WAGPON, together with the Rural Clinical School, Rural Health West, SPINRPHEX and RACGP, have been providing interactive GP Obstetrics skills and information workshops to medical students and junior doctors since 2012. The workshops have been held in Perth, the South-West and the Midwest. The purpose of the workshops is to provide students and junior doctors with information about what a GP obstetrician does, the training pathways available and the rewarding nature of the work that GP obstetricians do. The workshops are facilitated by local GP obstetricians and include hands-on skills stations, including a combination of normal vaginal birth, instrumental delivery, shoulder dystocia, post-partum haemorrhage, neonatal resuscitation and examination, breech delivery, ultrasound examination of pregnant women and pelvic examination. The workshops are always very well attended and the feedback from attendees extremely positive. Here are some of the comments received via our evaluation forms.
On Saturday 5th August, the RCSWA Hubs and SPINRPHEX group ran a hands-on workshop for rurally interested medical, nursing and midwifery students at the RACGP office in West Leederville. The workshop began with an introduction to the what, where and how of rural maternity services, including training pathways and career opportunities for rural GP obstetricians and midwives in country WA. This was followed by six hands-on workshops focussing on rural obstetric care, shoulder dystocia management, instrumental delivery, neonatal resuscitation, breastfeeding and pelvic examination. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Sarah Moore, Dr Liz Gannon, Dr Chevaun Howard, Dr Chieh Cheng, Dr Penny Wilson, Dr Clare Willix, Dr Liz de Jong and registered midwife Kim Crossan with the support of Sue Pougnault from RCSWA Hubs, the SPINRPHEX committee and Jay from RACGP.
