Amazing what you can do with photos......Holiday

 

Taking a week off to take our relative from the UK on holiday to see some of the top end of WA....although I took a week off work.... I still managed to take my laptop to get some personal work completed...this being some writing and my Midwifery Practice Review (MPR), my aim was also to do some marking, but it was hard when in a car to give feedback as your writing ends up being eligible....so alas no marking got done.....We started from Perth, first stop was the Pinnacles are two-hundred and forty-five kilometres north of Perth on the way to Geraldton. Closest main town is Cervantes. The Pinnacles are seventeen kilometres south east of the town.

The Pinnacles are limestone formations. The raw material for the limestone of the Pinnacles came from seashells in an earlier epoch rich in marine life. These shells were broken down into lime rich sands which were carried inland to form high mobile dunes. The Pinnacles were formed from lime leaching from the sand and by rain cementing the lower levels of the dune into a soft limestone. The area has changed over the years and is becoming more tourist orientated....with jarrah paths and lookouts being new features... since I was last here....

Next was Jurien Bay....beautiful spot...where we stopped for a cuppa and some chocolate...followed by.... Dongara... just before Geraldton... Ian had to have a meat pie from the Dongara bakery.... we went through Geraldton to Northampton where we were stopping for a few days...to enjoy the region...
The Shire of Northampton encompasses the popular tourist destinations of Horrocks, Port Gregory, Kalbarri and Northampton. The area is extremely diverse from the coastal lifestyle of Kalbarri to the heritage trails through Northampton and tourism is a growing industry.....

The problem with travelling around Australia, particularly WA, is that the roads are very long, and the towns are long and far between.... its a dream to have my laptop so that I can write, do some filing, those menial tasks that you never have time to do.... it's a case of have laptop will travel... three of us where travelling and as our guest gets car sick unless she is in the front or driving...I elected to have the back seat... I was actually happy to get some work done with my laptop, listening to some music and just enjoying going with the flow...so for me it was a good compromise...

Kalbarri..nestled where the Murchison River flows into the Indian Ocean, two hours' drive north from Geraldton, is the ideally situated town of Kalbarri. This is one of Western Australia's most popular holiday resorts.
Nature provides visitors to Kalbarri with once in a lifetime experiences. The climate is warm and sunny for most of the year. It was an interesting climb to natures window....so beautiful but the flies were an absolute pest.....
We spent the night at some wonderful chalets in Denham Oceanside Village, opposite the beach... couldn't believe how windy it was....Denham is only 20mins from Monkey Mia... we needed to be at Monkey Mia at 7am to see the dolphins.. so we saw the sunrise.. beautiful but cold.....it was worth every moment when we saw the dolphins... Monkey Mia has also changed over the years....the first time I came here over 20 yrs ago, there were no rangers... the dolphins came up and you could swim with them.... slowly each trip to the area...I have noticed changes... some good and some not so good....now its very restricted when seeing the dolphins....there was a mother dolphin with two babies... I must admit when you first see the dolphin swimming towards you and you first spot the fin.... the word shark does come to mind.....
Next stop was Carnarvon....a bustling town with a wonderful Aboriginal Arts centre...well worth stopping there for meal.... fantastic....we also visited; the blowholes, beautiful coastline, banana and mango plantations (unfortunately for us it was not fruit season), walked the old wooden jetty (2mile)..... we had a great dinner at the Old Post Office... Canarvon is a town with so much potential....again well worth the visit....


My favourite stop was Shell Beach....... a secluded beach with thousands of white shells.....Formed from billions of tiny shells, aptly named Shell Beach in the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. Shell Beach is one of only a handful of places on earth where shells replace beach sand in such a dramatic and picturesque way.
The beach stretches for more than 100 kilometres with shells between seven and ten metres deep.
I walked on Shell Beach it is like no other beach. Incredibly, the beach is made up of shells from just one type of animal, making it truly unique. I could of stayed there all day......
It was back to Northampton.... then the 6hr drive home the next day.... all in all we covered about 3,000kilometers......and we didn't hit one kangaroo......

I made a photo collage of some of the places our guest visited whilst here.... amazing what you can do with Picasa from google.... I am learning all the time... fantastic program.....

The road to eligibility for the Midwife:

The question is how long will it take to become an eligible midwife? Gone are the days of qualifying as a midwife and practicing autonomously, now we have to jump through hoops. As you may be aware the laws in Australia are changing from the 1st July we go to National Registration, which in itself is not a bad thing. There will be four categories to the register for nurses and midwives: Registered Nurse (RN): Midwife: Non Practicing Midwife: Student nurse / midwife.

You can register as a RN & Midwife, if you are both you can choose to drop one or the other of your qualifications, that means you can register only as an RN or a Midwife should you choose to….. One thing I urge all RN / Midwives before dropping one or the other of your qualifications you will need to check your employment contract to ensure you have not signed a contract to be both…….
If you do maintain both professions you will have to complete the required ongoing professional development for both professions, and ensure you practice in both within a 5 year period otherwise you will not be able to register. There will be two registers, one for the RN and the Midwife.... there will also be a non-practicing Midwife register, and a student register for more information see the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.
The other major change is that for midwives you need to declare your indemnity insurance, if you work for a hospital this will be easy you will need to contact your employer and ask them who you are insured with and provide this information to the Board.
The Australian College of Midwives is securing indemnity insurance for midwives, antenatal and postnatal care…..currently there will be no insurance for intrapartum (Homebirth).

One of the requirements for “the eligible” midwife will undoubtedly be Midwifery Practice Review (MPR), however the final requirements for eligibility have not been released yet. I have started this process because I want to be “an eligible midwife” even though I consider myself one….. I do not meet the government requirements. As from the 1st November midwives will be able to claim a Medicare number, (by the way midwife is not on the list until after the 1st November) now this is also no easy feat…… there are online courses that need to be completed first…..but you cannot do them until November…..do you feel like we are being screwed…. YES.

What I can do now is get my MPR review out the way…… what does this mean….. it means that you need to give yourself some time to complete this process and you need more than a few hours. I am traditionally one who keeps a portfolio, sets annual and 5 year plans as a rule, so none of this is new to me…. However if you have not done this before then allow yourself more time.

I have just completed the first stage of the MPR, that is; a synopsis of my CV, qualifications, current position, previous positions, professional development and key achievements; this takes about 2 pages. Followed by my Midwifery Philosophy half a page; clear current job description; you are half way now; next, reflect on your practice using the ANMC Competency Standards for the Midwife; you will use the four sub headings; Legal and Professional Practice; Midwifery Knowledge and Practice; Midwifery as Primary Health Care and finally; Reflective and Ethical Practice: you will use examples from your clinical practice to address each competency (we do it every day, we just do not necessarily recognize it or relate our work to our competences) this makes us write done what we do ; Now the bulk of the work is completed…all that is left is your short (12 mths) and long term goals (5yrs), you have to make your goals achievable…… that’s it all done… it took me all in all about 6-8 hours…. a few hours each day. Your synopsis should be submitted to the ACM fours week before your interview….. so that they can review your work to ensure it is all compete and meet the requirements…..then all that is left to do is the hour interview…..the interview will be with two reviewers a consumer and a midwife; Watch this space….
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Reflections of the Virtual International Midwives Day 2010

Sarah Stewart and Dr Deborah Davis (UTS Sydney)did a fantastic job organising this day....This is what the program looked like, as you can see a 24 hr program takes some organising, you can follow Sarah Stewart's process by looking at her blog...she blogs every step of the way. What I admire about Sarah is that she is so willing to help and share her knowledge, she utilises almost every aspect of modern technology in her quest to spread the word and get the message out there.....It is clear that Facebook and Twitter play a huge part in getting messages out to people.


My presentation was (How Reflection can change your practice)at 6pm Perth time (10pm NZ), it is a different process working through the Elluminate Meeting Room (kindly sponsored by Otago Polytechnic). One great advantage is that you are in the comfort of your own home watching the screen and presenting to the world and you don't have to worry how you look!.....its great in one sense as you can read straight from your notes and no one would know... at first you have no idea of who your audience will be...also the biggest concern for me was "what if the technology failed... which most times is out of your control. It is strange talking into your computer and not getting audience feedback and no visual cues as to whether you are on track or boring the audience... the other difficult issue to judge is reading the text comments that come through...that can be quite a challenge... but the adrenaline is flowing, excitement is in the air and the buzz of the audience is palpable through your computer..... it is truly amazing.
What would I do differently next time? that's hard to say, there was a technology fail three quarters of the way through my presentation...that set the panic button...what was reassuring was that it happened to many others as well...Maybe it would be worth thinking about pre-recording your session, just in case technology fails.... will have a chat to Sarah about that....
I did participate in the day, being fortunate in hearing several key speakers, Carolyn Hastie, just brilliant talking about Keeping women safe: a psychophysiological approach to the third stage of labour.... Carolyn touched on several key factors.
Anna Hughes presented, Practice use of Natural Infant Hygiene or 'Nappy Free' in our society. I found this fascinating.... I have heard of babies toilet training early but not this early....interesting philosophy....
Beverley Walker, Looking at informed consent..this is a topic close to my heart as its my speciality.... Deb Davis: Place. Can birth place impact on clinical outcomes?
fantastic talk... very interesting statistics... there is some great work being done out there and it was great to be able to hear some of it....



My all time favourite was listening to Nicky Leap...what a superb woman... her talent in story telling is second to none....I hope that one day she sits and writes her memoirs including some of these wonderful stories, I would hope to get a signed copy......
Lisa Barrett and I shared some of the wee hours of the morning together, talking and sharing, it was fun... I met many other wonderful midwives through the 24 hours from Canada, US, UK, Switzerland,and lots of students..including some of my wonderful colleagues.....it really is a small world.....

This 24 hr celebration bought many midwives together without having to spend a cent...no airfares, hotels, expenses.... the only thing it cost me was coffee and Milo for the evening....possibly being tired the next day...I learned so much..... Thank you again Sarah & Deb for organising this and book me in again for next year.... I will also take on some planning and facilitating to help out.... around the same times as this year.....talk soon....

Celebrating International Midwives Day May 2010

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Midwives celebrating IMD at a all day conference: Midwifery: diverse Care for a diverse community. A special thank you goes to Beth O'Neil for her skill in teaching a group of midwives how to sing..... she did an outstanding job as you will witness... I had forgotten how wonderful it is to sing....it is so good for the soul. Happy Midwives Day.

Celebrating International Midwives Day - Happy Day

Working at Watford Birth Centre 2001

Happy Midwives day to all midwives and women.....why am I a midwife.... because I love women and wanted women to have informed choice, information that enables them to birth how they choose. I was fortunate to complete my midwifery course in the United Kingdom where midwives work truly autonomously and they are respected by both the consumer and health professionals.

My vision is to see Midwives work autonomously in Australia with women.... for every pregnant woman to have a midwife....for women to be able to book in to see there midwife and have continuity of care with a named midwife.....and for this to be accepted practice....not for a select few.....this is the fundamental right for every woman....childbirth does not have to be a medical event...... childbirth is normal for a large percentage of women....women need informed choices about birth so this will enable them to make their own decisions about how they would like to birth their baby.

Becoming Conscious: "When we expand our thinking and belief, our love flows freely. When we contract, we shut ourselves off" Louise Hay.