VPRS 17587 Midwifery and Medical Student Labour Ward Case and Statistics Books

Full description

Administrative History on Nursing Education:

In circa 1859, Melbourne-Lying-In Hospital and Infirmary for Diseases of Women and Children (now The Royal Women's Hospital) commenced training in midwifery nursing. The Hospital established a formal three months certificate course in 1862 and a Gynaecology course in 1888. Up until 1993, these two training schemes were the platform of the nursing education programme; throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, midwifery and gynaecology training was extended, shortened, and re-shaped, to cope with the hospital's exigencies and changing government regulations.

The Women's became a centre for general nursing training during the 1940s and 1950s. This course had an emphasis in gynaecological nursing, but also included an external placement with another hospital, for the students to extend their training and experience in other areas of nursing.

A range of other training courses were conducted or facilitated by the hospital, responding to advancements in medical technology. These included: Neonatal Paediatrics; Cytotoxic Drug Therapy; Family Planning etc.

The Kathleen Syme Education Centre at The Royal Women's Hospital school closed in 1993 when the nursing courses in Midwifery, Gynaecology and Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing became university postgraduate qualifications rather than hospital based courses.

Series Description:

This series comprises the Midwifery and Medical Student Labour Ward Case and Statistics Books, 1938 to 1985.

These Labour Ward Case Books record the date of each birth that both the student midwifes and medical students were required to attend, as part of the clinical experience component of their courses. As the books were compiled from general stationary, the column headings and contents can differ between each book.

The student midwives were required to deliver 15 normal births and assist in five abnormal births, comprising one breech, three forceps and one caesarean section. The midwives also had to undertake two pelvic and one rectal examination. The "assists" are represented by a classification system of acronyms. Each midwifery student's details were compiled in a double page column format; the student's name and dates of births attended in numerical sequence was detailed on the left page; the categories of assisted deliveries, the name of patients and date of each birth on the right hand page.

The volume "Midwifery Tutorial Department Records L.W. [Labour Ward] for C.O.T. Forms" comprises the statistics of births witnessed and assisted which were sent into the Victorian Nursing Council as part of the nurses' registration as midwifes. The volume lists each student intake from group 3 1974-75 to March State Group 1992. Each student's statistics for births attended and assisted are listed under the following categories: A - analgesics; W - witness; N.D. - normal delivery; F.D. - forceps delivery; B.D. - breech delivery; C.S. - caesarean section; P.V. - vaginal examination.

As part of their clinical experience medical students were required to deliver 20 babies (in 1981 this was reduced to 15 births), including a caesarean section or forceps delivery. Their Labour Ward Case Books record against each student's name the dates of these births. The Case Book is divided into a column format with the numerical sequence 1 to 19 across the top of the page and the student's name and dates under each number category. The twentieth birth was required to be a forceps or caesarean delivery and is a generally listed as "Forceps" or "Caesar".