INAUGURAL LECTURE: Professor Louise Kenny

Renowned obstetrician, Liverpool alumna and Executive Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Professor Louise Kenny will deliver her Inaugural Lecture ‘Passing the Mother Test’ at the University’s Lecture Theatre Hub on Tuesday, 20 November.

Obstetrics is a young speciality. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was founded in 1926 – by comparison, the Royal College of Physicians founded in 1518 – by William Blair Bell, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Liverpool.

In the 92 years since the College was founded, significant improvements in healthcare have seen morbidity and mortality for both mother and fetus in pregnancy fall globally. And yet, we still do not have a complete understanding of the three commonest complications of late pregnancy: pre-eclampsia, fetal growth restriction and pre-term birth. We have no effective screening tests and no evidence-based preventive strategies or cures.

This is a public health emergency on a global scale. Developmental programming now indicates that a significant proportion of the burden of non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension and heart disease, have their origin in in utero life.

In this inaugural lecture, Louise will review the numerous reasons which famously led to Archie Cochrane awarding obstetrics the ‘wooden spoon’. She will outline recent progress and current and future challenges that need to be addressed so that the pregnant woman and her unborn fetus are no longer 21st century drug orphans and for obstetrics to shed its image as a Cinderella specialty.

Tickets for this event are free, but places are extremely limited. Please book via: https://alumni.liv.ac.uk/2018-professor-louise-kenny-inaugural-lecture