 Welcome to all of our listeners. And now we will get started with our speaker today, Hazel Kiedel. She's gonna be sharing with us her presentation about keeping our passion alive as midwives. It's with great pleasure that I share with you about Hazel. She is Hazel Kiedel, is a lecturer of midwifery at the Western Sydney University and a PhD candidate. Hazel has worked in midwifery group practices and Aboriginal medical service, a variety of hospital settings, and as a privately practicing midwife in both city and regional locations. Hazel's passion for VBEC followed her own experience of having a VBEC with her daughter in 2008. And since then, she has published research on women's experiences of having a home birth after Caesarean. And her PhD work is on exploring women's experiences of planning a VBEC in Australia. Hazel loves her role as a lecturer of midwifery and midwifing the midwives of the future. Wonderful, Hazel, welcome. It is so wonderful to be here with you today. Thank you for being a part of this virtual day of the midwife. Thank you very much for that. Yes, I am a midwife and I am a lecturer. And I first did this presentation at a student midwife conference at our national conference last year in Canberra. And it was a lot of fun to give. So I'm very excited to give this again. It is based for student midwives, but I think really as a midwife anywhere in your career, it's nice to get a bit of a boost and maybe some tips on what you can do to keep your own passion alive. And I'm just wondering how I go through the slides. Well, would you? I'm sorry, no, I've got it now. Yep, excellent. You got it? Perfect. Yep, I have. Okay, so I've got about 10 top tips to go through and just a few little stories and pictures to go with them. So my first tip for student midwives was to learn on the go. If you want to learn more about an area of midwifery, go and work in it. So midwifery, like nursing really, midwifery can be very varied. We can work in the antenatal period. We can work in hospitals. We can work in childbirth education. We can work on labor wards, midwifery group practice. And because it's so varied, we can very quickly get comfortable in the area that we're working. But I think it's actually, if you get an interest in something, rather than just going, well, it's not my area and I'm just gonna read up on it maybe, it's actually better to just dive straight in and start and work in that area. And by working in it, that's the way that you're gonna learn more about that area. I certainly did this for the whole of my nursing and midwifery career. And I started nursing when I was only 19. And any area I was unsure about, I just would go and take a job in it. I started off an emergency nursing. And I never really understood the whole intubation thing. We used to get these wonderful nieces that would come along and stick these tubes down, these patients, and then they would connect them to this amazing machine that goes beep and kept them alive. I didn't really understand much about it. So after a couple of years and thinking I need to experience something else, I thought, I need to go to intensive care. I don't understand these ventilators. I wanna go and find out what it's all about. And so I went and I learned on the go. I then spent a bit of a time doing a bit of a crazy job in the islands of Indonesia, which is really fun. And I worked with professional divers who were doing marine biology research. And that got me interested in hyperbaric medicine because I had to learn about diving and I became a rescue diver. I did all these amazing dives. So when I then moved to Australia, I thought, well, there's a hyperbaric center here. I'll go and work there. And so I learned about hyperbaric medicine through going to work in it. I always wanted to be a midwife. It took me about 10 years of nursing until I was ready to do midwifery. And when I did, I followed the same kind of field. When I qualified, I wanted to become more of an expert midwife in low-risk women. So I got a job in a low-risk maternity unit rather than staying in the high-risk maternity unit that I had trained in. I really wanted to do homebirth. And how I kind of accidentally fell into homebirth is probably one that a few homebirth midwives have when all of a sudden you're getting a phone call and you turn up and you're there at a homebirth. I also wanted to learn about Aboriginal health. It's an area that really interested me and I understood that the challenges were so different from the challenges we were seeing in the hospital. And I was lucky enough to be able to work for a year in an Aboriginal medical service. And I learned so much from the women that I worked alongside and that I was a midwife for. So I really think, to keep that in mind, like if it's something that you've got an interest in, maybe it's gestational diabetes or maybe it's high-risk or maybe it's working with women who are going through cancer therapy, like if there's something specific or even more broad, then jump in and give it a go. So that's my first tip. My next tip is a little bit challenging in our COVID-19 era. But to stay up to date, attend conferences and be engaged with social media. And I did put this slide up with some of the ones that we're going to go ahead this year. But unfortunately, they've been put back. Obviously, we've got the ICM Channel Congress, which is now going to be next year. But you all kind of can tick that box already because you're here. You're here at the Virtual Institution of the Midwife, which I have been attending and speaking and facilitating out for many years. And it's one of my favorite events of the year. So by staying up to date, though, and going to come to those conferences, you're getting to meet people who are passionate like you. You're getting to hear about the current research that's out there or the ideas and the models of care that are a little bit different to your own. And when you're in your work and you're there every day and things can be challenging, then stepping out of that and actually being alongside other midwives, other researchers who are passionate about midwife can have such a major effect. The other with that is being engaged in social media and with social media. My dear friends and supervisor, Professor Hannah Darlin, her Facebook page is fantastic. She's up there and she's always sharing good information. There's also Twitter and Instagram. Here's a UK Fantastic Midwife researcher, Dr. Sarah Wickham is another example. But there are many out there to follow. And I think that's an important part of it. Your Facebook feed shouldn't just be all about your friends and your family. You should also be tapping into what are the current thinkings and what are the current challenges for midwives and not limiting it to what is normal for you. What's going on in other countries as well. I follow a fantastic midwife from Nepal and I love to see the comments and the information that she brings up to make me really think and make me challenge about my viewpoint here in Australia as an Australian midwife. The ICM China Congress, for those of you that are able to get along to any, just try and make it a life goal to be able to make it to one of them and hopefully at some point it will come to an area near you that you can then attend because it really is the Olympics of midwifery. It's a beautiful event to see all these midwives at the opening ceremony carrying their flags. I've been to one so far, I am going to be going to the Bali one and it just really enthuses me and it just keeps me going for those next few years when you're having challenging times in your work. So that was my second one, stay up to date, attend conferences and be engaged with social media. My next tip is remove your blinkers and look at the opportunities around you and I've got some beautiful photos here. Last year I was very lucky to be able to take nine student midwives, so Bachelor of Midwifery students from the University over to Nepal where we worked alongside some amazing charities that went out into the Chitwan area, into the Chupang Hills and to some other rural areas where there's very limited antenatal care and we really learn the stories of the women and what they went through. We also took some days for girls, kids out there which are gratefully received and we also worked with students with the nurses over there who were doing midwifery. We learned a lot about midwifery in Nepal and for my students it was amazing to see their whole worldview change around midwifery to realise that midwifery was so much more than what they were doing in their home hospital and with the women that they were seeing or in their local community that actually midwifery is an international profession and something that you don't understand until you're there and experiencing it and realising that women, although they may have different challenges to you, they still go through the same processes that you do and are really grateful for you to be there and the difference, a small difference. We were only there for three weeks but the small differences that can make. In one particular village we met the traditional midwife, whose mother was the traditional midwife and then now she's the traditional midwife and she was hungry for knowledge. She would just soak it up, she sat in the clinic alongside me and she would present the women who were pregnant and tell me all their stories and they would tell me their stories and then with a student we would do an unsatal clinic and I honestly think I learnt more from her than she learnt from me. But then a few weeks later or maybe even a month or so later we got sent a photo from one of the charity staff over there where she was hugging some women that we had met who were pregnant and they're holding their babies and she wanted to share that information with us and to show that she was so grateful for the small information we shared with her. But now the students are now graduated midwives and I'm very, very proud of them. I have got that from the beginning of their career onwards and there are lots of opportunities out there. It's not just our university, many universities have programmes like this where you can go and experience this but also as a qualified midwife you can as well. It doesn't have to be just an experience as a student midwife. See what's out there. There are so many different opportunities. There are Facebook groups such as Volunteer Midwife is a really good one that you can tap in and go where can I help and where can I serve? And what can I do and what can I learn about midwifery? And if you're stagnant in what you're doing right now and you just want inspiration and opportunity obviously once international travel is allowed again then this might be your time to go and now I need to go to a different place and to get that passion from midwifery back again. Okay, that's that. So let's go on to my next one which is make plans for your careers. There's a bit of a boring slide this one but I give this across to students and midwives because there's often a bit of a groan at this point and my pug just snored like a big groan because they're hoping that at the end of the three years that's it, that's the end of their study. They don't need to do any more assignments and then I'm kind of a bit rude and I go, well, actually, this is just the beginning of your study. Being a midwife, you are a lifelong learner now but it's important to be, I think be aware of what it is that you're going to do and have some plans. Now those plans can change and this year has shown us that many, many plans will change and they can change really quickly but you can still be moving towards what you want to do. So in Australia, we have this role called an endorse midwife which means that you can get endorsed to write prescriptions and order ultrasounds and diagnostics and you need to be endorsed to be able to provide home birth services but it's not something that just happens overnight. You don't just go, okay, I've been a postgraduate for three years now and I can now be a home birth midwife. There's actually a lot of planning that's involved with that. There's a course that you need to do at university. There's certain experiences that you need to have. There's certain hours that you need to build up. So that's where I talk about, make some plans for your career. Where do you want to be in five years time? What area of midwifery do you want to be working in and what do you need to do to get there? Is it home birth midwifery? Is it midwifery group practice? Is it working in high-risk care? What is it that you want to do and then what do you need to do to get there? Also be aware that not all courses lead to the same point. If you think in the future that maybe research is something that might interest you and believe me, I never thought that at all and now I'm right at the end of my PhD. And I love research, like just get me started on research and I could just talk all day. But if that is something that you're interested in, then touch base with a researcher or an academic and say, what do I need to do to get there? Because you'd be surprised that not all postgraduate courses will actually lead you in the pathway that you want to go to, but they often sound very good on paper. So just be critical about what you're going to be doing. All right, your next one is, oh, I've kind of covered a little bit of this already, but take further education seriously and be smart about what you choose to study. Like I said, they don't all lead to the same pathway and look at the credentials of the university that you're looking at that you're wanting to go to as well and I can see Lara has just said she wants to become a lactation consultant and exactly. So look at what is it that you need to do to do that and what are your steps that you need to do to get that? And then what do you actually need to be a uni lecturer? The best way to find that out is to contact one that's in your area. My other little comment about universities and this can be freely for any course is if you're going to choose a university unless you're very restricted because of where you live and there's only one that you can go to, there was so many online options these days, where are the experts in the field working? Because that's often gonna be a very inspired university to go and work at. If they're publishing, if they're good researchers and they're inspiring leaders, then they've probably got an inspiring team that they're working alongside and it's that team that are gonna be teaching you and they're designing the course that you're doing. So really don't just go, well, this is the course I wanna do, it looks fantastic. Do a little bit of digging. Who's working there? Do you know those names or you read this amazing piece of research? Well, what's that person doing and where do they teach? I think it makes a really big impact, especially when you're then looking, if you are looking at doing research, because that makes you very critical about who you want to be on your team. This is a bit of a serious one. Don't let the bullies win and even more important, don't become a bully. I have in my midwifery career, unfortunately being bullied. And it was severe. It was kind of in secret. I don't really think that the staff members I was working alongside really knew the level that I was being bullied by management. I don't think they really saw the impact of it. But the impact on me was huge. I had a period of, of illness, I had to go on stress leave. And then once I applied to go on to stress leave through a workers and health and safety compensation, I was told by the manager who was doing the bullying that that would never get through, that I would never get paid for that. It was a really difficult time for me being bullied, yet being passionate about what you want to do. And yeah, it's really horrible. And we have lost so many midwives to the profession and probably midwives lives that because bullying has become so difficult to live with. When you're going to work makes you feel sick. When driving to work makes you choose, think about choosing between driving to work and choosing a tree to drive into. It is serious. And we don't take it seriously enough. And it's really the other thing I say about don't become a bully. It's actually easier, isn't it? To kind of follow the flow than it is to stand up against it. And if you can hear a bunch of colleagues and midwives sitting around going, that new student, God, she's such a pain. And she never does anything right in the other way that she speaks to women. And then other people are joining in on her. She was terrible. She was so horrible. And her English language skills are that great. And no one can ever understand what she's saying. It just becomes insidious. And everyone kind of joins in because you want to be part of that group. I assume. I don't get it because I've never been able to do that. But I know that some people do. It's probably harder to step in and say, I don't think that's a conversation you should be having. But I actually think that is what we should be doing. We need to call it out. We need to call it out and say, that is bullying. And you cannot speak like that. And often when you point that out to somebody, when you actually point that out in front of the group that they're saying the information to, that's enough to nip something in the bud that could have escalated so much more. I had a beautiful story of a student recently who was taken a handover. So the woman had come up with another midwife from having her baby in labor ward up to the postnatal ward. And as the student was taken a handover from the midwife, the midwife started talking badly about a student, which seems a bit crazy to say that to another student, but still they were talking badly about a student. And that student who was taken the handover called it out and said, I don't think that's professional, the way that you're speaking to me. And I don't think it's fair. And that stopped it. And that other student found out about it and in a positive way then felt that there was someone there with her back and someone there that was supporting her, which I like to talk about this ugly area of bullying, but it happens. For me, I moved out of the area and actually my home birth midwifery business then skyrocketing that year when I decided to go, that's it, I'm not coming back to be bullied by you. But during that period of time, there was one shift and I won't forget it. And a beautiful student midwife was working, I've done a few births with her. And I was in the storeroom looking for something and I was a little bit upset about something somebody had said that day. And this student midwife came in and she pushed the door closed and she said to me, look, I don't really know what's going on right now with you, but I know that something is and I know that you're really upset and I know that you're not the midwife you used to be because something is happening. But I just need to let you know that because of the birth that I did with you, that's the reason I'm still a student midwife and that you are an amazing midwife and I just want you to know that. And I still remember that, like it still gets me choked up, it made such a difference to my life. I went home and I thought, okay, this is an issue with these people that are bullying me and not with everyone else that I'm working with and I can still make a positive impact to midwifery. I was very lucky to see her a few years later and I actually thanked her for doing that and told her what an impact that made to my life. So even if you're not the one being bullied and you're not the one being a bully, but you know it's happening, maybe just reach out, reach out and give a hug or a verbal hug and just say, you know, I don't know what's happening, but I care for you and I'm sorry. Okay, moving on. Okay, so if you have an experience that gives you more questions than answers, then explore it. This is a woman here having an amazing and she loves me sharing her picture and having a V-back after two Cisarians at home. V-back gave me a lot of questions. I had a V-back of my own in 2008 and it left me with more questions than answers. Questions such as, I feel so fantastic right now. Is this just me? Because I pushed a baby through my vagina or do other women who've had a V-back feel like this as well? That was one of my questions. One of my other questions was, I had a really hard time in labor. I was being pushed around, I was being told I needed to go for a Cisarian. And it was a real, I had real challenges with other healthcare providers whilst I was in labor. I was being told when I had a vagina whilst I was having a vagina examination that they'd had a rupture recently when the baby had died. And I was in a very obviously compromised position. And that made me question, well, I'm a midwife. They knew me at that hospital. They knew that I was a midwife and that's how I got treated. How would any other woman without that knowledge ever have a V-back? And what are their experiences like? Those questions really catapulted me into becoming a researcher and publishing on V-back and spending the last 11 years really focusing on women's experiences of planning and having a V-back in Australia. If you get that burning desire of a question and it might be a small question, it might be a big one, it might be something you've personally experienced or something that you've observed, then go and do something about it. It could just be reading a paper and learning more about the topic. It could be something more than that. It could be setting up local support groups. It could be looking at turning that into a research question and doing a higher research degree in that area. It could be that you end up becoming an expert in that area, just because you had a needle and you had something really burning question that you wanted to go and follow. So yeah, that's my tip here. Really, if you've got those questions, go and find out what those answers are. I don't know if you can hear my pug snoring in the background, but at least it's better than him parking. It's hilarious. Okay, this is another tip for me. Give contingency of care ago, oh, thanks, Wyd. We all know contingency of care, midwifery contingency of care is the gold standard of care, but we don't all get to experience it either as a woman or as a midwife. But why is that? Why don't we do that? So it might just be the fact that it's not available in your area. You cannot move to a different area, and in your area, there are no midwifery contingency of care models. Well, what can you do? Well, maybe you can get a bit behind the scenes and find out why there isn't, and what is there that you can do to maybe start suggesting that your area needs to have contingency of care models. But maybe it's because you're scared about doing it. If you're a new graduate midwife, you might think, well, I don't have enough experience yet. Well, if that's the case, maybe just go and have a chat with the midwifery group practice in your area and ask them what you need to be able to work as a group practice midwife or in a contingency of care model. And then you can go back to one of those further proceeding slides which said, plan for the future now that you know that you need extra amount of years before you can do it, then you can plan for that and what do you need to do in that time? But if you've already got all the credentials you need to work in it, but you're worried that the lifestyle isn't for you or you don't wanna be on call or it's gonna be too much of an impact for your family, then they're all just questions that you're not gonna know until you give it a go. It can be absolutely challenging. I have done some amazing birthing and family responsibilities in the same day. I remember driving when I was a private midwife, driving, I had a woman who had a baby about three hours away from me and it happened to be my daughter's birthday and Red can relate because Red had to say that she was unsure whether she could make this session today because of the same issue. But it's happening, you're on call, you just never know when it's gonna happen and I drove all the way for three hours. I made this birth and the birth was fantastic and I'm driving back and I knew that the party that we'd arranged for home, my husband was working so I was the only one that could do this party. The party started at four o'clock that afternoon because kids were coming after school and I rarely had birthday parties for my kids. I feel really sad for them because it was such a nightmare to ever organize but I had this one planned and I managed to get back by about half past three and from about half past three onwards and I'd been gone from the night before, I was baking like crazy and everyone turned up at four o'clock and to my dismay, all the mums just sat around and watched me as I'm going crazy trying to bake all these cakes and stuff but luckily we had a bouncy castle in the backyard and they all just went and all the kids went and jumped on that while I continued getting the food together. Sometimes it's a near miss, sometimes you do miss things altogether but on the whole big scheme of things, there are other things like you only get called out during the night when women are in labor and they're women that you've got a relationship with and you don't mind, you get excited and you're pumped and you get there much quicker than you're expecting to rather than those endless night shifts where you're trying to find yourself things to do and they're really hard to do. So I guess if you haven't done it before and you're worrying about doing it, just give it a go. You just don't know how amazing it will be. Midwife means with woman and I think you really don't get that until you've given intensive care ago. Remember your why and this is something I'd love you to share on here. When you're a student, we often ask them on the first day why do you want to be a midwife? We might ask them in an interview before they even start. Why do you want to be a midwife? And you know it at that point and often by the end of your three years or four years however long your degree is you may forget why it was that you wanted to become a midwife. So I suggest you try and tap into why it was and write it down and have that somewhere for you to remember because there are times when you have a really hard shift or you have had an argument too many at work or you've looked after a really distressing scenario there can be days where you need to be reminded of what your why was. So if you can think of it right now feel free to share it in the public chat if you feel like it's something you can share because I think there'll be so many different ones and I thought about this morning, you know what is my why? And through my nursing, I always knew I loved women's health and I wanted to work in women's health and I wanted to be an autonomous practitioner that could work alongside women during their pregnancy and I think that's really what led me into being a midwife. That and my granny being a midwife and telling me I was going to be one. But there were so many different ones and I think it's so important to keep your why nearby so that you can check in on it on the times that you're having a bad day. So Cecilia shared that she's a midwife because the best birth possible is the best start for the new family. That's true, like we make such a difference to women's lives and to family's lives. And yeah, we can never really, we can't be replaced. Midwives can't be replaced. We have such an important job to do. Oh, I've got a whole load of ones coming through. So Sarah O'Connor is a beautiful woman who's just put a comment on there. We wrote a chapter together in the new book, Canary in the Coal Mine. And Sarah shared her HVAC story, which I'll say whenever I read it, her home birth episode is their own story. I still get teared up. And so she wants to be an advocate for women like she experienced with her home birth with private midwives. Absolutely, Sarah. I can absolutely understand and so excited that you're in the field now as a student midwife. It's so exciting. And Red says there's nothing more magical than being a part of first breaths for babies and also new mums. That's right. It is absolutely amazing to do a while. I'll let you keep typing that while I continue. Oh, my final one, be kind to yourself. And I think really important right now because we are in such a difficult time and my hearts and mind go out to your midwives who are working on the front line right now with the whole COVID-19 crisis. You need to spend some time to be kind to yourself. And so I shared some silly pictures there. There's the picture of the pug that's been snoring in the background. My kids and my husband, we play board games. And that's kind of what we like to do when we go for walks and with the dog. And that's my way of kind of being kind to myself and being taken some time out of the stressful job, the wonderful job of being an academic midwife, but it still has its moments. And yes, this is what we do. So really think, what is it that you do to be kind to yourself? And if you are a student midwife right now in the middle of study, you may have thrown everything out of the window that you ever did to be kind to yourself. You don't have the time to juggle other things on top of getting your assignments done, doing your shifts and getting to university. I understand that, but maybe you need to rekindle some of those. I get it. I've been doing a PhD while working full-time and with a very amazing but busy family. You still need to have some time to get out there and discover it for yourself. And whether that's family time or your own me time, as long as you feel that that time is being kind to yourself. I have a quick look. I'm there, Ruth said, she had okay care for her first baby, but knew that midwives can be amazing. And I wanted to be like she was and to have as much passion for my job. That's true. We really do have a good passion. Nikki has started exercising again, life changing, absolutely. And then Rihanna says, I'm studying because I would feel privileged to be able to support, empower and educate women to achieve a positive experience. The career is dynamic, exciting and ever evolving. It certainly is ever evolving. It's very challenging job to do. So that's kind of my little 10 top tips. I hope you found them useful. And even if you just remember one or two of them, then that might be something that's good for you. But the most important one I think I've put at the end is to be kind to yourself. But I'm loving all the comments. I've loved all the ways, all the why, the why as you've become a midwife and really hold onto those. And that's something that we can all learn from too. And then just my very last slide is one of the other things I do is I have a little Hazel Keedle V-Back researcher. One of the things I wanna do to give back to women is to just put these little videos together about V-Back research. There's only about four or five on there at the moment. I will do some more once I've finished all my big writing. But feel free to go and find me there at V-Back Matters where I put these little educational short animation videos for women to use and for yourselves as midwives and other healthcare professionals to concisely understand what the V-Back research is out there saying. And I think that's me done. And there's my contact details. Amazing, thank you Hazel for sharing all of that. I love so many of your tips. I think they all resonated with me so much. There's parts of your story that I can definitely relate to as well. So we have time now to be able to open up to questions. From our delegates and participants. If you want to speak to Hazel, you are welcome to or you can type them into the chat as well. I love what you were bringing in about the bullying. I think sometimes we don't talk about that enough. And it's something that for me as a midwife has always baffled me where I feel like so many of us get into the profession because we feel so passionate about supporting women during these powerful, vulnerable times of pregnancy and birthing to not be bullied. And yet, we forget about that part for ourselves and also for our sisters. So it's a really powerful part. Yeah, and the term of the midwives, either young, like that's not fair because often the young ones then won't come through. We really need to support our students that are going through a really challenging time. And I really cherish our students. I love midwifing the midwives of the future. But I hear their stories and it's challenging what they go through. It really is. And then it's almost, if they have a really hard time they might not even realize it but they then do the same to the next lot of students coming through as well. Rather than fostering an environment of supporting each other you're just fostering an environment that just bullies the next person and just creates bullies in this cyclical process. Yeah, that's really true. I love the self-responsibility. We have a question here. How do I keep my fire burning when they are telling me I'm going to be I'm going to be miserable with this career choice. So being working with midwives to present a negative view of the profession. That is really challenging. And you'd hear this a lot in nursing as well as in midwifery. Or you wouldn't want to do this job. I think that's where you look at some of these other things. Like look at what else is out there. What can you do as a student that would be different to where you are right now? And you can actually tap in with midwives who are excited. Is it you're looking at saving up and looking at an overseas trip at some point where you can work in in a different area with midwives who are passionate? Or is it as simply, you know, as you think in during your three years who has been a passionate midwife? Who has made an impact to you, Alison? And then asking them if they could be your mentor. You know, actually I'm having a really difficult time. Right now I have all these midwives of negative attitudes, but you seem to be different. Could you help me? Could you be a mentor for me? And so that you have someone that you can bounce off and that can negate those experiences for you. You know, like can actually balance it out for you. So that might be something you look at. And if you can't find that from any of your own experiences, then you know, connect with other midwives either at conferences like this or online and find somebody that you know, you really appreciate online and let them know and keep conversations going with that as well. And you can tell from on here there's a whole load of passionate midwives on here. I'm absolutely passionate in Midwifery. I love it. I think it's the most life-changing and impacting work that we can do as women. And it's, you know, it really pushed me into realizing how important feminism is in Midwifery. And we need to be supporting and advocating for women, but also for ourselves and for our colleagues. Yeah, so it's true. I think having the courage to change out of the scene if we can to move on to something that is more positive and supporting for us is so essential because the burnout rate is so high for midwives. So I see so much also with student midwives sometimes because of the influences going on in their surroundings with their preceptors or whatever is so negative that the burnout happens even before they finish school. It's just so tragic. Absolutely, absolutely. And then you think, well, what is it in that area? I mean, in that department or on that ward or in that unit that's making it negative. And it doesn't need to be like that. And if it's not something that you can identify and that you can come up with suggestions with, then you're not losing if you leave. I know when midwives are feeling bullied and going through bullying, often you think, if I leave, then they've won. But what if they won? They would just find somebody else to bully. What you're trying to keep is your own self-esteem and your own self-respect. And there is nothing wrong with leaving a situation and finding it somewhere else because the door that you close and then the door that you open might just lead you to opportunities that you never knew were there. And this is exactly what we share with the women that we work with as well, right? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, we say that you can say no. Yeah, we need to take our own advice a little more sometimes. Absolutely. We have a few more minutes for the question. So please go ahead and continue to answer. The comment here, VG said to Alison who made that comment about the negative midwives. I've gone through the same thing. I kept going back to my why and the initial people who inspired me to choose midwifery yet really important. And Tammy's an important point there that you don't need to socialize with them. So if they're negative people, don't let that leak into your social life as well. Try and find like-minded people that would be choice of friends out of work hours, absolutely, absolutely. And they are there because we're all here. If you're a very negative midwife, you wouldn't bother to come onto here and listen to this. So absolutely, find your support. Yeah, and I love your third tip that you brought in about all of the amazing avenues that we have to expand in as midwives. It's one thing that keeps it so exciting for me. I did training sort of 10 years into my career as a biodynamic cranial cycle practitioner. So all the potential of body work to so many modalities like reflexology or like lactation and so many things that we can just keep on adding to our list of services that we can support women and moms. Absolutely, and it's not always, it always doesn't always have to have the title midwife in it. It's something that you can bring in. Especially in all of the thinking about all the alternative and therapeutic services that are out there and what you can do to bring those in and how that can then impact your midwifery practice and then you can use that to educate other midwives too. So yeah, there's so much out there. No education is wasted before I became a nurse and before I became a midwife, whilst I was sort of nursing, I did become a certified aromatherapist and massage therapist. And certainly in my midwifery times with women, they were very helpful schools to have and knowledge to have with women. So yeah, there's a lot out there that you can learn. Yeah, and I was curious to ask you also if you knew that research was your thing early on. So it was interesting to hear you say in your presentation that that kind of found you more than you knowing. Yeah, absolutely. I do remember in one of the courses I did before I became a midwife, there was a research unit to it and there were things about it that kind of interested me and I got to kind of put a proposal together, but it didn't really capture me. It didn't make me think I want a career in this at all. So it was more having these questions and wanting to find out more about these questions and then actually going to somebody with those questions. So I actually had a unplanned meeting with Professor Hannah Darlin once at a community forum where I shared my story about my feedback and she listened and she's like, you could do research in that. And then looking into that and going down that path of what that meant. But I'm really glad that it was somebody like Hannah that I bumped into and I had that conversation with because she really understood the pathways to get there. So that's something I would add. And if you think, maybe this is research or maybe this is writing a book or this is doing this online course, reach out to really good people who understand the process. It saves a lot of time and angst, I think. And it's such a good reminder that the more we put ourselves out there, the more chances are that we have that so-called chance meeting with someone who might really just alter the course of our career. So that's really inspiring. Thank you so much. Well, I look forward to maybe we can meet in person at the ICM, the Olympics. I thought it'd be wonderful. I'm sad, I loved that. Yeah, I'm planning to be there as well. I was disappointed to miss it this year, but never mind, we try next year again.