RuralMedEd would like to acknowledge and congratulate Caitlin Rutherford-Heard for her eposter presentation at the RANZCOG Regional Symposium. Caitlin presented the results of a clinical audit undertaken in 2022 by herself and fellow students Angela Tran, Melanie Hobi, Joanne Petty, and Esther Cho, with the support of Dr William MacAskill and Dr Brendan Carrigan. Their audit “Adherence to the State-Wide Induction of Labour Guidelines Across Five Rural Hospitals: A Clinical Audit” compared the indications, management, and outcomes of induction of labour in five rural QLD hospitals to Clinical Guidelines and found that adherence to best practice is lower in rural hospitals. Additionally, one site was observed to have substantially higher use of dinoprostone gel than other sites, which was not in line with current literature recommendations. Consequently, appropriate training and implementation of balloon catheter usage at this site has been implemented to optimise women-centred obstetric care.
Congratulations to Caitlin and all the other contributing authors – we look forward to seeing more positive impacts from your research on Darling Downs health care standards and practices in the future!
