United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Now this is something I am glad to see!

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is offering a postgraduate course in November 2006 via webcast. The title is
"Shoulder Dystocia and Brachial Plexus Injuries: Can They be Predicted and Prevented?"

Was anyone else aware of this? It seems like a very long-overdue course to me! Here is the link, if anyone's interested in checking it out!

http://www.acog.org/postgrad/pgpage.cfm?recno=379

Janet

The program director for that course has an entire website dedicated to shoulder dystocia:

http://www.shoulderdystociainfo.com/

I think we know what this course may entail, with specific emphasis on covering themselves with "documentation" which we all are familiar with. I wish it would truly be about prevention , but I think it is about prevention of lawsuits rather than prevention of the injury. Sadly, but just my opinion.

Thanks for pointing out the course though.
-rich


Excerpts:

Can shoulder dystocia be anticipated accurately?

There are some physicians who have claimed that the answer to this question is "Yes"......
However, this is overwhelmingly a minority opinion. The vast majority of obstetricians, including those who have done the most work on shoulder dystocia and brachial plexus injuries, have concluded that it is impossible with any degree of certainty to predict in which deliveries shoulder dystocia will occur.

The bottom line is this: Nowhere in the literature are there studies that show that the sensitivity or positive predictive value for predicting shoulder dystocia are high enough to justify obstetrical interventions in hopes of avoiding it.




Can shoulder dystocia and brachial plexus injury be prevented?

A review of the literature indicates that the answer to this question is, "No."

Documentation

Careful documentation of instances of shoulder dystocia and their resolution is extremely important for two reasons:


1) Obstetricians want to learn as much as possible from instances of shoulder dystocia in order to develop the best techniques for dealing with them.

2) Shoulder dystocia is so often the initiating cause of medical-legal actions.


Acker (1991) described what careful documentation of a shoulder dystocia delivery should include:


1) Exact times of events.

2) Description of the maneuvers used.

3) Estimation of the traction forces exerted.

Rich,

I had the exact same thoughts you did about the motivation for the course! I guess we shouldn't be so cynical, but it's hard not to be after what a lot of us have seen from the other side.

I'd be so interested in hearing what they have to say. It looks like non-members are allowed to take the course. If I do, I will definitely report back.

Thanks, too, for the link to the shoulder dystocia site.

Janet

Dr. Lerner (the owner of that site) is a Harvard doctor who works as a head honcho of a med malpractice insurance company or organization pertaining to that. This is his site - if he is the one doing this class, then it is certainly oriented toward reducing malpractice awards. I just recently read a large article about him or by him - I just have to recall where and I will post it.

How disappointing.

...and why a POSTGRAD course on preventing bpi? Why not teach it during a normal medical degree? BPI may affect 3 in 1000 births, SD affects many, many more than that and bpi is actually one of the milder side effects of a mismanaged SD birth, death can and does happen. This should be standard practise, not a course add on to prevent yourself being sued. I wonder also if they intend to start educating parents on the risks of the invasive and dangerous procedures they carry out routinely, such as epidural, back lying labor etc, which I think contribute to most SD situations far more than maternal size and shape or baby size-those are the ones most often talked about to try and make parents think it's all their fault and in some way unforseeable.
Don't start me....

Angry Mom,
I am with you.....why does it have to be a graduate course, this should be something that is taught and tested on before they start to deliver babies, without supervision.....give me a break !!! Gayle....I know a few doctors personally that could use this course.

All I have to say is junk science!!!!!!!!!!