Facilitating midwifery clinical skill development online: A case study

Abstract

The 2020 Year of the Nurse and Midwife has presented many challenges following the World Health Organisation declaring a world pandemic due to COVID-19 on 11th March 2020. One of these challenges relates to the preparation of undergraduate nurses and midwives for a largely clinically based profession within a tertiary setting. Comprehensive educational preparation of midwives for registration and practice is at the core of quality midwifery care leading to optimisation of outcomes for women and their babies. To ensure graduate midwives are clinically competent, extensive professional placement is complimented by immersive simulation sessions focussing on; midwifery practice, skill, and clinical decision-making development in laboratory sessions. Due to social distancing restrictions imposed by the Australian Government all face-to-face sessions within a Queensland university were moved online between late March and July 2020. This presented opportunities to redesign teaching practices and implement innovations to continue to provide a high quality, award winning Bachelor of Midwifery Program. This paper will present a case study of an innovative strategy utilised within a Blackboard environment to facilitate skills development of two core critical midwifery skills, management of shoulder dystocia and estimation of postpartum blood loss.