thru the pinard Podcast
a conversational podcast with @Academic_Liz with midwives & other birth professionals about their studies/ research & how it's changing our practice globally - email thruthepinard@gmail.com
thru the pinard Podcast
Ep 97 Caroline Hollins Martin pt 1 on Birth Trauma, Psychology, and the Midwife's Journey
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Ep 97 (http://ibit.ly/Re5V) Caroline Hollins Martin pt 1 on Birth Trauma, Psychology, and the Midwife's Journey
@PhDMidwives #research #midwifery #education @EdinburghNapier #birthsatisfactionscale
research link - t.ly/I6zN1
https://www.bss-r.co.uk
What happens when a lifelong calling meets relentless intellectual curiosity? Caroline Hollings-Martin takes us on her extraordinary journey from the moment she witnessed a birth video in secondary school and thought, "That is a miracle" to becoming a professor with over 139 published papers spanning midwifery, psychology, and birth trauma.
Travelling through four decades of healthcare evolution, Caroline shares fascinating contrasts between midwifery training then—with its starched caps and strict hierarchies—and now. Her vivid descriptions transport us to delivery rooms where she discovered her purpose and academic halls where she pushed boundaries by combining midwifery with psychology long before interdisciplinary approaches became mainstream.
The conversation reveals powerful insights about evidence-based practice, exploring why healthcare professionals sometimes struggle to challenge authority even when research supports them. Caroline's groundbreaking work on birth satisfaction (creating the BSS-R scale now used globally) and birth trauma offers practical tools for identifying women needing support, while her work with Turner syndrome demonstrates how midwifery skills extend beyond traditional settings.
Most compelling is her candid account of completing a PhD while working full-time—comparing the process to labor itself: "Every contraction is one less. It's like three feet forward and two back, but you're inching forward with every contraction." Her purple graduation shoes story perfectly captures the determination that drives her work and inspires listeners to pursue their own academic dreams.
Whether you're considering advanced education, seeking to blend disciplines in your career, or simply fascinated by the evolution of healthcare, this episode offers both practical wisdom and heartfelt inspiration. As Caroline quotes Oscar Wilde: "We're all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Listen now to elevate your vision of what's possible in your professional journey.
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Thank you very much for joining me , as per usual . Could you introduce yourself , please ?
Speaker 2My name is Caroline Hollings-Martin . I'm from Scotland . I currently work at Edinburgh Napier University , which is in Scotland , uk . I've been a midwife my entire life . It's the only job I've ever really done in one capacity or another , and I'm delighted to be here . Nice to meet you , liz .
Finding Midwifery as a Calling
Speaker 1What got you into it with Free them ? It's always interesting people's journeys .
Speaker 2Well , when I was at secondary school , I went to a careers talk with my class at school and a community midwife came in and she showed us an old video you know the old big videos of a midwife delivering a woman at home on her city , on her city , and she was talking about breastfeeding . And I always remember all the boys were all in an uproar like , oh my goodness , anyway , I just clicked , I didn't know what I was going to do with my life and I just clicked . I didn't know what I was going to do with my life and I just clicked and I thought that is a miracle . That woman was just giving birth to that baby . That is a miracle . I knew then that that was going to be part of my journey in life .
Speaker 2So I went to my careers teacher . I'd be about 15 , maybe . I went to my careers teacher . Her name was Helen Roberts . She was a history teacher as well and , by the way , that was .
Speaker 2My other option was becoming a history teacher . I'm very interested in history and Scotland obviously is riddled with history , as is the UK , because it's a very ancient place , and that was my other option and I said I've changed my mind . I want to be a midwife . I've just been to the careers convention what do I do ? And at that time you had to do your RGN registered general nurse . I said , count me in , that's what I'm going to do . And that's exactly what I did do .
Speaker 2I went and did my RGN training which I loved , by the way and I worked in orthopedics for a period of time . I was also quite athletic and I knew I couldn't have a sit on my bum job , which stunned me now because that's what I've got now . How did I get to there ? It's really fascinating 11 years as a full-time clinical midwife before I went into academia . Anyway , I stayed very short period of time in orthopaedics because I was just waiting to get into the next midwifery cohort and that's the end of the story , really , by 20 , 21 , I was in a midwifery program and I'm now 62 . Yeah , so 42 years of immersed midwifery .
Speaker 1What do you remember , like it was training back then . Now we call it education , but what do you remember , if you're training back then , of your midwifery course ?
Speaker 2very different today to today . For a start , I would never have called one of my tutors , as they were called then , not lecturers , by their first name . Yep , no , it was in the era of extreme politeness , where people of different status sat at different tables . Yes , we went to class in a uniform . Yes , we had caps , and I
From Caps to Education: Training Evolution
Speaker 2always remember wearing a cap and you had different stripes for what year you were in . Yes , yes , and my greatest sadness in life was I worked as a clinical midwife . When I went for my sister's post because that's what they were called the goal was to get that frilly cap . Oh , yeah , they starched frilly cap . Well , I never got one , because the year that I got my sister's post , charge midwife , you'd call them . Now , um , they abandoned the caps , you know . So I don't even have one in my wardrobe , which I would have loved . However , that's not why I did it .
Speaker 1I just always say , I always tell people that story so wait , what kind of places did you end up working after you finished with your midwifery qualification ?
Speaker 2um , well , I used to work at Ayrshire Central Hospital , which was a maternity unit based in Irvine in Ayrshire , and it's now been knocked down . And I remember going back to the building . I mean I loved it . It was one of these old ones with the big stairwells and myself and another midwife , lorna McGregor , we always , like , dressed the Christmas tree in the corridor that went up the stair and it was a big tradition that we did that . And they knocked it down .
Speaker 2I was working in England , I moved down to York and I came back and I went back to that building and I burst out crying , yeah , because of all those years of experience that I'd had in that maternity unit , and it just moved over to Kilmarnock but , to be honest , it was needing a new build . I mean , I think what happened ? A lot of decisions were made about centralizing care , so gynecology was really close by ITU and all these things , because the maternity unit was a bit away and you know , over the years this is a ebb and flow , you know , between maternity units and what happens and and so on and so forth . So , yes , I did that . So I was as a clinical midwife .
Speaker 2I always remember as a student nurse doing an obstetric placement which was four weeks , going into that maternity unit and I knew the first day I was out in the ward I could smell it . I knew that that was home for me , yeah , which actually brings in really interesting questions about our lives and do we plan them ? Or past and future , and you know kind of spiritual elements . It was like I was coming home to a job . I knew if that makes sense and I felt the deep excitement of knowing that , having gone to lots of placements during my nurse training , that I knew that this had just endorsed exactly what I wanted to do . So obviously , when I qualified as a midwife , I applied for a job there . I got one and I worked there for a lot of years and I got my first sister's post at the age of 26 , which was quite young at that time . It was in a complicated maternities unit so I worked with diabetics you know , women with diabetes , epilepsy and tutoring , growth retardation , multiple pregnancies , low-lying placentas , I could go on with all .
Speaker 1So I was working with the group that were struggling a wee bit so is that where you , you had a connection or were introduced to turner's syndrome ?
Speaker 2because you're actually no , no , no no , because turners don't can't get pregnant . Ah right , so they're xo , and there's some complex difficulties surrounding that . But no , somebody . I'll tell you how I got into Turner's . I was working at Glasgow Caledonian University and I used to teach the podiatrists research methods
Clinical Work and Turner's Syndrome
Speaker 2because they didn't have a doctor in their team . And Gordon Watt , one of the podiatrists , did a lot of work with feet , with Turner's syndrome , because they have some problems with their feet . And he said to me Carolyn , would you like to come down to the conference with me ? And it was on a Saturday . He said I'll just take my car and you can hop in . He lived in Kilmarnock I live in Ayr , which is just down the road from there and I went with him and he'd asked me to do a session on explaining to girls with Turner syndrome how they discuss with their partners on infertility problems , so that they know before they get in too deep yep you know and this sort of introduces my second background I am a registered psychologist .
Speaker 2Yes , I did my degrees in psychology , post-qualifying as a midwife , and I can come back to the story about how I got into that . Yeah , no , we could as a midwife . And I can come back to the story about how I got into that . Yeah , but that's another fringe side story . And , being a social psychologist , I also have done a counselling course and person centred counselling .
Speaker 2And he said I'd like you to run a wee workshop with these girls , because one of the things that they often say is when they meet a guy , they do not know how to explain to them . Do you do it on the first date ? Well , that's a bit premature . Do you do it on the second date ? Well , that's a bit premature . You know , and that's what I went in , I talked about their fertility , talked about their relationships with boys , and some of them told me that they actually avoided having relationships because of these problems . So my job was to empower them .
Speaker 2So I went along to that conference and I tell you , um , I have to add , women with Turner syndrome , amazing , amazing people , and you know they've got a lot of I mean , they're short and they've got some , you know , they've got a lot of . I mean they're short and they've got some , you know , but essentially they're perfectly mainstream . But I tell you , I went back every year for four years and the woman that ran that conference worked for Turner Society and she said to me could you please put a paper out to educate midwives about Turner syndrome , because they just clearly don't understand about it , you know . So that's why I wrote that article which is , I take it , where you trialed and found out I had Turner's connection . I promised her I would do that and I did it one of your organizations , one of your posts and activities .
Speaker 1I think I saw it right .
Speaker 2Well , I did that . It so that lecturers and universities had a paper to download . There wasn't one , yeah , there wasn't one . That just explained what the condition was and all the issues , and so on and so forth .
Speaker 1And that's that application of knowledge of the fact that what we do as midwives is that application , that education , that supporting we do mostly with pregnant women and pregnant people .
Speaker 2But we use those skills , can use those skills in a variety of areas yeah , and that was an invite and I often think things don't happen by accident . You know , I ended up going down there and there was a place for me to be there and to . I then moved on to presenting powerpoints of explanation and a bit more detail before the workshops and so on .
Speaker 1Serendipity and opportunistic invitations are kind of , I think , those social networks . People know someone and go yeah , you've got some skills , you've got some information I want come with me , and you never know what doors open up . You gotta say yes to things to have those experiences which leads me to another point .
Speaker 2I think I'm very much a vocational midwife . Yeah , you know I'm drawn to it , I'm passionate to it . I will go beyond the call of duty . It's not a job for me . Yeah , you know it is . I would be . I would have been very , very I would have done very well in a continuity of care system because I'd have been happy , I would think it an honour , on a Saturday night to go out and you know , which obviously has consequences for relationships and families . But I've always been in a position where I've been that type of midwife which I know a lot of people aren't able to do . So I'm not , you know , that's not a judgment statement . I just feel I would have done well in that system .
Speaker 1And we want midwives who work in all types of systems , which is an advantage of it .
Speaker 2So yeah , and there's periods where you're more able and free .
Speaker 1Exactly .
Speaker 2You know and you can do . You know I'm a later in my life . There's no responsibilities at that front .
Speaker 1Where else was no responsibilities at that front .
Speaker 2Where else did you work in those 11 years that you were doing clinical then ? Well , I worked in that maternity unit . Basically , I worked in that maternity unit , I embedded myself in and I started to study other things . So I was one of the midwives myself and professor Jean Rankin who'd be a very interesting person to do a podcast with , because Jean was professor at University West of Scotland . She's retired now but she works as a visiting professor with Napier and she's fantastic and had a very interesting life . I can send you her email if you're interested .
Speaker 1Please do .
Speaker 2Jean and I used to go to night classes and we went off and studied all all sorts .
Speaker 2I'm a rising Gemini , if you know anything about astrology and it's a little bit from my past , super interested in learning and words , and and you know , jean and I used to go to these classes and we made a decision that's the road we were going to walk down because we all we loved the night classes .
Speaker 2And then , and then I went and did a advanced course in midwifery up in Robert Gordon and Aberdeen university and I did an assignment on psychology and it was a professor Clark from university , aberdeen university . We'd come in and give us a lecture and he asked to meet with me and he gave me an A 90 odd percent for that . He said you have an aptitude for psychology . Oh cool , I would like you to consider doing that . So I thought , oh right , I'm going to go and do that . And that is really how I ended up doing psychology . And then , when I went into psychology , it was another little branch of my life where I thought , oh , I'm home here , this feels really good , I'm going to , I'm going to blend psychology with midwifery . That's my career .
Speaker 1and that is exactly what I've done and that would have been before we had such a focus on birth trauma as well .
Speaker 2Absolutely , but we all knew it was happening . Yeah , yeah , we all knew . One of my friends who was a midwife with me had her first baby and she did a Keelan's rotation and it was before epidurals and she was absolutely traumatized by that because it was so painful . Yeah , and nowadays she'd obviously been given some form of you know , an epidural or whatever . And , yes , she was my introduction to birth trauma . But really what got me into PTSD was a professor that works with me at Renéier University , thanos Karatsias . He's a world leading expert in PTSD and was part of the development of a scale for detecting it and we got a grant to get a PhD student together who was Jenny Patterson student together , who was Jenny Patterson , and Jenny did her project with Thanos and I on PTSD and childbirth .
Speaker 1So that was my introduction
Psychology and Birth Trauma Research
Speaker 1, that because one of the papers that I saw in your history that really kind of grabbed my attention , because I do some work with veterans and veterans as a peer support , because I'm a ADF like army veteran similar to your territorial , so the reserve kind of for eight years , and so they use rapid eye movement and eye movement for that sensitizing and desensitizing . So that kind of paper really jumped out at me to kind of go . I've never put those two together because we know that it works in a lot of people in military wise and sexual trauma wise and I just hadn't thought about it putting together in the mid and maternity setting but it makes complete sense as an effective option for treatment at this point I'd like to see susan ayers professor susan ayers , who'd be another person to do through the pinard with .
Speaker 2She's a psychologist , actually , but she does maternal health . She has developed a childbirth trauma scale called the City Bits . It's called the City Bits and I have a personal view that all women who are having difficulties with their childbirth like flashbacks or can't sleep from remembering you're remembering it they should all be filling out the city bits yeah and self-referring themselves , because you know the question .
Speaker 2My advice will say is but that takes up our time . It's about giving them a toolkit to self-refer themselves for diagnosis do you think it should and I we're going to .
Speaker 1we'll come back to the other stuff but to keep going with , do you think that should be something that's done together with the Edinburgh Postnatal Scale as well , that we should be expanding those type of questions ?
Speaker 2Yes , along with the birth satisfaction skill revamped .
Speaker 1Yes , which I didn't realise , because I've used that with students in the past , and it wasn't until I was looking at your and went oh my god , that's why your name is so familiar in that kind of context of it , because that's your scale .
Speaker 2It is my scale . Along with . I have a partner on this who's a statistician that works with me on this , a professor called Martin Mental Health . He's a mental health professor and we run this work together . We I do all the midwifery side of it and I also retain the whole library and do all the communications with everybody , and he does the stats reports for the papers .
Speaker 1And you've been doing some amazing language validations .
Speaker 2Absolutely . We have 23 validated language versions . We've got 29 Australian sites are using it . Elaine Jefford Dr Elaine Jefford Sun , china Post University , collected the data for our validation . So her name's first on that paper . For the Australian BSSR revised yes , I think that toolkit should contain the birth satisfaction scale , because you'd expect them to have low scores on it , the City Brits post trauma scale and also , what was the third one , edinburgh Post-Natal Depression scale . I'd like to say with Pride , both the BSSR revised and the Edinburgh Post-Natal Depression scale came out better than Pride .
Speaker 2Yes , yes , scotland , so we're a bit far apart . Dr Cox was our obstetrician .
Speaker 1Scotland's always been ahead with maternity care and management . Because I remember I did my nursing back in the 80s and my plan then was that when I finished my nursing I would go to Scotland and to Edinburgh which is where my dad was born and to do my midwifery there . And life got in the way and it was another 30 years before I kind of got back to midwifery . But Scotland has always had a really good reputation for midwifery training and a lot of the professors in Australia midwifery professors and older midwives that's how they did their midwifery . They actually went to scotland , they went over there to do their training , kind of like last century quite literally . Um , because of the experience , because of the the reputation , fabulous .
Speaker 2That's so good to hear , and I do actually remember working with an australian midwife who came from tasmania , yep , and what they were doing was their midwifery so that they could go out in the flying the outlying doctor service because they looked for people with multiple qualifications .
Speaker 1Yes , to cover all gambit yes , the royal flying doctor service , which covers an amazing area of this country for services , though about only 4% of their time is actually related to midwifery kind of conditions . The rest of it's mostly nursing , which is why I need the dual qualification . Okay , so you're working clinically . You're now dipping into psychology . You're doing that course . When do you transition into academia then ?
Speaker 2okay , um , I took . They put an advert out from the school of midwifery . You know the tutors that used to come over for training purposes to find somebody who would allocate what we call mentors . Then they're called supervising assessors , now preceptors . They've been , you know , you know , but you know what I mean . The midwife out in the clinical area takes hold of that student to get them the experiences they need . They needed a midwife to do those allocations and to keep an eye on all these students out in the clinical area . So , and it was a two-day job , yep , I'd been an art ward sister for a while . I actually had an inkling I wanted to go into education . Because of my prolific continuation in educating myself , I knew this was the direction I should go in because you know , being a lecturer , you never stop learning every paper you write you learn more .
Speaker 2It's like never leaving university . You become so diversely educated and I thought this is what I need to be using my brain . So , and and yes , I applied for that job , that two day job , which moved into me actually educating them as well . So they had a day in the classroom . So I was released to do this job . So one of the lecturers left , the school tutors left , and I was meant to be going on holiday to Spain and one of the tutors came in to see me in the ward , spain , and one of the tutors came in to see me in the ward I was a midwife , a sister in and said to me Caroline , we've got a bit of an emergency . We really need somebody to go to Jordan Hill Teacher Training College , because in those days you had to do a year of teacher training before you could teach in a classroom . Yeah , and the course starts Monday .
Speaker 2So I said , well , I would need to talk to the midwifery manager about this . It's a bit of a quick decision . So I phoned my dad , who was an academic himself . He was . He did religious studies . Yeah ,
The PhD Journey Begins
Speaker 2um , he worked at University of West of Scotland equivalent . It was Craigie campus at that time . And I said dad , what do I do here ? He ? He says , caroline , you take this opportunity . You can go back to that job . You take it . So I cancelled my holiday and was at Jordan Hill on the Monday morning and that I never went back to clinical practice . Yeah , so that's basically what happened . And the other bit that was quite funny is the teacher that came and asked me . I said I need to speak to my manager , the midwifery matron you know of the maternity unit , and they said we've already spoken to her .
Speaker 1I wanted you , absolutely wanted you Right .
Speaker 2So I think they were wanting somebody who they proved they could stand up in a classroom , you know , had all the elements that they could train into being what they wanted and had the enthusiasm for students . So that's how I went . I was at teacher training college for a year and there was a job waiting for me when I came out in the what was it called the Ayrshire Nan College of Nursing and Midwifery and from there they merged into University of West of Scotland because just around that time midwifery became a degree program and it was merged into the universities part of the project 2000 in the UK . It was called yeah , you know it started off with a diploma and then they added the 60 credits on .
Speaker 1It became a degree , a degree which was a very long time ago now how did you then get into research ? Was did you then do masters to keep furthering your qualifications into your PhD ?
Speaker 2well , going back to psychology , I did some credits in the open university in psychology and I did uh , I did biology , brain and behavior and again I got like 90 plus percent for that . I just got it all . Yeah , that was all very scientific , it was all about neurons and , yes , um , and I was just a born natural at psychology I did a science degree and then I did two psychology , um , a couple of modules . Now , they weren't called that at the time and I thought I'm quite good at this , that professor clark from aberdeen was right . So I applied to do a conversion degree in psychology at Glasgow University and I did that and I worked so hard because I had to go up to Glasgow three nights a week , yeah , get my lectures and work full time and study all the time .
Speaker 2I became a crashing board to all family and friends . But I have to tell you that was my major relationship at the time . I just so loved it , yeah , you know . So I got my psychology degree and did a master's and I did for my dissertation a birth . I developed a birth participation skill which was all about men's . I had this view at that time that , you know , men might not want to be present at childbirth . Yeah , we kind of are pushing them in there , you know , and in some countries they weren't present at all and it was absolutely absurd that they shouldn't be there , which is all about culture .
Speaker 2So I thought I'm going to find out what men think about being present at the birth and what worries them , what their anxieties are . So I went and interviewed all these men , did a scale , developed a scale the birth participation scale and I found out that 96% of men do want to be present at childbirth and about 92% of men I can't remember the exact details now , but it was quite high were felt totally rewarded by the experience , because I put the scale out before and scale it after and looked at the differences between what they thought it'd be and what it was . But eight percent of them were traumatized by it . But I'm not saying diagnostically PTSD , because trauma comes , this pre-trauma , before you come into that casualty , but they were pretty horrified by it and that just raises more questions which I never went on to explore , actually about you know A should we be following men up ? B is there a time to ask them to leave the delivery room ? You know , and do we pay enough attention to them ? You know about what's going on in their heads . Having been a clinical midwife in the delivery suite , I can think of two men that crashed on the floor . Yeah , you know what was going on in their heads , what were their anxieties , what led them to do that ? Yeah , you know , are we paying them enough attention ? But , as I would emphasise here , the majority of them loved it and felt they bonded more with their infant , and so on and so forth .
Speaker 2So that when I did that I thought , well , I'm going on to do a PhD . Yeah , you know , which was one of the questions you pre-empted me with , I thought I'm going to do it in the social . Oh , I had a fantastic lecture on my master's in psychology . He was absolutely amazing . He did the social input . He taught a module in social influence processes which is in every curriculum because , just like midwifery , the curriculum , the bps you know , the british psychological society dictate what the curriculum should generally contain to register . So I went on to design a PhD in social psychology and this is coming back to the frilly caps and everything . I wanted to look at the effects of obedience to authority , experiments , ash conformity . I noticed in students in the university because I was a lecturer in midwifery by this point that they would know that it was wrong to do an amniotomy in every woman . They would know the evidence-based practice , they would know it was wrong to take babies away from their mothers within the first six hours of birth .
Speaker 2Klaus and Kenil the earlier work , bowlby , so on . They would know that , so many things about what we do . But they couldn't say to the midwives you shouldn't be doing this , because we all know the ones that do often get into bother , which is a form of obedience to authority and conformity . So I wanted to design a laboratory experiment . You know , because the department I worked in it was York University . It's a Russell University , it's the second top psychology department in the UK . There was little old me , a midwife . You know Andrews , oxford , cambridge students .
Speaker 2I'm like I didn't have a high opinion of myself . I just thought , you know , I'm average intelligence and all the rest of it . And I went in there and I thought , what am I doing ? Anyway , I did it , but I'll come back to that . I'll come back to that . I designed a mixed method study where I developed a obedience scale and I gave it before to midwives and I gave it after to midwives . In between I introduced laboratory variables which would socially influence them to agree with me as what they would perceive as a senior midwife and a lecturer in midwifery . And they are obedient . Midwives are obedient to the exact normal level which Stanley Milgram showed , yeah , yeah . So I was trying to demonstrate why we weren't getting our midwifery-led care off the ground in the UK at that time . Anyway , how I ended up in York was during the Open University . I went to York University and I was on my biology , brain and behavior course , which was all laboratories , fascinating course . You know lots of brains and jars from all kinds of animals .
Speaker 2Yes , yes , yes , you're looking at the different areas of the tissue that had grown in relation to their skills . You know why cats have these motor sections , all this sort of stuff . And the most fascinating part of that course as well was a social part and what they did . They were demonstrating to us about hormones and pheromones and so on , and what they did was they got us all to wear cotton pads under our arms for um three days and we weren't allowed to shower during the course . And then they put them all in jam jars and opened them and asked us to rate on a scale how attractive we thought the smell was Yep , yep . And what they were demonstrating was men , women , men , women , you know , being LGBTQ , yeah , you know , there was somebody in the class who was gay and they were attracted to the female Yep Hormones .
Speaker 2Fascinating , I thought I'm loving this even more . I'm loving this course . I'm going to find myself a social psychologist who is going to supervise this proposal that I have designed about obedience and conformity with a laboratory experiment and I went to York University and conformity with laboratory experiment . And I went to York University and Peter Bull was a senior lecturer there and he specialized in social psychology , and I said to him will you be my PhD supervisor ? Which led me to apply for a lecturer's post in York , and that's how I ended up in York .
Speaker 1Makes it easier if you're working and studying in the same place . I was free , I was free to do that .
Speaker 2Yeah , I just did that . I went off to York , which , by the way , is the city of bells , the most amazing place . It's full of campanologists and I got into that when I was down there Fascinating . But yes , I love , I love . There's a chamber of my heart still in York yep , yep , I get that .
Speaker 1I can understand that , and it is especially when you're doing something that you're so passionate about , when you've got all of those , all those ducks in a line , everything's swinging in the right direction . You've got that whole excitement and it is that huge amount . We're going to talk about kind of like neurotransmitters , all of that dopamine and kind of like and oxytocin , because you're just so into what you're doing . That is that and that's what the phd . Phd is kind of , for most people is like one of the few times they can truly concentrate on something that they kind of want to do in their own way of doing it . But it's still like the trainer wheels . Um , how did you from moving away from home then ? How did you keep your sanity while you were doing that ? Or was it such a because you wouldn't have had all good times when you were studying ?
Speaker 2your phd oh , I've got a view on that one . Um , if you're thinking about doing a PhD anybody's listening to this , by the way it's so worthwhile , I have to say that I mean the rewards from it . So outweigh the hard slavery , which is what it is . As you said earlier , tamila's , you know it's 90% hard work , 10% intelligence , but you need to be pretty bright to be able to hold it all together , and it's the skills that you need to have are
Growth Through Academic Writing
Speaker 2way more than intellect . You know , social common sense , organizing your day , oh yes , being able to fight the battles through the writing and rewriting . And I always say think about what the workload for a PhD is and multiply it by three . Yes , probably somewhere near where you were .
Speaker 2Yeah , I had two supervisors . One of them was an amazing guy , professor David Howell . He , honestly , he was a politician . I don't think I could have got through without him . See , on a bad day he would take you out for a pint after . Ah , brilliant , you know , he was fantastic . He was a lot older than me . Loads of respect for him . He's long retired now . And I had another um , peter Bull , as my other supervisor .
Speaker 2Um , yes , it was tough . The first thing that was tough was doing a full-time job and doing that , and then I looked for an opportunity to buy time for myself . Yep , so what I did was we had had a head of research at York University who went out to become the dean at the Chinese University of Hong Kong . Okay , so I went out to the Chinese University of Hong Kong , which bought me time , and I wrote I didn't know anybody , I couldn't get socially distracted , very socially distracted person I am . I'm very socially engaged , so I didn't know anybody . I couldn't speak the language . You know , the Chinese do not all speak English . They do in the universities and it was great , I loved it , I had a great experience out there , but it really gave me 12 hours a day to write out there .
Speaker 2But it really gave me 12 hours a day to write . Yeah , I'd collected all my data , oh good . Yeah , I just needed to analyze it and write this , this thing , up . So , um , that got me through a really bad patch of not being able to do everything . And but you know , I think the worst moment was it was one time I nearly threw my computer out the window . Yes , mathematical calculation , oh yes , I just couldn't get my head wrapped around because you know , um , maths is not my strong suit , but I was pushed to do it , you know so . Um , yeah , the window was open , hot sunny day . That computer was an inch away from being out that window , two stories up . But I didn't do it .
Speaker 2I chose to leave the room less expensive , less expensive option yeah , I take three days off , but I did it , I got through it and I tell you the rewards far outweigh the costs . You know it's . It's bankrolled me for so many intellectual rewards . I cannot tell you yeah but that's it .
Speaker 1It's that knowing when you've hit your limits and knowing that it is okay to stop and walk away for a day or two , that you have to have that dime time because you never stop thinking about it . It is always going on in your brain . You're lying and sleeping and something kind of the neurons connect while you're sleeping and suddenly you wake up with this oh , wait a minute , what if I think about this , or or ? I haven't done that ? And then you're either going to write it down or put it into a voice message to yourself , because otherwise you'll never get back to sleep again hence the term sleep on it yep see if I get an email from somebody .
Speaker 2It's a bit tricky . Sleep on it and you'll have your answer the next day or the day after . The perfect answer . I never send impulsive emails . That's a another part of my character and that's how I manage it , I think . Go away and sleep on it , caroline . Your , your anger hormones , the anger sharks are swimming , you know . So , um , yes , um , yeah , but I I would say to any midwife out there if you don't believe you're smart enough , throw that out the window . You're . It's about hard work and application and learning how to do research methods . Yes , because subsequently I've now published a book .
Speaker 1Yeah , recipes for midwives I saw the title , I thought that was brilliant research .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's a relatively new book . It's only a year old and it's got all the different methods in it and examples , you know . So it walks you through writing a research proposal . So , um , you know , here we are . It's a little plug for my book but , honestly , if you walk through that book and write your research proposal for your supervisor which is a changeable feast because your proposal does change on the journey , but it will teach you how to write a research proposal it's got a step model in it . You know the 15 step model for writing a research proposal . It might have 16 steps now actually , yeah , 16 . Yeah , I added a 16th step in . So , yes , that's how you write a research proposal . It's a template .
Speaker 1It's got a template in it which is also how you write a thesis as well .
Speaker 2Because , exactly , we're working in a university , we all know that . So , um , yes , anybody can do it . It's about drive , determination and never giving up . Yes , and they don't midwives . I mean , it's not an easy job , and sometimes you have to do some really stressful and hard things . If you can do that , you can write a PhD .
Speaker 1So , outside of your supervisors , who else were the people that supported you the most during that process ?
Speaker 2to continue and to complete , Well , actually my father was one of them and unfortunately he died during the writing of my PhD , which was quite sad and it was quite a difficult time for me , but I dedicated my thesis to him . At the end . I actually don't think I could have done it without him telling me all the time you can do this .
Speaker 2Yeah , I mean , I think he'd have been immensely proud oh yes when I got my master's degree from Glasgow University , it was all in Latin . Yeah , he was like he was overjoyed that I had done that . Yeah , you had a clue what they were saying . I did actually study Latin at school . I've got an O grade in Latin . The whole thing is delivered in Latin , but it's the whole pomp and ceremony of it . Yes , I think he would have loved my PhD graduation at the University of York with my floppy cap .
Speaker 1That floppy cap is so symbolic . It's like the frilly cap . It is something that is so , so universal but so important to a sense of achievement .
Speaker 2I would add , though York is a Quaker university , so every everything's grey . The Quakers do not wear colours , so my gown is all grey and my cap is grey , and that's what I wear to the student graduations at Napier . If you want a fancy gown , go to Durham . Durham University gown is outrageously peacock , you know , and I worked with another lecture called Catherine Britton . She did her PhD in why women breastfeed for five years or whatever , at Durham University , and she said I only chose to go there , carolyn , because of the gown , because I knew I'd be wearing it to student graduations for the rest of my life .
Speaker 1That that's that . That's it . I remember seeing we had a visiting scholar , oh years ago now , who came for a graduation and his gown was boring , but his cap , I think it was it must have been from somewhere near Venice , because it looked like a gondola . It was this magic cap and we all fell in love with it and we just sit there going , oh why can't we have something like that ? And at that stage we still had the mortarboard . But we finally kind of convinced them to swap it over to the floppy hat . So we've got the Tudor style cap , which is really quite cool . So what was your ceremony then ? So what did you do to celebrate when you finished ?
Speaker 2Okay , well , I invited my family to York . I've got two brothers . One of them couldn't come because he was on holiday , but my younger brother came with his family and we all went out for dinner in Bishopthorpe in a pub there . It was actually quite a nice one and I rang the bells in Bishopthorpe Church and it was the pub all the bell ringers went to on a Friday night . Oh , fabulous . So I really liked that place , so I picked that and I lived across the race course in New York so I went there . The race course in New York , so I went there .
Speaker 2And but for the actual ceremony , I mean , one of my favourite things to do as a you know , a subject lead for midwifery in Edinburgh is when our students come through and all the other graduating degrees that come through . You know all different disciplines , you know science , you name it . I always love watching the shoes , yes , yes , across the stage . You know , because if you think about it , it's just a list of names that are being given out and a lot of clapping right . So I always entertain myself by looking at the shoes and the girls and the boys and how they've all dressed up to attend that ceremony . So obviously I'd been to many graduations as a lecturer , so in Edinburgh we all sit on the stage .
Speaker 2Yeah , you know , it's a very big hall . It's like a mini Albert Hall . It's held in . It's just a beautiful building . Lots of concerts are held in there as well . Yes , I went out and bought myself the most outrageous pair of shoes , which I knew I would never be able to go out in . I had to rehearse walking up the stage , up the steps . I was going to have a great pair of shoes , yeah , so that's what I did . I went off and bought myself a pair of purples , my favorite color plush purple shoes with a three inch heel and a platform , and I love it , I love it .
Speaker 2Yeah , I always remember the dean of my school , mentioning no names , had always said he didn't even know me . He said to me oh , you aren't smart enough to get a PhD , which I found actually propelled me harder to get it . He was at that ceremony but he was quite short and I thought I'm going to be taller than him . He gives me that when he hands this degree to me and I shake his hand I am going to be taller than him . Yep , I know . That's there you go . There's the alpha female in me and I tottered across that stage . Thank God I never broke my neck . Oh , son of a shoes female in me and I tortured across that stage . Thank god I never broke my neck , kept the shoes for a period of time and I think I gave them to a charity shop because I mean , I was never going to wear them again .
Speaker 1They were torture . I love that too . I love the shoes , and it was really interesting when I got my masters and I was sitting in the audience and I was right at stage height , so it was a perfect viewing , as opposed to being on the back row and having a look . But I kind of I've worked out that in some groups there's an inverse proportion to the level of the qualification and the height of the shoes , so the undergraduates had the highest and the postgraduates have gone . Yeah , not
Looking Back: Achievements and Lessons
Speaker 1, we're going flat shoes . So , and it's , it was just some of them . You wonder how they walk and they don't twist their ankles .
Speaker 1They're amazing , um , and I think I can tell you another interesting point podiatrists you would think they were aware they would wear sensible shoes nah , it's a celebration of graduation they don't they just say you know , the girls are just the same they just wear sensible shoes for most of the time , but every now and then they'll come , yeah absolutely , as we do too .
Speaker 2I mean , I've abandoned heels . What's the point ?
Speaker 1yeah , the height I've got is one inch so , looking back now and thinking back now to your PhD , what's something that kind of has stuck in your memory or that surprised you at the time my phd that I could do things I never thought I could do .
Speaker 2Yeah , you know , I think I . I think when you start a phd , I mean I could always write , but never brilliantly , probably because , you know , like as midwives you know , do you remember the old card exes you used to ?
Speaker 1never you wrote .
Speaker 2You wrote in pidgin english . You never wrote great full sentences , so you write something like slept well .
Speaker 2Blood pressure normal or whatever I mean , you wouldn't do that now the notes taking so much more sophisticated , but you know it , the job was never going to develop your linguistic skills , let's put it that way . So you know , my English wasn't very good , because it's something that you learn , you know , and then once I started , you know , undertaking academia , I learned to write , and it's like a spiral . You know . As one of my lecturers said to me yesterday , how did you learn to write like that ? Yvonne Cowpers is another professor in my school . Another person you might want to do through the pin like that . Yvonne Cowpers is another professor in my school . Another person you might want to do a Through the Pinard with . Yvonne is a brilliant writer and I think to become a professor , you learn to do that . Oh , yeah .
Speaker 2I love great book . I mean I do love great English writing , like DH Lawrence and EM Foster , who are authors . They write so beautifully and I was aware that I did like well-written things in poetry and words with double meanings and you know characterizations that were described in such beautiful artistic ways . So I knew I saw writing as an art form , which again it's the Gemini in me , the ascending Gemini in me , and also I'm an Aries , the way star sign , that's the one feel the fear and they charge anyway , and that was a part of doing a phd as well . Feel the fear and just get your horns down and get on with it and batter your way through the problems . So you know , with a libra moon , which is also an air sign , which is an intellect sign as well , so you learn to write . I said this to Yvonne yesterday , dr Yvonne Gregg . I said to her just keep at it , you get better and better and better at it . And I'm still climbing that ladder , do you know ?
Speaker 1what I mean .
Speaker 2I'm going to write a fictional novel when I retire , and I'm going to want to do it as eloquently as DH Lawrence or EM Forster , which I think is extremely unlikely , because these two people were geniuses , oscar .
Speaker 1Wilde .
Speaker 2I mean Oscar Wilde and William Blake are my two yeah yeah , I mean , I love his things , the imagery he's cleverness with yeah , yeah , wordage absolutely and a great saying for an Oscar Wilde saying for midwives that are thinking about doing a PhD we're all lying in the gutter , but some of us are looking at the stars . Yes , look up at the stars and reach for them . That's what I did .
Speaker 2You know , I do a lot of work in compassion , cmt Compassionate Mindful Training which is a much more modern concept , and it's about the shame that we experience in our lives and shame gets , in a way , a lot of , a lot of our ambition drive and so on , where we don't think we've got it or we think bad thoughts and we start judging ourselves . And it's about being kind to yourself and compassionate to yourself , because research has shown , if you're kind to yourself , you'll be more kind to other people . So you know , um Oscar Wilde , he just hits on when he died on his deathbed he said between that wallpaper and I , one of us has got to go to have that at that time is just yeah , it's just amazing that you were saying that what I learned about myself was I could learn to write better and better and better , which was one of my ambitions .
Speaker 2Yeah , you know , to do that I've . You know I've published 139 papers . Now you know I didn't . I didn't write like I got a lot more amendments at the beginning . Yeah , then I . Then I do . Now , although I'll give you a laugh , I put a paper in to the British Journal of Midwifery the other day and it came back with you need to have this paper proofread . Oh , my goodness , that's cheeky . The other reviewer said this paper's perfect . It's perfect . Reviewer two , you know you have to publish this . It's got really valuable information for midwives .
Speaker 2So the point I'm saying is also , if you're going to write papers , take the hits yeah you know , when you know a lot of students find it really hard to take the criticism , yes , that you get from readers . I'm a bit of a hooker on this one . I just feel , feel the this , I just do it anyway . Yeah , say thank great , be gracious , thank them for all their thoughts . Now they made that paper look better and do the changes , unless it's something that's ethical or moral or you know , and it's all volunteered , the peer reviewers all do it volunteer as well , absolutely I am a peer reviewer myself and I've probably been throwing their computers out the window because of things I might have said to them , you know .
Speaker 1So it's all like it's all part of the tricks of the system , you know and it's something that I think is very important to understand when you are going in , that a lot of people kind of a understanding the difference between undergraduate pathways and postgraduate pathways and the support that your supervision team does give you , but also the vulnerability especially we're talking about midwives who have had some seniority , who are now doing PhDs , that , for that same thing , are not used to writing in the academic sense and my supervisor keeps laughing and says that my writing I started off my writing as if I was writing to my auntie , that it was too conversational , and it just came back full of red and I now sit there and go oh my God , there's a whole paragraph that doesn't have any red writing on it .
Speaker 1Because it is that vulnerability of when you get that feedback . But you know the feedback is to help you , you know that it's to make it better , because we also leave about oh well , I leave about 30% in my brain sometimes that I know what I'm talking about , but then I'll leave the gaps there and until somebody else does the proofreading , that they actually get those gaps kind of filled in . But that's something that I don't think is told to a lot of people is that ability to be comfortable with being vulnerable during the PhD process . And that's growth , that's that professional development , that's that personal development and that sense of ego you have to put aside and kind of go .
Speaker 2No , this is part of the process , absolutely , and you know , I always think it's like labor . Yeah , oh , you know , when we're going through labor , you see , every contraction is one less . It's like you're doing three feet forward and then two back . Three feet forward and two back , but you're inching your way forward with every contraction and you're going to get there , because they will all get there . You know that day will come and you know .
Speaker 2The other thing that that you know was a beautiful thing for me was in a book by dh lawrence called the rainbow . I don't know if you've ever read it , no , it's about it goes right through somebody's life , it's just beautiful through the generations . But there's a girl in it called anna , and she's the description that dh lord is considering . He's not even a woman . He's probably never seen anyone give birth . Well , maybe later in life . Because rainbows is one of his first books , he writes about childbirth experience . It's so . It's two pages of Anna giving birth , yep , and it's so beautifully written and at the end of it , anna holds up her baby and shouts Anna , victorious , excellent , you know . So I want to learn to write like that . I'm so . It's like prose or poetry you'll have .
Speaker 1You'll have a lot kind of more freedom when you're not writing for academic journals .