Yana Richens – My Shift That Made a Difference

This was the shift which spring boarded my career as midwife, was a shift that I will not forget.

I was a 3rd year student nurse on a gynae ward. Even though I was a 3rd year student I had qualified as a state enrolled nurse 5 years previously and had spent 2 years nursing on an oncology unit, and oncology was my passion and I believe has shaped my career. On this particular shift I was allocated to look after a woman who was 22 weeks pregnant, and she was miscarrying her baby.

This was at a time when pregnant mothers who were under 28 weeks gestation were cared for in a gynaecology ward as babies under 28 weeks were not considered at being able to survive, something now we know has thankfully progressed. The staff nurse I was working with was a warm and compassionate person but not one to take any nonsense. During the shift the woman became more and more uncomfortable, and the doctors were called several times. This lady was in established labour and we needed to make her comfortable.

I have never felt so out of my depth in my whole career, this woman was losing her baby in the middle of a gynae ward and was distraught with the pain of labour and the pain and grief of losing her beautiful baby. I was totally helpless and all I could do was sit with her. When her beautiful baby girl was baby was born, I could not place it in the bedpan as instructed, instead the nurse did this and instructed me to take this little one to the sluice.

I could not do this and placed the little one in a blanket. This shift changed my whole career. I did not return to oncology but became a midwife. I am pleased to say times have changed and I have never looked back, although I do have a very special place in my heart for oncology and wondered what might have happened if I had not be on that ward that day, and I still think about that mother and if she had anymore children.

Dr Yana Richens OBE PhD D.Univ MPhil MSc BSc (Hons) RGN RM