Travel story: Lauren Hinter

Lauren Hinter from the Robinson Research Institute travelled to Hobart in October to attend the SOMANZ Conference.

This is what Lauren had to say about their experience:

What was a highlight of the travel?

Meeting other obstetric researchers across Australia and enjoying the food and wine in Hobart. We were lucky enough to have some free time each night, which gave us an opportunity to explore Hobart.

Please provide details on any researchers or collaborators of significance that you met at the conference and why they are important to your work?

I was able to meet and discuss with multiple obstetric professionals at the conference their individual body of work. Although not all entirely related to my project, it was interesting to learn about all angles of pregnancy and maternal health and how most projects taught me something I didn’t already know. It was also interesting to meet doctors from the LMH, that I may have not ever met in a different situation. More specifically, Hannah Christie, a PhD Candidate from the University of Wollongong presented her poster on her online wellbeing a lifestyle pilot program for postpartum mothers in the first year of life. Learning about her project we could take points from our similar body of work and take that information home to our colleges to potentially improve the way operate in the COFFEE clinic. 

How will the experience support you and your research going forward?

Personally, I learnt a lot about the more in-depth medical reasoning behind pregnancy complications, and what medical professionals do when things do go wrong during birth. This allowed me to think about all the data we collected in COFFEE clinic regarding women who have had pregnancy complications and made me really understand the importance of intervention and research into potential effects on postpartum health.

What was the most exciting thing you learned/experienced as part of your travel?

My favourite presentation was from Claire McClintock. Claire is an obstetric physician and haematologist at National Women’s Health, Auckland City Hospital. She has a special interest in haematological problems in pregnancy, as well as preeclampsia, maternal morbidity and mortality, obstetric haemorrhage and management of anticoagulation in pregnant women with mechanical heart valves. Her presentations were both enticing and informative and I thoroughly enjoyed learning from her. Her passion in her field was also inspiring and something I will always remember throughout my career.

What was the most interesting or unexpected moment of your travel?

There was a great recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s and Maori people’s health perspectives and a good discussion throughout the conference on how to analyse and interpret indigenous data and how as scientist and clinicians we can work to make their pregnancy a better experience for them. I also took away several links to websites and books that I will now use to further increase my knowledge on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s maternal health as I did realise I was quite unknowledgeable in this area.