Behind the scenes at Birth Small Talk

Behind the scenes - what's happening at Birth Small Talk

My already full life is now even more busy! And that necessitates some changes. This post fills you in on what is happening and what to expect for the rest of the year.

Making a decision and sticking to it

As I moved out of clinical practice, I took a long hard look at myself, what I wanted to achieve in the world, how I wanted to do, and who I wanted to be. I knew there were many things I was no longer willing to spend time doing – like marking university student’s work. It has to be done, but it is not life edifying in any way!

Who I really wanted to be was a researcher. Working to develop new knowledge with the goal of making health care better is something I find deeply rewarding and purposeful. So I made a decision to only take on research work that is values aligned. While I don’t regret that decision, it has been challenging.

Tenured university academics are typically given a proportion of their paid hours to undertake research. I had this back in the pre-pandemic days when I had an ongoing academic position. However that time gets crowded out by teaching demands (read: marking, near endless marking, and managing academic integrity challenges that are increasingly related to AI use). Then there are the time-consuming university processes and an endless stream of meetings-that-could-have-been-emails. Everyone I worked with ended up doing their research mostly in their “spare” (i.e. unpaid and should have been for family and leisure) time.

There are a handful of research-only, or research-dominant, roles in academia, but they are reserved for people with lots of runs on the board and a proven track record of being able to bring in funding. And that’s not me.

Post-doctoral research fellow roles are hard to come by. Most are offered on a casual basis and amount to very few hours – I am finishing off one at present that was a contract for 40 hours. I never know when the work is going to turn up, and there are usually many months in between.

Running Birth Small Talk as a business, offering educational courses, has provided me with (just) enough income to see me through the gaps in between paid research work. One major benefit from this has been that it leaves me with flexibility to provide be able to afford to provide support for up and coming researchers (I do almost all this work for free). I currently officially support three PhD candidates, unofficially help another, and provide advice to several others who are gearing up for a PhD in the near future. This means I can build research capacity in others and support new research, mostly relating to fetal monitoring and improving healthcare safety.

What’s changing?

I have started a research fellow role, doing exactly the kind of research that excites me. Sure, it’s not MY research, it’s someone else’s, but it is values aligned and important work and that is very exciting! I’ll be working four days a week. I also do half a day a week of grandparenting when my daughter works, and at present I spend about three days a week making Birth Small Talk run.

Clearly, I can’t fit seven and a half days of work into a seven day week and still function. So, I need to reshape the business to fit into the time remaining.

That means that blog posts are now going to come out once a month rather than once a week. I had plans to write and offer new courses in June, July, and November – that’s not going to happen anymore. I was going to run Confident Intermittent Auscultation (a live workshop) and Evidence-Based Decision-Supporting Conversations (which is a “high-touch” program) again later in the year – and I’m probably not going to be doing that either. All work on book two is suspended.

What will stay the same

The grandbaby is so lovely that I’m not giving up that time. Watching him grow and learn new skills is delightful.

The blog isn’t going anywhere. All the previous posts, almost 250 of them now, will remain accessible to anyone who wants to read them. My monthly newsletter will continue. The following paid options remain open for enrolment anytime someone wants to take them up:

Fetal monitoring: Informed decisions for your birth
I’m having a VBAC. Do I need fetal monitoring?
How to get the best from the RANZCOG Intrapartum Fetal Surveillance Guideline
The recordings from last month’s Confident Intermittent Auscultation workshop

And my book of course remains available – though I may yet remove the option for personally autographed copies as I don’t have time to run to the post office several times a week. If you want one – grab it right now!

Everyone who is already inside a paid course will get what has been promised. I’ll be honouring all speaking agreements I have committed to for the rest of the year. I will reopen the doors to the Fetal Monitoring Academy in August as previously planned. And all those up-and-coming new researchers I have helped in the past will still be supported.

What happens next?

My new research role runs until early next year. Maybe there will be funding to continue, maybe not. If the funding ends, I’ll put all the things I had planned to do back on the development board and see what is most needed to keep putting an end to fetal monitoring nonsense! Hang around and see what I get up to next…

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