CPM Symposium
CPM Symposium Report
Issue 3, July 2012
In This Issue
Health Professionals for a New Century: A Global Perspective
Maternity Care Workforce Analysis
The Imperative to Train More Midwives
Maternal Mortality in the United States: Taking Action to Eliminate Disparities in Maternal Health Outcomes
Reflection! Relationships! Information-sharing!! Action!







More on Innovation in Health Professional Education

You can follow the work of the Global Forum, see presentations, participate in public workshops, and subscribe to updates by clicking here. The first public workshop will take place August 29-30 in Washington, DC. The title of the meeting is Educating for Practice: Improving Health by Linking Education to Practice using Interprofessional Education.

Click here to read the entire Lancet Commission report, Education of health professionals for the 21st century.

CPMs are represented in the Global Forum by the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC) which includes the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council. For more information about ACCAHC, visit their web site. 






















CPM Participant speaking














Blueprint for Action

 

Click here for more information about the cutting edge work of Childbirth Connection and the Blueprint for Action.  






Participant at table  


Maternal Mortality: Related Resources

For an update on Amnesty International's report Deadly Delivery, click here. 

  

Symposium participant Claudia Booker suggested everyone view the documentary "When the Bough Breaks" which examines the mystery of the Black-white infant mortality gap.  For information, visit the web site.   

  

Two articles worth exploring:

 - Blumenshine, P. et al.  (2010) Socioeconomic disparities in adverse birth outcomes: a systematic review.  American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 39(3):263-272.  Click here for the abstract. 

  

 - Dominguez, TP.  Adverse birth outcomes in African American women: the social context of persistent reproductive disadvantage.  Social Work in Public Health. 26(1):3-16. Click here for the access.

 

A webinar and other resources that address disparities in maternity care can be found by visiting Childbirth Connection's site.   



 
 
  
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Midwifery education is all about preparing the midwives of tomorrow. In this report from the CPM Symposium, we explore what we need to be thinking about as educators, student midwives, and practicing midwives. Presentations in this session highlight the unconscionable disparities in our maternity care system, the looming shortage of physicians and the critical need for more midwives, as well as interesting opportunities for innovation, collaboration and transformation in health professional education. Discussion within the linked video includes several heartfelt comments from participants, particularly related to the issues that women of color face in maternity care and in midwifery.

In our next report, experts from the field will further discuss social justice and equity concerns when caring for women and increasing diversity in the profession.

 

Health Professionals for a New Century: A Global Perspective
Patrick Kelley, MD, DrPH 
Patrick Kelley

 

The goal of transformative education is really to create change agents, to create people with leadership skills, so that we can bring the professions forward and move out of the static attitudes that we have about how the healthcare system works We will focus on leadership, ethics, teamwork, accreditation, use of IT, and the social mission of health professionals. ~Patrick Kelley

A new Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education, convened by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), is exploring transformative learning, competency-based education, and interdisciplinary training. In this presentation, Patrick Kelley, MD, DrPH, Director of the IOM Board on Global Health, describes the history and recent reports, including a Lancet Commission report on Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century, that serve as background for the forum and the compelling need to support innovation in education.

Midwifery education aligns well with many of the recommended innovations but we need to learn more about what leaders are saying about preparing the next generation of health professionals.


Click here to watch the video footage.

 

Maternity Care Workforce Analysis
Timothy Fisher, MD, FACOG 
Timothy Fisher

 

We need to have courageous conversations. One I need to have with [physicians] is that the midwifery model of care is the most appropriate model of care. We're going to spend a lot of time and energy figuring out how we can do it all - and we can't do it with the same quality and patient care experience. The other courageous conversation I want to have is with [midwives]. I understand there's this rift but as long as it continues, for all the people in positions of power and influence, it lets the status quo stay the status quo.
~Timothy Fisher

The maternity care workforce is changing, a workforce shortage is looming, and the future landscape for the delivery of health care and maternity care will be radically different from the one we are accustomed to today. Timothy Fisher, MD, FACOG believes it is time for us to look critically, with open hearts and minds, at how and where to provide women with safe, high-quality maternity care at reasonable cost. With rising rates of intervention, a shrinking physician workforce and unsustainable costs of hospital-based care systems, it is time we look to midwifery for primary maternity care.

Note: We apologize for the video quality of this presentation - Dr. Fisher is often off-camera, but his comments are well worth hearing and be sure to review his outline, too!

Click here to access a MS Word document of the presentation.

Click here to watch the video footage including Dr. Fisher's presentation.
The Imperative to Train More Midwives
Carol Sakala, PhD, MSPH 
Carol Sakala

 

At Childbirth Connection we know that rapid gains in maternity care quality, outcomes and value are within reach and training more midwives is a crucial element for achieving these goals. Carol Sakala

Just as there are issues of cost and quality with the overuse and underuse of interventions in the birth process, there are similar issues of cost and quality in the education of primary maternity care providers. Carol Sakala, PhD, MSPH, Director of Programs at Childbirth Connection, explores the education of maternity care providers from the perspective of the analysis and recommendations in the Blueprint for Action, Steps Toward a High-Quality, High-Value Maternity Care System.

 

Maternal Mortality in the United States: Taking Action to Eliminate Disparities in Maternal Health Outcomes
Camille Sealy, MPH, MEd 
Camille Sealy

 

One of the most disturbing and puzzling aspects of maternal mortality and associated prematurity and infant mortality is the persistence of racial and ethnic disparities. African American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women. ~Camille Sealy

Childbearing women in the United States suffer from indefensible racial disparities in birth outcomes and unacceptably high rates of maternal mortality. Deadly Delivery, the Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, published by Amnesty International in 2010 and updated in 2011, calls this a human rights crisis. Former Health Policy Advisor to Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Health Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, Camille Sealy, MPH, MEd, examines various hypotheses regarding the source of disparities and describes possible solutions.

Click here to watch the video footage including Camille's presentation.

 

Reflection! Relationships!
Information-sharing!! Action! 

 

The CPM Symposium 2012 was designed to be interactive because we know that we have so much to learn from each other. Please share your opinions, ideas, resources, and news related to the topics addressed in this report or the symposium generally. We'll post responses in the next report.

Simply hit "reply" to send us your thoughts!



All the best,

CPM Symposium - NACPM & AME