Alumni
Our School Has A New Newsletter
In August 2018 the UWS School of Health Nursing and Midwifery merged with one of the other UWS schools to become the School of Health and Life Sciences.
To reflect this change on the 1st of February 2019 we created a new Newsletter that we will share with our new School Colleagues who will also be posting to the new site.
If you want to continue to follow us please go to our new site at http://healthlifesciences.uws.ac.uk/
There you can subscribe to the Blog to receive updates when news is posted, or if you are on WordPress already Click the Follow us Link
Thanks to everyone who has supported, liked or commented on this site and we hope you love the new one.
It’s Not Just a Baby She Can Catch!
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce one of our student midwives who is also a rising rugby star. Sophie Anderson (top-centre above), is a BSc Midwifery student and was recently picked for the Scotland team and received her first Scotland cap in an international match in Spain recently (see picture below). We asked Sophie to summarise her journey so far:
- participated in competitive sports since I was 5
- until I was 18 main sports were football and multi-event athletics but also play badminton, tennis, hockey, bowls
- 2 years ago tried rugby to keep fit for the winter – loved it!
- being 6ft, powerful and fast made me a natural
- invited to train with West of Scotland Women
- 2017 moved to Glasgow to study Midwifery
- Joined top tier Hillhead Jordanhill Ladies Rugby Club
- started training within Scottish Women’s programme
- April 2018 badly broke a foot in a cup final at Murrayfield
- couldn’t finish placement and placed on interrupted study
- juggled working part-time as a care assistant with a gruelling 8 months of intense rehabilitation and training
- perseverance paid off when I was selected to travel to Spain with the Scottish Women’s Rugby team
- On 20th January in Madrid, I made my debut appearance and received my first cap as a Scottish Internationalist
- I’m looking forward to more opportunities to play for Scotland and also excited to complete my Midwifery placements in the Spring.
@uwsnursingsoc Now Launched!
Yesterday (Friday 11th of January 2019), was a great day for the School as that was when our new UWS Nursing Society was launched. The society has been created by UWS nurses for UWS Nurses and aims to provide peer support, inspiration and some laughs along the way to everyone who joins.
“No-one knows this journey like the student nurse standing alongside you! ”
If you are a nurse studying at UWS and you haven’t joined yet, contact uwsnursingsociety@yahoo.com
At the launch event which was held at our Lanarkshire Campus, guest speakers included Scotland’s Chief Nursing Officer, Professor Fiona McQueen and Dean of the School of Health and Life Sciences Julie Edgar launching the Society.
Dr James Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health also presented an interesting lecture on Trauma-Informed Care and its usefulness to Nurse Education.
Congratulations to everyone involved in the launch, and we are looking forward to advertising and reporting on the events and the activities that the society will be involved in, in the future! You can keep up to date with their activities at @uwsnusingsoc
If you are a midwife at UWS please note we have a well-established Midwives Society that you can contact via @uwsmidsoc if you want to join!
Our Christmas Donation to the Simon Community
The midwifery team and everyone here @uwshealth would like to pass on a huge thank you to everyone who donated to our Christmas Collection for the Simon Community. Midwifery Lecturer Sheona Brown, who took responsibility for organising this activity was totally overwhelmed with everyone’s generosity.
Sheona said:
I am aware that this is an expensive time of year for everyone but think that this drive to help the homeless seemed to really hit home with so many people. Many thanks to all 3 cohorts of student midwives who each arranged fundraising activities, with this money I was able to buy every item from The Simon Community’s Amazon Wish list! To all the kind people in Lanarkshire Campus who either donated goods or money please know that each and every single item or £1 has been put to good use. It was so lovely to see how everyone wanted to pull together to make a difference for people who have been less fortunate. It is commendable that as a School we managed to achieve so much.
Sheona and her colleagues dropped off all off all the items donated and purchased at The Simon Community’s Glasgow Road office on Friday 21st December 2018. It was a thoroughly miserable day, pouring with rain, dark, dreary and cold.
It’s hard to imagine not having a roof over your head in weather like that! Our staff received a lovely warm welcome from the staff in the office, and when they had emptied the items into a small office, by the time I left it looked like a lovely Santa’s Grotto.
Thank you to each and everyone no matter how much or how little you donated, the photos speak for themselves. The school managed to collect a full crate of items that will make life a little more comfortable and perhaps let a homeless person know that there are people out there that care.
Professor Sheila Rowan MBE on “Making Waves in Science”
@uwshealth is delighted to welcome Professor Sheila Rowan, MBE, our latest Inspiring Women speaker.
Professor Rowan is the Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland, as well as Director of the Institute for Gravitational Research within the University of Glasgow. As CSA, Sheila champions the use of science to inform policy development, working closely with the Scottish Science Advisory Council ensuring Scotland and the Scottish Government has access to the best scientific advice to inform its work across all policy areas.
A keen advocate of Scotland’s world-leading science base and its potential positive impact to the economy, people and the environment, Sheila’s recent work has been a crucial part one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the century with the detection of gravitational waves announced in February 2016.
We look forward to welcoming Professor Rowan to UWS’s penultimate Inspiring Women event of the year.
She will speaking on Wednesday 13 February 2019 between 12:00 – 13:00 GMT in Room – P118 (In the Coats Building) at our Paisley Campus.
For more details and to Register to attend please click the link below
Wishing you a Happy 2019!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year From Everyone @uwshealth
Another great year for our school comes to an end. We hope you have a great holiday and see you in 2019!
Feliz Natal! 圣诞节快乐! Veselé Vánoce! メリークリスマス！Joyeux Noël! क्रिसमस की बधाई! Feliz Navidad! חג מולד שמח! Vrolijk kerstfeest!
Our campuses are now closed for the festive break – we’ll be back for the start of the new Term on Thursday 3rd January (Wednesday 2nd January if you are based at London Campus).
@uwslanarkshire Extends a Warm Welcome to Professor Dube
We were recently visited by Professor Pamela Dube the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Development and Support at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa. Professor Dube was particularly interested in seeing the new Campus facilities at Lanarkshire Campus and how we use simulation in our teaching and learning as UWC have also recently invested in simulation as a teaching method.
While here Professor Dube met with Dr Chris Easton who showcased the UWS extreme environments laboratory in which we are able to regulate the ambient temperature up to 45C and recreates the atmosphere at 5850 m above sea level. She also met with Mia Burleigh (a third year PhD student) and her supervisor Rachel Taylor from Sport and Exercise Science who discussed their ongoing research examining the effects of dietary manipulation on the physiological responses to exercise in warm climates.
She also met with Lyz Howie, Connor Murray & Evelyn Mohammed who showcase the Midwifery simulation laboratory and demonstrate a simulated birth scenario using the SimMom simulator. Adult Nurse Lecturer Jack Simpson also provided our guests with a tour of the simulation suite and introduction to SimMan.
Simulation-Based Learning sessions are delivered frequently to our pre-registration nursing and midwifery students in preparation for practice and provide students with a safer more engaging and enjoyable approach to developing their skills base.
We are hoping to develop a partnership with UWC to share experiences of utilising simulation into the future.
@uwshealth Ayr Campus Donate to @unitygrill
The Nursing Lecturers based at our Ayr Campus decided not to give cards to one another this year but instead wrote each other a message (see the picture of the poster below) and donated money to a local charity.
They collected £100 which was given to Unity Grill in Newmarket Street in Ayr, who are providing Christmas meals for the homeless and anyone lonely on Christmas day.
Nurse Lecturer Jane Cook’s daughters Brodie and Ava designed the poster.
Thanks to All Our Generous Elves from @TrussellTrust
For at least the last 3 years, the School’s staff at Paisley and Lanarkshire, have carried out a Christmas Collection for the foodbanks local to both of the campuses
Our staff wanted to give something back to people living in the areas local to the Campuses, who were experiencing financial hardship. So they try and collect prior to each block of school holidays, as The Trussell Trust inform us that these periods can be challenging for families particularly.
This year our staff has been very generous. See the pictures below:
The aim of both foodbanks is to provide an emergency supply of at least three days worth of meals to individuals and families who find themselves struggling to put food on the table in times of economic crisis.
During 2017/18; 5,169 three day emergency food supplies were provided to local people in crisis by Hamilton District Foodbank alone. Of this number 1,809 went to children.
A big thanks you to all the Elves that donated and the Trussel Trust have also thanked us for your thoughtfulness and generosity.
UWS Health, Nursing & Midwifery 