Miss Stephanie Michaelides

Biography

After qualifying as a nurse and then as a midwife I worked in all areas of midwifery which included the management of community midwifery services.  I have also worked in several prestigious, and very busy, neonatal units. My passion for the care of babies, led to undertaking the Neonatal Intensive Care course, and later the Advanced Midwifery Diploma.  At heart I remain a midwife, with a philosophy that the mother and baby dyad must be acknowledged and treated as such.

Teaching

My commitment to midwives having a better and richer understanding of the needs and care of the newborn led to teaching, and indeed into developing a range of innovative courses.   These include the Neuro-behavioural Physiological Assessment of the Neonate (ENB N96), Systematic Holistic Assessment of the Newborn MWY MWY3130/4130 ( due to commence 2024 onwards)   Resuscitation of the newborn MWY 3451/ 4451 (1995 – 2019) taught to student midwives, qualified midwives, neonatal nurses, and paediatricians and obstetricians; High Risk Care in the Midwifery/Nursing Environment Module (MWY2021/3021; and the role of the nursery nurse in post-natal care of the newborn MWY2520.  The design and implementation of the Neuro-behavioural Physiological Assessment of the Neonate (ENB N96), the forerunner of the Examination of the Newborn, an innovative course to prepare midwives to undertake the examination of the newborn usually undertaken by doctors, was led by me and was first introduced at the North London College and then the Middlesex University. This programme, the first such in the UK, was a major achievement, and has been used as the template for many programmes which have since been developed.  This module has now been withdrawn and has been replaced by the new.  Systematic Holistic Assessment of the Newborn (SHEN) in line with today’s needs of the maternity services.

I believe that teaching must include theory applied to practice, and one of my strengths is continued maintenance of clinical practice and expertise.

The use of technology and simulation is an important part of students’ entry into practical experience and I am alert to learning and development possibilities, always with the baby and mother at the centre of care.