Visiting Canberra.

Canberra by the lake, early morning walk

On Tuesday I drove to Canberra from Shepparton to attend a research seminar. Frustratingly I had investigated all other forms of transport but I couldn't find anything that would make my journey any easier.

Thankfully though the road was very easy to drive. I survived the six hour drive intact and without incident. I just had one close hiccup in the city of Canberra where I nearly took the wrong road but thankfully my Trapster app on my iphone saved me from that disaster. It was also very reassuring as a person driving alone to have a voice periodically call out to you about 'dangerous intersections' and 'speed cameras'.

It was great to catch up with Professor of Midwifery, Dr Deborah Davis. She has been my tutor with Otago university on a couple of post graduate papers and we met a number of years ago at a Joan Donley Midwifery conference.

The seminar was enlightening on a number of fronts. Canberra University are very friendly, supportive and encouraging. I am also keenly aware that I need an advocate. My biggest moment of clarity was to finally understand why, when I mentioned I had a PGDip in Midwifery it means little to Australian University staff. It seems that when a general nurse qualifies here and does a midwifery program they qualify with a PGDip in Midwifery. My midwifery qualification was 19 years ago in a hospital based program of study an additional 18 months training to the 3 years general training. My PGDip is in addition to that and has taken me a further two years of study to obtain. The PGDip midwives here just do two more papers to obtain a Masters in the Australian system. So the main advantage of applying to Canberra to study is that I have someone on the staff who understands the study I have already undertaken in New Zealand and can advocate for me.

The research seminar itself was very, very interesting with presentations from a number of nurses, mental health nurses and midwives. They are all either in a phD program or in a masters program and shared their journey's through their projects.

We had a great evening meal out and I feel like I could have made some new friends.

I am often amazed actually at the similarities in research in each health discipline, nursing, midwifery and medicine because I have a foot in each camp. What I find is most disappointing is that there is very little collaborative work going on between them.

Today, I am tired. My brain isn't functioning as it should do and I appear to be needing more coffee than usual. I may reread this blog post and feel I wish to add more to it.