Past and present: New Life
1908
Future gynaecologists are taught in this operating theatre, which is also a lecture theatre. It’s 1908, the year in which the national clinics (Rijksklinieken; also called) opened on the Justus van Effenstraat in Utrecht. Today, in 2024, ‘Obstetrics and Gynaecology’ is a specialism that attracts more women than men. But there are no women at all in this lecture theatre back in 1908. The men, in black suits or white doctor’s coats, are clustered around the table, which was still empty at that point. The editors were unable to find out what happened in the rest of the lesson after the photo was taken. The national clinics were later merged to become Academic Hospital Utrecht (AZU)
2024
Education today is smaller in scale and teaching techniques have changed a lot. On the photo, Tessa Goes-Roelofs (2014 Master’s in Neuroscience and Cognition) and Lotte van Wijk (ANIOS and Clinical Education Coordinator in Gynaecology & Obstetrics) are helping high-tech birthing simulation doll ‘Noëlle’ with her delivery. Tessa, UU alumna, is an Education and Training Policy Officer for the Division of Perinatology and Gynaecology at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital. She explains: Noelle is the beating heart of our MOET (Managing Obstetric Emergencies and Trauma) courses and can emulate anything. From a normal birth to a very complex one. Gynaecologists are able to use an app to remotely simulate realistic scenarios, like a sudden drop in heart rate or hypertension. Medicine students are presented with real-life situations and learn how to intervene at critical times. In the past, students used to practise on dolls and with ‘birthing volunteers’ (volunteers who were given a fake pregnant belly and a particular scenario). Both worked but had their limitations. For example, when measuring dilation or practising a breech birth. Noëlle makes it possible for students to learn almost everything they will ever encounter in the clinic.
