Workshops for Health Care Providers and Students

Nurses, physicians, nursing and medical students are welcome in all workshops, but this one is designed with your career needs in mind. Nurses and doctors who have a repertoire of labor support skills have much more to offer their patients! While doctors and nurses are trained to focus on the processes of birth, doulas are trained to focus on the person birthing.  The most effective practitioners embrace both perspectives, which is challenging to do in the real world.  If you are going to be working alongside doulas, administering a program, or promoting doula support as a solution to racial inequities in your area, this training is designed to give you the tools you need to be successful.

Now ONLINE! Twice a year in January and August, on the weekend before most colleges start. Upcoming Workshops

We are the first to offer a Health Care Provider Birth Doula Certification Program, administered by Dr. Gilliland.

Many nursing students want experience in labor and delivery before completing school. Doula work can help to meet that need. Others are uncertain whether obstetrics or midwifery are the right choice. The workshop can provide concrete answers to those questions. The curriculum has been adapted to present both what a doula might do and what a nurse or physician might do in certain situations. Advanced positioning strategies have been added to the curriculum.

Nurses and physicians will attend more births than a doula ever can – they have the possibility of influencing the lives of thousands of families and babies. This training will teach you the skills of caring for others that are left out of most health care curriculums, but are vital to providing emotional support for all patients. I am excited and proud to help you become the care provider that you hope to be.

The Health Care Provider training includes 18 continuing education hours (CEs) for nurses.  Dr. Gilliland is licensed by the California Board of Nursing as a continuing education provider, #16959. This includes the beginning birth doula training (14 hours); advanced training in positioning to solve specific problems (1.5 hours), and training in recognizing and treating the previously traumatized patient (1.5 hours).  People with previous trauma often present with lengthy birth plans, a high need for control, and emotional lability. They may interact with distrust or a sense of fatalism. However, these responses can often be avoided if they are recognized early and treated with an appropriate protocol – which makes interaction much easier for the patient, nurse, and careprovider.

Testimonials

Below are comments from past participants. These comments were written spontaneously on my evaluation forms. Numerically, the workshop participants rated the workshop an average of 98.5 out of 100 – an A by any standards!

            “As an OB/GYN, I hope to utilize what I learned in your course (and book) to educate, support, and empower women through, perhaps, the most important and self-determining event in their lives.  Thank you! Thank you!  A million times over, thank you!

–   Obstetrician, attending a recent training for Health Care Professionals

“I think of you almost daily. I took two of your classes for Doula training. I recommend you all the time. I still use many of the things you have taught now though as a family nurse practitioner and nurse midwife. You definitely formed who I am today.”

 – Certified Nurse Midwife and Nurse Practitioner

“It’s such a bonus when my students take the training!  They become amazing students in clinical as a result…It’s such a struggle to keep this a reality in our hyper-medicalized-surgicalized health care world. Thanks for doing what you do!”

-Nursing College Faculty Clinical Instructor

“As a nurse with twenty years experience, I thought I knew it all. But this training inspired and revitalized me even more than learning new skills. I understand the “why” behind so many things now and can work with people more effectively. Thank you!

-BSN, RN

“Without this workshop I doubt I would have become the doctor I always wanted to be for my patients. I wish everyone had the opportunity to take this training and learn vital patient care and self care skills!

-Family Practice Physician

“This workshop was very beneficial for nursing students and nurses. You were awesome and really engaging.”

-Edgewood College Nursing Student

I wish I would have taken this before I had my clinical rotation!