Stipendberetning Elin Ngo

Research stay aboard – MotherSafe, the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney, Australia

Report by: Elin Ngo

Thanks to NFS, I had the pleasure to spend three months at MotherSafe, the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney, Australia, from July to October 2019, with my fellow PhD student, Maria Bich-Thuy Truong. The money I received from NFS contributed to cost of flight, accommodation, and other expenses, as vaccines and visa.

MotherSafe is a clinic providing counseling to women and health care personnel regarding medication use during pregnancy and breastfeeding. This clinic consists of a group of 10 part-time counselors, with a pharmacist or genetics background. The group of counselors had expertise from two decades regarding medication counseling, and their expertise were really valuable for me. MotherSafe are providing counseling both face-to-face and over the phone. I had the opportunity to join the counseling with the women every week. It was also a wonderful experience to get to join another work group, with new environment, and work experiences. These counseling hours gave me new experience, knowledge, and techniques in counseling, which would be really worthy in my work with pharmacist counseling in early pregnancy in Norway.

This short-term stay was really useful, inspiring, and builds on possible future collaborations. I got the chance to meet professors and research groups at the University of Sydney, with an expertise in Pharmacy practice and Medication management. These meetings gave me new insights in research, and an update on other exciting ongoing project in Sydney, Australia. In addition to private tours around the beautiful campus.

I would like to thank the NFS for the financial support. This gave me the opportunity to get new experiences that the health care in Norway can benefit from, my academic career and for my personal growth, as a PhD-student. The three months at the MotherSafe clinic was a very rewarding and beneficial experience. It also strengthen the collaboration between the research group PharmaSafe, University of Oslo and MotherSafe, Sydney, Australia.