So, in the champion role I should say I’m also -, have a national input in that I meet four times a year with all of the champions from the whole country. So, that’s really good to hear about different research midwives’ experiences.

And it is very different. And some of the -, you know it’s still -, it’s still the case that so and so’s trying to do a study, but the nurses or midwives there are, you know, don’t want it and you’re a pain. So, you can see that on the one side and I definitely see it as a labour ward midwife. The last thing I need is something else to do, but we need to move beyond that. So, there has been a whole period, and I guess we’re still in it, of favours and sort of roadshows or championing, or role modelling, how these things don’t have to be an imposition and they can even help you as a clinician; it might even make something simpler. So, there’s a lot of baking. When I worked in [trial name], you know the, the team was often bringing cookies or brownies into staff rooms, and just relations, it always comes down to relations individual, one-one relations. So, you find someone who has a bit of an eye; you can see a twinkle in the eye of a certain clinician and you know she’s going to be helpful, not obstructive. Latch onto that and go from there and yeh, there’s always this element of-, or reward systems or vouchers or draws for having helped identify a recruit to a study. I think I see a little bit less of it, so maybe that’s a good sign that we’re actually embedding it, cos it needs to be part and parcel of the clinical pathway, not some bolt-on that’s a favour. It’s not a favour, it’s how the whole healthcare system works.

Yeah, so it’s interesting when you see people become a research midwife or nurse, there’s this sort of extraction thing that happens and they’re used to doing all the struggling, and then they perhaps join a study team and the role’s quite different; it sort of floats above, but it’s everywhere. You need to know who’s who, you need to -, how to get involved in different pathways and get behind the scenes. So, that’s -, that’s kind of taking yourself out of the clinical role, but then as you ease into whatever study you’re working in you realise you’re very much still connected to the patient facing world in a distinct and different role. But as I mentioned, like the [trial name] study there’s huge continuity, and I’m really hot on that cos I -, when I became a midwife I directly went into what’s called case loading, which is where you know your midwife and you have your midwife throughout your pregnancy and then hopefully she or her partner, or someone that you’ve already met, attends your birth, and that’s how I thought midwifery should be, and there’s just such value in that.

And, and even the Department of Health recognises that; there’s massive initiatives in building continuity for women. It’s always going to be a hot topic and we’re just spending life times figuring out how to provide it for women. But anyway, my point was that, sometimes in research studies you see that little continuity package happening and that’s so cool. So, in [trial name] it was like, gosh, we’re giving this whole additional continuity thing where the women, the participants, have really good access to a midwife and a doctor by email, by phone, by visits; set visits or even some last minute visits. What an addition to the maternity care that perhaps doesn’t feature the continuity. So, I’d like to -, I think it’s really complimentary.

Yeah

And as a midwife it’s not just this nice thing that women maybe get by joining the study, it’s also really rewarding for the clinician.

The actual practical tasks of the role can be sort of, maybe not a surprise, but there’s a lot of practical skills, so lab skills, becoming trained in basic processing of samples and centrifuges. And sometimes that’s a surprise because perhaps at the outset of becoming a research midwife, you’re actually thinking what all the -, burning ideas that you’ve been harbouring and wanting to get on to. So, there is a little bit of a dance and a readjustment I think, and I won’t say that it’s -, I won’t say that it’s disappointment, but it’s a regrouping of how perhaps I, or other people I can see, think of being of research midwife, cos sometimes it’s a little bit removed from the ideas. But it also affords you many, many, many opportunities and perhap -, like for example, working in a clinical research team that’s doing interesting things round early pregnancy or early embryology; it affords you a huge, rich window into that particular speciality.

That wouldn’t have been there had you continued in a -, a sort of clinic -, purely clinical role.

So, so, it’s interesting because it’s very task based.

And the practical side of things, and also it’s a bit like being in project management because understanding the process of how somebody in your team, or somewhere else, got an idea and how you actually -, how you actually get something out of the idea a question, a research question; how does that happen? And I actually kind of enjoy that sort of process thing. It maybe is the micro-manager in me; I like thinking about how it will run on the shop floor.

But sometimes I think that’s the difference between a well planned and well executed study or not; one that’s actually thought about ‘Well, how’s this going to sit in the setting? How’s that going to work with the antenatal clinic midwives who aren’t directly involved in the project?’ And I think you have to have a real sort of business almost mind for that.

I would like to be someone doing my own research. And so that’s-, I’m kind of banging on my drum about that because I-, I’ve always felt that, but then I’ve been sort of stumbled by how difficult that could be in practical terms, because as I said, I can’t-, I can’t just do a PhD because I fancy it and I’m independently wealthy and that’s what I’m going to do for five years. I need it to be through an awarded really well supported process. So, there are those amazing awards, like the NIHR [National Institute for Health Research] doctorate one. But the doctorate application probably takes a year to do the application and to have a really good supportive team around you. But then, just a few months ago there was the announcement of a new award, which is a pre-doctorate award, which is investing in people’s time to get to be able to submit a competitive PhD application. So, it essentially buys out your time and sets you-, and you-, you submit an application where you’ve set up some supervisory relationships and a bespoke training package for yourself. And then if the lucky people who are awarded this would have a couple of day-, perhaps a couple of days a week, or 50% of their working time, to devote to the development of their own research pathway as a clinical academic.

And that’s what I want to do.

What led you to do a Masters?

Well, I suppose it begins before that because really I think it was always programmed to work in research or change. So, the whole drive for me to become a midwife was to contribute to the improvement of women’s health globally, which sounds lofty and whatever, a huge sort of task. But my way of doing that was through becoming a midwife because I wanted to have a practical skill, but it wouldn’t end there for me. Before being a midwife I’d done a history degree and I was always interested in contributing some improvement globally.

So, I wanted to match that sort of ideological pursuit with having a hands-on skill, and midwifery’s the window through which I’ve done that.

So, it was always sort of a presumption that I would go into midwifery and want to take part at another level.