UBC Midwifery’s Global Health Pillar is currently undergoing reformatting as part of an exciting redevelopment process. Stay tuned for updates and new opportunities.
History
The Midwifery Program’s Global Health initiative stream, an international clinical placement option, operated from 2005 to 2024, offering practicums in Zambia, Uganda, and Nepal. Led by Cathy Ellis, Associate Professor of Teaching Emerita, the program fostered clinical care and research collaborations with practitioners in both countries, providing students and faculty opportunities to exchange knowledge and share UBC’s midwifery practices with the global midwifery community.
Since 2007, UBC’s Global Placement Program has partnered with healthcare workers in Nepal, supporting urban and rural services to promote reciprocal learning and improve maternal and infant health outcomes. UBC representatives first travelled to Nepal in 2007, with the first student cohort participating in 2010. That same year, the Midwifery Society of Nepal (MIDSON) was established, and the Global Placement Program has continued working under its umbrella, strengthening midwifery education and practice in the region.
[Front row L-R] Elizabeth Morrison, Tanya Lindstrom, Quinn Metcalfe, Clare Mildenberger
The main goals for students participating in the global midwifery placement option are:
- To learn about health-care systems in developing countries
- To work in settings where there are few resources
- To work alongside midwives and physicians in low-resource settings
Students attended normal births and experienced the ways health-care workers address births in low-resource settings. These skills are especially relevant to student midwives as they prepare to respond to the critical shortage of skilled maternity providers in rural and remote areas of British Columbia.
Global Citizenship
We aim to educate and prepare graduates to become exceptional global citizens, promote the values of a civil and sustainable society, and conduct outstanding research.
HIGHLIGHTS
- 2008: In the summer, we invited Prossy Musoke to UBC to train in neo-natal resuscitation and share her experiences as a midwife in Uganda.
- 2011: We sponsored two Ugandan midwives to present at the 2011 International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Conference in Durban, South Africa. This endeavour was funded by the Midwives Association of British Columbia and the University of British Columbia Midwifery Program.
- 2019: Our team of two midwifery students, Stacey Wagonner and Charlotte Grant, were placed in Hoima Regional Referral Hospital with Cathy Ellis, RM and Dr. Mickey Rostoker. Students gave presentations on Active Management of the Third Stage of Labour and Birthing Positions, and Mickey and Cathy presented Postpartum Hemorrhage and Delayed Cord Clamping.
In Memoriam: Prossy Musoke
Prossy Cossy Musoke was a well-loved Ugandan midwife. She was our mentor, co-instructor, and friend—in essence, the mainstay of the global placement in Uganda.
We had the good fortune and privilege of working alongside her from 2006 to 2019, learning from her every summer we went to Uganda.
In 2008, Prossy was chosen to come to UBC Vancouver to learn neonatal resuscitation. Her hospital had no NICU, but upon returning home, Prossy used and shared her new knowledge with others in her hospital, and was instrumental in establishing a NICU.
She made a huge difference in the lives of our preceptors and students, as well as other midwives, nurses and doctors throughout Uganda.
Many people from UBC Midwifery supported her during her 2021 COVID illness. She had long COVID but continued to teach.
While teaching midwives near the Congo border, she became ill and died two weeks later (Dec 3, 2024). We will miss her smile, knowledge and her laugh.