Founder and firm updates
This week took Dr Rosemary Listing off the usual path and out across regional Queensland, delivering informed-consent training to the midwives and maternity teams who care for women through pregnancy and birth.
It is not the week most people would picture for a medical negligence lawyer. Rather than a courtroom or a conference stage, the week was spent in hospital education rooms across regional Queensland, delivering the Maternity Consumer Network Better Births with Consent training alongside the Network’s facilitators. The program brings a lawyer into the room with clinicians to work through one of the most important, and most misunderstood, parts of maternity care, which is consent.
- Gladstone
- Hervey Bay
- Roma
- Rockhampton
Inside the sessions
Each session brought a lawyer into the room alongside midwives and maternity nurses to work through the questions that come up on the ward every day. What does valid informed consent really require? How much information is enough? What happens when a woman declines the care that is being recommended, and how does a clinician support her decision without pressure? And how does all of this hold up when it is written down, months or years later?
The training also set this in its legal context, looking at the three areas where maternity care most often gives rise to a claim: medical negligence, the failure to warn of a material risk, and the failure to obtain adequate consent.
The rooms were full, the questions were sharp, and the clinical scenarios the teams brought were real. Regional and remote maternity teams carry a great deal, often with fewer resources close at hand, and the appetite in every session to get consent right, for the sake of the women in their care, was striking.
Why it is worth the trip
Most of the harm that ends up in a medical negligence claim is avoidable, and a great deal of it traces back to consent and communication. Sitting with clinicians and working through that before anything goes wrong is prevention at its source. It helps women feel heard and respected in their own care, and it helps clinicians practise with confidence and protect themselves at the same time.
Teaching, advocacy, and practice are meant to sit apart. Weeks like this one are a reminder of how much they belong together, and of why the work is worth the early flights and the long drives between towns.
This article is general information only. It is not legal, medical, or financial advice, and nothing here creates a lawyer and client relationship.
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