Fertility nursing may not seem an obvious career move for a midwife, but the opportunity to gain new skills and have increased contact time with patients has attracted several to Bourn Hall over recent years.
Georgia Davies was a midwife at Southend Hospital before gaining her first taste of fertility at a London-based clinic based near Harley Street. She was there for a year before choosing to transfer to Bourn Hall Essex in Wickford. She tells her story.
“I have wanted to be a midwife since I was about 16. I thought I knew about fertility treatment as you see many patients that have had IVF treatment, but as a midwife you don’t realise what people have gone through before they see you.
“All pregnancies are very, very precious but I think for those who have experienced infertility everything is anxiety-inducing.
“Working at Bourn Hall, it has been lovely to follow people through their journey, and to have people that you met right at the beginning showing you pictures of their babies. That’s really nice.
“I was really pleased to get the position at Bourn Hall. I had been with the London clinic before, and they only offer private treatment, which meant we had to take payments from the patients; it was a bit soulless.
“The clinic in London was very fast-paced and they did all sorts of crazy hours – 4am! – so it was intense. I found it a bit overwhelming at first because we were so busy and they didn’t have time to go through all the procedures, so we were more or less on our own.
“I much prefer working at Bourn Hall, where there is a much greater focus on patient care, and it is good that people who live in Essex can have all their treatment in one place.
“When I came for the interview there was greater emphasis on gaining new skills, and I loved the idea of learning about ultrasound scanning.
“Since I arrived at Bourn Hall a year ago, I have gained more skills and become more independent as a nurse practitioner. I had an appraisal recently, during which we discussed other opportunities such as IUI training, insemination training and prescribing. Coming to Bourn Hall was a good career move.
“My nursing team are really lovely, and we all help each other. I do think a smaller clinic is nicer for patients too, because they see familiar faces and you have that time to sit down with them and talk to them properly, whereas before I felt like I just needed to move on to the next thing.
“Having worked in the NHS and in private medicine I think that one of the best features of Bourn Hall is that we put patient care first and are given the time to do that.”
More information
Read about more of our nurses and midwives on our blog, as well as the skills they bring to their roles at Bourn Hall and the training available.
Find out more about the International Day of the Midwife at idm2023.com.
Are you looking to join our team? Take a look at our current vacancies.
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