Ep 58 ICM2023 wrap up attempt

Ep 58 (ibit.ly/Re5V) Liz McNeill attempts to wrap up ICM Bali2023

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

And welcome to Through the Pinard, your conversational podcast talking to midwives around the world about the research they are doing to improve midwifery practice. This research can range from small quality improvement programs and projects to those starting partway through or just finishing their postgraduate studies, and to those that have been there, done that and got the t-shirt. So settle back and enjoy the conversation And remember you can continue the conversation on Twitter after you finish listening. Hello, and thank you for joining me for another episode, and this is going to be an attempt at a wrap up of the ICM, because I just am not sure how I'm going to do it. Unfortunately, i came home with both Bali Belly and COVID, so I've had a horrendous week, but so many things are still sticking in my mind And it was my first conference, so I wasn't sure what to expect, except that it was going to be amazing from everyone and the comments that I had heard from everyone who'd been to ones in the past, and I can absolutely understand why.

Speaker 1: 1:26

I don't think I've ever had my photos taken so many times, and I think that's something you need to get used to. It was almost like fishing and catching, or at least take a photo and disappear. I was connected with a few people through other friends who weren't going, who said you've got to keep up, you've got to catch up with these people because they're really cool. By pure chance they happened to walk past me. I only had the opportunity to take a photo with them, didn't get a chance to catch up with them later. I think that's something that is very familiar with the conference is there is so much happening that you'll either see the same people over and over again or you'll never see anyone that you're meaning to catch up. And I ended up making set appointments during coffee break times and morning tea times to kind of go are you free tomorrow morning? Can we have coffee together, at least to kind of catch up. And that was a good way of catching up And also being at the posters, because there was so many posters, like unbelievable amount of amazing work that was being displayed on the posters, and just to walk around and have a look at them.

Speaker 1: 2:35

There are about a hundred each session, and so we had four poster sessions and you had to stand at your poster for at least an hour and a half in one of those sessions So people would come and talk to you And it was brilliant way to recruit for studies. It was a brilliant way to share a web experience there. So I hadn't thought of that to change information. So I guarantee that if you do go, take business cards because it's the best way to make connections as well. But let's kind of go back. So there were so many activities that you could go to that people were Looking forward to some of them. I didn't. A lot of things I didn't participate in personally because of mobility issues, but the midwives dance for women's empowerment was fantastic with midwives was still talking about that At the end of the week, the multi-faith celebration of midwifery And that led to the opening ceremony and the dancers.

Speaker 1: 3:37

And one of the things I always love about Conferences in other countries is when they bring in their own culture as part of the event. So you get should get to learn about the country that you're visiting and About the islands and about the fact that each island has got its own history And not only his own history but its own dance as well. So just being amazed and sitting in this room with several thousand midwives and then seeing all this culture and the work that kind of goes into it, and it was just amazing that the, the midwifery Indonesian midwifery group, ended up singing to us on stage, which I thought was really quite wonderful. And then the welcome reception, where it was a matter of Everyone finally trying to catch up and meet and introduce each other. And I think it would have been nice on our name tags if we'd had something like a barcode that was on there, was actually usable by everyone, not just the conference, because it would have been a really nice way to instantly get Contact information from each other. But it would have been nice to just be able to scan our name tags and instantaneously have that contact details, because I had enormous hassles with the app and in fact only started working on kind of like day two after unloading it, and I'm uploading it about five times.

Speaker 1: 5:05

There were morning sessions. There were plenary sessions every morning that were outstanding. There were sessions in the lunch break as well. There were so many sessions. There were 11 concurrent sessions every single day And we had the plenaries from nine o'clock until 10 30, and then we had concurrent sessions from 11 until 12 30. We had lunch for an hour and a half. We then had from two to three thing other sessions and then from four to five thirty. We also had kind of workshops and sessions as well, so it was very full on in the 11 different rooms that you could go to.

Speaker 1: 5:41

The hardest thing was really making a decision of which one you wanted to go to, who you wanted to support. So quite often there are people presenting at the same time, which is frustrating, but he's always the way. It was an absolute, an absolute delight to be able to pick some sessions that are purely for your own interest and not necessarily related to work, because it sounded interesting. It was like I've never learned this before and I want to learn how many referes done in this country. There were so many things that could have Also been done at the same time, depending on how fast you could run between rooms on the Wednesday night. No, the Tuesday night was the barley night, the social night, and that was, i think we ended up using every taxi that was in Nusa Dua area And that was just a massive, absolutely massive place that we went to for the dinner and then it had entertainment and dancing and There were some massages up in one of the huts and Like it was just mind-blowing and sitting once again, kind of talking to different people, catching up with people We haven't spoken to for a while, catching up with locals who had come and spoken to us from other universities.

Speaker 1: 7:04

There was so much to do And then so much to eat as well. And then there was the closing ceremony And I'm not going to go through the sessions because you can go on to midwives2023.org and look at the program, because there was so much to see. The closing remarks and trying to wrap up something was just Is just how do you do something like that? How do you You can't wrap up something that has so much that has happened to it And it was a matter of seeing people off and kind of having the contact cards and knowing who's people, putting down reminders of who you've spoken to, but, more importantly, making plans for three years time and actually catching up with people again in 2023 And and what's going to happen in the next three years and what can you put forward to present in three years time and already making those arrangements, which is Like for most conferences, that that atmosphere of being in a place with so many midwives That are sharing the way that they're doing, and I must admit that There are a few very emotional presentations. Now I'm probably going to get emotional because every time I think about it I still do.

Speaker 1: 8:21

There was some amazing stuff presented by some amazing people, but two mid-mifes in particular talked about their experiences of being a midwife in the Ukraine at the beginning of the war an invasion into Ukraine by Russia And also then talking about what it's like to be a midwife in Haiti. There was not a dry eye in that room, just the amazing. The amazingness that is midwifering, the amazingness that is people and their adversity, that are there for other people, for what they do, because their belief in who they are and how they help people. It left a feeling well, i know I did, and several other people I spoke to afterwards. We left feeling very privileged, absolutely very privileged, by especially working in Australia and in working in the other countries of the people that I spoke to that we didn't have any of those issues And I must admit I felt helpless in knowing how to help and how to support, knowing that's still happening in so many countries and how can we go about supporting that? And I donate to the ICM midwifery charity as a way to support globally, because I can't think of another way to actually do it And then on the Thursday so the conference actually ended on the Wednesday and then on the Thursday we had a post-congress midwifery education symposium which was sponsored by ICM, lidel and UNFPA and we ended up working in four groups.

Speaker 1: 10:09

We got divided into four groups and walked around or moved around four stations And that was really brilliant. We kind of went through the ICM education standards. We went through some of the things that LIDEL have put into help with education, help with students practice, we went through writing standards. We went through like there was so much information for starting midwifery course but also for making it so that internationally we have a minimum standard, and how that minimum standard is adapted into each country. So obviously resources are going to be a very big difference within each country, but it was really cool because we had people from so many different countries and once again hearing as an educator myself in Australia understandably I come from a very privileged place and a very well resourced university But listening to what's happening in Ethiopia and what's happening in Somalia, what's happening in other countries, it helps ground you again and it helps remind you to always bring it back to.

Speaker 1: 11:26

What are the learning outcomes? It's not about the toys that we use. It's about the methods that we use and how we modify those methods and what are we actually teaching? And for those Monty Python fans, it's not about the machine that goes ping. It is about what we're actually doing and how we're actually doing it.

Speaker 1: 11:49

And I keep reminding my students that there is the University in Bologna in Italy. They've got a fantastic collection of terracotta models that are obstetric, that show fetuses kind of in the process of breech birth, in twins birth, and these were made in the 1750s and there is a pelvis there that has a glass uterus. That's equivalent to about nine months, and you can actually put a doll in there. And what they used to do is blindfold the doctors and the midwives when they were doing the training back in 1750s And then get them to look at the dole, the sutures on the dole's head, and work at what position they were in. And there are things like that saying we teach the same things. Now our toys may have changed a little bit when you look at some of the models that we're using, but ultimately we're teaching the same things, we're teaching the same principles, and sometimes we can lose those principles by getting caught too much in the technology, and that's what we're going to remember that even though technology we can download things onto our phone not everyone has access to the data plans and not everyone has access to smartphones that can actually run the same thing. So we've got to be aware of the people that we're talking with and the people that we're trying to educate and who they're going to go out with as well, because we know that midwives over the next 10 years can actually save 4.3 million lives a year, and then that's kind of up to 20, 20, up to 2030. So for an extra 900, in fact, we need more than that, but an extra million midwives and over 4.3 million per year can be saved. That's an amazing power that we've actually got.

Speaker 1: 13:35

So I know this is a very short, sharp and shiny wrap up, because I really can't wrap up the ICM. There was too much going on and I missed too much because of 11 concurrent sessions. I, however, would welcome you to share your memories from ICM when this is posted and to add on your favourite session or something that you've actually stuck with you since you've got back, and we've got two more recordings that will be coming out soon that are recorded after the conference. So you'll hear some dinnerware because they're in the dining rooms. So a little bit of background noise for those two, and then I've got a line up of people to talk to now that I've spoken to over there. So there's going to be more coming for the rest of this year And in fact, my interview schedule, when we're looking at that, is well into next year as well. So it'll be continuous, it'll be hopefully entertaining And I really want to start focusing on.

Speaker 1: 14:31

We've got 72 countries that we're now heard in for the podcast.

Speaker 1: 14:35

We want to expand that even more.

Speaker 1: 14:37

We want to hear more from the countries that don't get a chance to shout out about the work that they're doing, and especially the midwives, and one of the things that I was really made aware of with talking to so many fabulous midwives was there are so many midwives who are doing some amazing things that don't have PhDs.

Speaker 1: 14:59

So whilst they're through, the pinard is primarily around midwives who have got their PhDs. I'm going to grab some people who are just doing and have done some amazing things in their career out of interest. So there'll be some special event or special episodes coming up over, probably towards the end of the year and next year because it's just they're too good not to share. So that'll be something for possibly next year going to line them up for next year. Also have to remember to keep my PhD going. Thank you for joining us today. You'll find all the links on Twitter, instagram and on the podcast website. If you are a midwife and you would like to share your research, your postgraduate studies or even the quality improvement projects you are doing now, then email me at throughthepinard at gmailcom. Send me a tweet or send me a DM.