“It was def­i­nite­ly a good night to be a nurse.” Reg­is­tered Nurse Greg Clark is talk­ing about help­ing at the birth of a baby ​“lit­er­al­ly as mum came through the emer­gency door of the hospital.” 

That dra­mat­ic event, com­ing only days after Greg had under­tak­en the CRANAplus Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Course, has changed his career path. 

“The course and the emer­gency birth have com­plete­ly changed my tra­jec­to­ry,” says Greg. 

“When mum and new­born baby, still attached, arrived I imme­di­ate­ly thought of the 4Ts we had been taught in the course and I went into action. 

“The first T is Tone – and I start­ed to rub mum’s bel­ly to help the uterus to con­tract and to stop the bleed­ing. Then it was on to check for Trau­ma, such as tears that may need stitch­ing. Tis­sue was next and I checked that the pla­cen­ta was still intact. 

“Hav­ing just com­plet­ed the Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Care course was absolute­ly per­fect. It couldn’t be any bet­ter. At the end of the course, Michelle told us we would now sud­den­ly be deal­ing with lots of babies and chil­dren. In my case, that was immediate!” 

Here is the email Greg sent to the MEC team: 

Just thought I would drop you a line let­ting you know that all the knowl­edge that you and your won­der­ful staff empow­ered me with on the week­end came in very handy at 20.10 pm tonight. Safe­ty brought a 2.3kg baby boy into the world after cat 1 emer­gency. Super pumped about that! A good night to be a nurse. With­out your course and the awe­some edu­ca­tion I would not have been any use to this new fam­i­ly. So once again I sin­cere­ly thank you and the team at Lennox Heads.

Greg, cur­rent­ly work­ing at the Gold Coast Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal in South­port, is plan­ning to work rur­al and remote when he and his GP wife Sarah set off in their Win­neba­go on long ser­vice leave in July. 

“Decid­ing to go remote, I knew I had to lift my game in the area of preg­nant women and babies,” he said. ​“In 12 years of nurs­ing, it was some­thing I had avoided. 

“I have to say that doing the course opened my eyes, and help­ing to bring some­one into the world got me thinking.” 

And so, in Feb­ru­ary next year, Greg begins his mid­wifery training.