Carinna Griffiths: Labour Ward Coordinator, Midwifery Lecturer

I wanted to interview Carinna because she has built a very successful career at a young age. She was a labour ward coordinator and then a midwifery lecturer within 5 years of qualification. Aspiring and student midwives sometimes think if they didn’t do midwifery straight out of school then they don’t have a decent shot at a high level career. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Did you always want to be a midwifery lecturer?

I think that's what I always wanted to do. But maybe 10-15 years down the career path. When I was at university the lecturers were so enthusiastic and so inspiring about how much they loved the profession, even after being midwives and nurses for decades. And I remember thinking ‘this is really cool’. 

I always wanted to be a midwife but I left school at 16, I didn’t have A-levels or anything. I decided I wanted to go back to college and started a nursing diploma at 17 with a view to becoming a midwife. It wasn’t for me for a number of reasons. So I started my access course when I was 24. I got a full time job and worked during my access course and some of the lecturers at college were like ‘don’t waste time, there are so many applications for midwifery, apply for nursing instead’. But I applied for midwifery anyway and got in on the first time.

What are the qualities that make a good midwife?

There are so many things. The cluster of skills includes the social stuff, the fast pace, the philosophy of midwifery, and resilience. I think resilience is something that’s so needed. It’s not about saying, ‘people just need to be tougher’. It’s about how we can build them up to be resilient. If you really care about your junior staff, you see them come through and you watch them grow, you get to know what they’re like. You watch for these subtle changes in the way they’re communicating with you...you can see when they’re at the end of their tether because they stop talking with other staff members, and it’s then you know you need to get them a break. You can see they’re too busy to even think. 

For some reason, sadly, in the NHS we can think ‘if I’m not coping I’m failing’. But everyone needs a break sometimes, especially new staff members.

I’d say the most important skill a midwife can have is anticipation. I had a brilliant student and she’s now a qualified midwife and I knew she was great because of her ability to anticipate.

Sometimes students are a little bit terrified, especially during ward round with the consultants. But after the first couple of days, I didn't even have to say to her, ‘do you want to give your hand over?’. She’d always be prepared. She'd be ready. She knew her information and it wasn't surface level knowledge. She knew the woman's history. She knew about previous pregnancies. She had the foresight to think, okay, I'm going to need to discuss this confidently with the doctors, and so she’d say to them ‘This is where we are at the moment, this is where we could be in 4 hours, or we might be here in 4 hours time. What would you like the plan to be?’ Amazing.

How did you apply to be a lecturer? How was the application process?

The only reason I applied is one of my lecturers texted me and said that I should go for it. And I thought that’s really nice, but isn’t it a bit soon? But she said ‘you never know’.

So I applied using a really good bit of advice she gave me which was ‘don’t apply for this like it’s a clinical position.’ And she was right, it’s a totally different kettle of fish. Writing the application felt bizarre because a lot of the stuff I’m most proud of is clinical and I couldn’t put it in. But I put in everything I’d done at a management level. I needed to tailor it.

What actually happened was I wrote a huge application, and got my old tutor to check it, and then realised it was only supposed to be 4000 characters. So I had to cut it down at the last moment and I thought ‘this will never happen’.

Honestly, every time I’ve been promoted I’ve been amazed. (Note from Ellie: I think a lot of midwives feel this way, but we shouldn’t, there’s so much scope for career advancement if this is what you want. Carinna is currently completing a masters, she started it just as Covid hit, a year before her lecturer application. She’s also completing a level 7 course to train as a Professional Midwifery Advocate (PMA) which is a role UK midwives will know well; back under the old model of regulation, supervisors of midwives provided this kind of support for clinical practice).

As part of the lecturer job Carinna will be completing a Postgraduate Higher Education Teaching Course (PGCTHE). 

If you’re considering becoming a lecturer, you should know that you might be expected to complete a PhD to become a permanent member of a university midwifery department).

Why do you think you were successful at interview?

I spoke about how I’ve always, even from being a student, been interested in pre-registration midwifery and how we look after students.

I'd only been qualified for about 18 months when I noticed that my trust didn't have a Student Liaison Midwife, but the neighbouring trust did. So I took it upon myself to approach the matrons and set that role up in my trust. I wasn’t thinking about my future career or anything, I just saw it needed doing. I think that helped. 

I also always helped out the Practice Development Midwifery team, I did ‘train the trainer’ courses and got involved in as much stuff at my trust as I could.

How do you stay passionate? Any advice?

I think one thing to think about is that one element of the AEQUIP supervision model is ‘restorative clinical supervision’. I don’t think students realise they can access this as well. 

It can be really helpful because it’s about giving people skills to find their own tools and solutions to challenges they face in clinical practice.

Continuous professional development is also helpful. 

(Note from Ellie: One of the other things I discussed with Carinna is that sometimes as student midwives we think once we’ve finished training that everything will be easy from then on. Actually there’s a lot more learning to do. Then we think once we’re a band 6 everything will be easy. Again, not really! Lots of learning after that as well. Then if we take a specialist midwife role, or become a lecturer, or finish a masters, we think once we’re up to speed, our career will be straightforward. Um, not really. Even if you stay on one familiar ward as a midwife for years and become extremely experienced, things will change and you have to learn. I’d say things do get easier after having a year’s worth of qualified practice under your belt, but the feeling of being unsure, having to check things, having to keep learning, that’s actually very normal and what you should be feeling as a qualified midwife. I hope that’s a reassuring thing to know. It actually helped me gain confidence as a student, everyone on the ward is learning, not just you.)