Resources

NIHR's Research Masterclass for Nurses, Midwives and Allied Healthcare Practitioners

Shawn Walker's ⁠ORCID research profile⁠

Breech Birth Network Publications

OptiBreech Publications

If you are a student midwife or a recently qualified midwife, and you would like support to talk through clinical academic career pathways, you are welcome to book in via my calendar for a chat.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to this brand spanking new OptiBirth podcast.

My name is Dr Shawn Walker, and I created this podcast to share new maternity care research in an accessible way. My goal is to help more maternity care professionals and members of the public understand research that can improve practice and outcomes for mothers and babies. I’m aiming to deliver this information in bite-sized chunks, along with references and resources you can use to apply the research in practice.

First, I’ll introduce myself and my background. I am a consultant midwife and clinical academic. My role as a consultant midwife is defined by what are called the four pillars of Advanced Practice.

1)         The first is that I am practising as an expert. My general area of expertise is in care during labour, particularly for women whose pregnancies are more complex than usual and are planning a physiological or vaginal birth. I also have specialist expertise in caring for women planning a vaginal breech birth and do consulting work in this capacity.

2)         The second pillar is strategic and enabling leadership. I do this by supporting services around the country that are improving their breech care pathways in line with research evidence. I also do it by supporting junior clinical academic midwives and other healthcare scientists who are developing their own clinical academic careers.

3)         The third pillar is learning, developing and improving across the system. I do this strategically and nationally through my quality improvement work.

4)         And the final pillar is research and innovation. Over half of my week is devoted to the design and delivery of new research to inform practice innovation.

The fact that I do both research and practice defines me as a clinical academic. I have recently completed an Advanced Fellowship funded by the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (known as the NIHR). This is a post-doctoral award, awarded to someone who has completed a PhD, or doctoral research.

This means I have several extra years of research training beyond my professional qualification as a midwife. In this podcast, I hope to use that training to help more people use and understand maternity care research, and how it applies to their practice and their lives. You can find relevant links and more information about clinical academic career pathways for midwives at the OptiBirth Podcast link.

I hope to release a new episode every Monday morning at 6 am, so you can listen for a bit of inspiration on your way into a new work week, or on your way home from a night shift. Thanks for joining me.