Training has got underway at LSTM’s Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health (CMNH) this week with the start of the new three month Diploma in Reproductive Health in Developing Countries (DRH)
Accredited by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), the 12 week course is run each January in partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). It is designed to help doctors, midwives and other health professionals working in the area of Sexual and Reproductive Health to acquire knowledge and skills which will enable them to develop the awareness of the need to reduce reproductive mortality and morbidity, increase their capabilities to plan as well as review various strategies that can be used to improve sexual and reproductive health in resource poor settings.
Throughout the programme the aim is for the participants to gain in-depth knowledge and understanding and sufficient confidence in new skills and ideas to be able to begin to develop and apply them in their own working environment and with colleagues in a developing country situation. The course will be run with an emphasis on discussion groups and full participation of students and with a less emphasis on didactic lecturing. During the course students get to explore a topic of their choice more in depth by conducting a critical literature review and writing a dissertation of up to 3000 words.
The course to taught by staff from the LSTM, from the Division of Perinatal and Reproductive Medicine in the School of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine of the University of Liverpool, fellows of the RCOG, lecturers from WHO as well as other external lecturers with specific expertise relevant to particular aspects of the course.
This year’s course is made up of medical professionals and project workers from a number of African Countries and the UK and the students include two members of CMNH’s in-country teams, Joyce Mutuku a midwife from Kenya and Sheilla Mathuwa a nurse from Malawi. Both Jennifer and Sheilla are part of CMNH’s highly successful Making it Happen Programme, which is training health professionals in 11 different countries in Africa and Asia to provide skilled birth attendance and develop skills in emergency obstetric care in order to reduce the burden of maternal and newborn death in those countries involved.