improve my thesis, but for myself to help me as a sociologist to help understand these historical developments.

In the process of researching the history of midwifery in the Netherlands I found a commemorative book by Drenth (1998) celebrating the centenary of the Dutch midwifery organisation. In this book is a footnote stating that the first chair of the KNOV (Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives), Ms Francijntje de Kadt, lived and worked in the town of Vlaardingen in the late 19th to early 20th century (Drenth 1998). This note caught my eyes as I am born and bred in Vlaardingen.

Francijntje de Kadtlaan in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands

Francijntje de Kadtlaan in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands

After a bit more searching and a visit to the archives of the town of Vlaardingen I managed to dig up a little more about Francijntje de Kadt, but not an awful lot. During a family visit to the Netherlands I visited the archives of Vlaardingen to see what information they had about her. The archivist immediately recognised the name of Francijntje de Kadt, since genealogists keep finding her name as the midwife listed on their ancestors’ birth certificates. However, the archivist did not know that Francijntje de Kadt had been the first chair of the Dutch Mmidwifery organisation from its establishment in 1898 till 1926. At that point I decided to apply for a small travel grant in the History of Medicine from the Wellcome Trust. That application was successful, awarding a travel grant of £ 1,050 in 2001. My research in various archives in the Netherlands resulted in two papers (in Dutch) about Francijntje de Kadt, one in a local history journal (van Teijlingen 2003a) and one in the Dutch midwifery journal (2003b) and one about the collapse in 1921 of the midwives’ first pension fund (van Teijlingen 2002). This was for a while the end of my career as an amateur historian due to my busy day job as a health researcher and MSc coordinator at the University of Aberdeen.

Many years later (2010) I ended up talking to the burgomaster of Vlaardingen at the reception organised by the town to celebrate the fact that my father had been awarded the Dutch equivalent of an OBE. Over a drink I asked the burgomaster what the process was for suggesting a new street name in Vlaardingen. He suggested I write to the Street Name Committee with a justification why Francijntje de Kadt deserved a street name. With my recommendation I sent this committee my two Dutch publications. A few months later the secretary to the Street Name Committee wrote to say that my proposal had been accepted and that her name would be given to a street in a new development of the former local hospital grounds.

Then in mid-2015 a Dutch historian Eva Moraal came to Vlaardingen with her partner on a day trip and they ended up walking through the Francijntje de Kadtlaan. She read the subscript on the street sign (see photo) and thought ‘This woman need to have an encyclopaedia entry!’ A few days later she emailed me at Bournemouth University for further information on the live, work and achievements of Francijntje de Kadt to help her write a piece for the encyclopaedia. Two months ago Eva Moraal (2015) published her very nice contribution on Francijntje de Kadt.

So what started as a small historical study as an introduction chapter of a PhD thesis in Medical Sociology ended up with a ‘forgotten’ national midwifery leader having a street named after her in the town she spent most of her working live and her own entry in the encyclopaedia, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (in Dutch: Online Women’s Lexicon of the Netherlands). What is even more interesting that this otherwise chronologically logical story is based on three major co-incidents: first, spotting a footnote in commemorative book about Vlaardingen. If Francijntje de Kadt had lived and worked anywhere else in the Netherlands other than my birthplace I would not have paid much attention. Secondly, speaking to the burgomaster of Vlaardingen and having a conversation in which street names cropped up, and thirdly, Eva Moraal who just happened to walk through the Francijntje de Kadtlaan, reading the street sign, and thinking this is an historical figure who needs better recognition.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

Drenth, P. (1998) 1898-1998. Honderd jaar vroedvrouwen verenigd, Bilthoven: KNOV.

Moraal, E. (2015) Kadt, Francijntje de, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Kadt

van Teijlingen, E. (2002) Ondergang eerste pensioenfonds voor vroedvrouwen (in Dutch: Decline of the first pension fund for midwives), Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen (in Dutch: Journal for Midwives), 27(12): 684.

van Teijlingen, E.R. (2003a) Berichten – Francijntje de Kadt (1858-1929), Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen (in Dutch: Journal for Midwives), 28(12): 630-633.

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