Australian trainee doctors miss out on experience at childbirth

They now learn little about anatomy so I suppose this is the next step. I am sure that they learn a lot about multicultural "sensitivity", though. I am glad my doctor is an older guy

MEDICAL students might graduate without ever having witnessed a natural birth or delivering a baby. A survey of Australian medical schools found rising caesarean rates and a dramatic rise in the number of trainee doctors and midwives competing to be in the birth suite meant opportunities to be involved in labour and delivery were diminishing. It also found many women would not consent to a medical student performing the delivery, even under supervision of a midwife or doctor.

The survey by Professor Caroline de Costa, of Queensland's James Cook University - published in the latest issue of medical journal O&G - found some medical schools had dropped or scaled back the mandatory requirement for students to attend a delivery. Yet the Australian College of Midwives requires its students to have performed 40 normal deliveries.

Australian Medical Students' Association president Michael Bonning said: "We believe it compromises patient safety and is inconsistent with community standards for medical graduates not to be exposed to the normal birthing process."

But some universities have decided it is no longer practical to have a fixed quota of births to attend. Simon Broadley, from Queensland's Griffith University, said that, while it recommended students observe all types of deliveries, including instrumental (forceps or vacuum) and caesarean, teaching hospitals were already full of training nurses, midwives and paramedics and didn't have room for the hundreds of new doctors coming through universities. Almost 11,000 students were enrolled in 18 medical schools in 2006. Three new medical schools have since opened in NSW.

Associate Professor Broadley said most interns were not usually expected to deliver a baby. But Michael Chapman, head of the School of Women's and Children's Health at the University of NSW, said the public expected a doctor to display a certain level of competence when faced with labour emergencies. "I think the community would have an expectation that a doctor who has graduated from a medical school and is confronted with a lady in labour in a taxi would be able to deliver it," Professor Chapman said.

Requirements range from nothing at universities such as Newcastle to Melbourne's Monash University where students must experience three normal births, a birth using forceps and a caesarean. Professor de Costa said experiencing childbirth also encouraged junior doctors to choose a career in obstetrics. UNSW student Natalie Ammala said delivering a baby was "a powerful experience" that had pushed her towards becoming an obstetrician. "The experience has given me much more confidence than just learning from a textbook," she said.

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