Can you all please stand for the Coroner
I created the resource as part of the module content which looks at the legal
aspects of midwifery and normally speaking when you teach the law to a
group of student midwives it becomes quite a dry subject shall we say
where the students struggle to engage with the content so I wanted to create a
resource where the students would actually have to engage with the content
and which made the law more realistic
Good afternoon, please be seated
we are met here today to discuss the serious case of the death of Annie Ball.
As you are already aware within a Coroner's Court we do not seek to apportion blame we seek to establish
the facts of the case you will be asked to consider the details of this case
and you'll be asked to reach a conclusion which then you'll be asked to share with the coroner
Mrs. Watkins, thank you for appearing infront of us today
this patient died of a major obstetric hemorrhage
following a placental abruption the underlying cause of which is currently undetermined
I went back into the room about 11:35 p.m. and I found Annie had collapsed and then I shouted for help
Even though she was obviously contracting
there was nothing to suggest that I needed to do to do anything more with her at that point
Shortly before 23:30 I reviewed one of
the other women who was undergoing induction of labour and it was after
that around 23:35 that I was called to attend the emergency in Annie's room we
found her collapsed and we immediately had to transfer her to theatre
We created the coroner's court resource on the basis of having attended a
conference where some of the delegates were talking about the importance of
creating resources where students became engaged in in legal activities so my
colleague and I sat down together and thought about a case and tried to think
of some details around the case and and then it developed from there really make
once we looked at the case we decided that we would put that within the
context of a legal scenario and from that point we
decided that we would have actors and worked with the HELM team to
script the whole resource
What i'd like you now to do is to consider your conclusions
you have approximately 20 minutes to do that
please feel free to talk amongst each other
Even in that half an hour you could have popped out
I changed my mind a few times my initial thought was natural causes and then I
changed my mind to bad care and then I changed my mind back again to natural causes
If he'd have come out and said "my wife's gone pale and unresponsive. she doesn't look right..."
I thought it was natural causes and stayed quite strong to my decision, as a group it
was quite difficult because we had a couple of people that thought otherwise
but then if we'd have all thought the same thing initially it wouldn't have been as
fun and as productive I was one of the people that I didn't reach a verdict
overall and like I said I think that's because I was being very critical of
"why didn't this happen and why did that happen and why was she on this and like why didn't
people why didn't people help" but overall I can see why the verdict was reached
The majority have decided that it was due to natural causes
I would like to instruct the court clark to record a verdict by jury of natural causes in the case of the death of Annie Ball
thank you very much for your attention to the details of this distressing case
i'm sure you will agree
and you have reached a well considered conclusion
Thank you very much
Can you stand please
members of the audience, you may now be discharged from this court
I was really really encouraged to see how the students engaged in the debate and also
were able to come to a clear decision and to give a rationale for that decision