Master’s in Maternal Health and Obstetric Nursing

The study program’s generic objectives:

• The Course intends to train masters for the specialized exercise in Maternal and Obstetric Health Nursing (MOHM), so that they can:
• intervene in situations of complexity, addressing human responses to life processes, the client's health problems and the needs and specificities of groups / communities.
• act according to ethical-deontological and legal obligations promoting security, respecting human rights and professional responsibilities.
• lead teams and processes in the field of nursing and health care.
• conduct processes for the use, production and dissemination of scientific knowledge and the creation of original applications.
• promoting innovation and sustained changes in knowledge, collaboration and consultation.
• communicate with the client, in a therapeutic or other context and with the public, specialist or not.
• assume their professional development, promoting discipline and valuing the profession 

Intended learning outcomes (knowledge, skills and competences) to be developed by the students:

• It is intended that the student reaches the following learning objectives:
• Develop an advanced clinical practice of Nursing in Maternal and Obstetric Health (MOHM), integrating knowledge from different disciplines for decision-making in the provision of specialized care.
• Taking care of clients in situations of health / illness in the scope of sexual, reproductive and gynecological health.
• Adopt a scientific, human and ethical conduct that promotes care centered on the woman / couple / family.
• Collaborate in the production, use and scientific dissemination in the area of Maternal Health, Obstetric and Gynecological Nursing.
• Lead care, change and innovation management processes with a view to improving results in MOHM.
• Lead interprofessional teams.
• Develop strategies that promote self-development, of peers and other professionals, actively intervening as citizens and health professionals.
• Promote women's / couple / family empowerment and literacy processes

Insertion of the study program in the institutional educational offer strategy, in light of the mission of the institution and its educational, scientific and cultural project: 
ESEL's mission establishes that this is a “center for the creation, development, transmission and diffusion of nursing culture and science, which aims at excellence and innovation”. In this context, the training component is the center of ESEL's activity, which is why its educational project includes courses at the level of 3 study cycles: bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees (in collaboration with the University of Lisbon), thus meeting expectations the large number of candidates for pre- and post-graduate training and also the needs in human resources, in the area of health. More specifically at the level of post-graduate training, namely master's degrees, this has had, in recent years, a new increase in clients, which demonstrates the interest of nurses and the need for more professionals who demonstrate knowledge and skills of understanding and intervention at the level more specialized areas of nursing in nursing. The recent reflection on the offer of already existing master's degrees at ESEL identified the need for further deepening and scientific autonomy of the various areas of specialization for which ESEL has its own qualified and specialized teaching staff that will allow the development of these teams and their competencies and the reinforcement of research within the nursing discipline. The present master's proposal is a response to the needs for differentiated care, directly related to demographic changes, namely the average size of families, which decreased from 3.3 people per family in 1981 to 2.6 in 2011, the sharp increase in nuclear families and the increase in the average age of mothers at the birth of their first child, from 23.6 years in 1981 to 30.4 years in 2018. Also, the synthetic fertility index decreased from 2.13 in 1981 to 1.41 in 2018. All these current indicators, require that health professionals in the area of sexual and reproductive health have to find new strategies to care for current families, in their various family configurations, multiculturalism, constraints and fertility options, premature births and for consequently, to have a formative preparation in line with this and other new realities. The curriculum is built on the skills of the 1st cycle and has as its horizon the PhD program in nursing at the University of Lisbon in / partnership with ESEL. It is constituted as a stage of training in nursing that articulates the 3 study cycles being anchored in a faculty with doctorates, masters and title of specialist of recognized merit.