In the PESSARIES: Advanced Pessary Fitting Course the focus will be on learning how to fit and manage a wide range of other pessary types available on the market in New Zealand and Australia. This will be a practical, hands on course, involving peer-to-peer learning, as well as using silicone models to practice fitting the wide range of pessaries available on the course.

You must be a registered health professional in good standing in New Zealand or Australia, or your home country. Registration must be with the appropriate health professional board such as Physiotherapy Board of NZ, AHPRA boards, Osteopathic Council of NZ, The Nursing Council of NZ, Medical Council of NZ, etc.

As this is a practical course which involves internal examinations, participants usually must be willing and able to have vaginal examinations performed on them by fellow attendees. By using peer-to-peer learning, participants gain vital learning on how it feels to be a patient, as well as a health professional, ensuring you gain well rounded experiential learning. This course allows people of all genders an opportunity to learn from each other and gain vital, practical clinical skills.

However, we are aware that peer-to-peer learning in some health professions is not the 'norm'. We will accommodate this and will have advanced silicone vaginal models that realistically simulates conditions such as LAM avulsion, POP stages, visualization of the cervix, etc and enable pessary fitting.

There are limited places allocated on the course for participants who have valid reasons for not being a patient model on the course but want to practice on other course participants with their consent. Valid reasons not to be a patient model include: First trimester pregnancy, high risk pregnancy, active vaginal infection, and no anatomical vagina.

If you are unable to or unwilling to be a patient model on the course for your peers, or you wish just to use the silicone model for practicals, please contact Melissa at [email protected] prior to registration for the course. This will enable Melissa to balance out the needs of all participants in advance of the course starting.

Your request will be treated confidentially and if granted, at the course no details will be given to other participants as to why you are not being a model for peer-to-peer learning.

There will be practical assessments during the course testing clinical assessment skills learned on the weekend to ensure at the end of the course you are competent. These are completed throughout the weekend and done in a relaxed, comfortable fashion. You will need to pass these assessments to complete the course.

A post-course test and evaluation will need to be completed immediately after the course.