Oral history interviews are some of our favorite items to share from the Medical Center Archives’ collections. This month we are featuring an interview with Kim Quang Đâu, RN, MS, CNM. Josephine McRobbie interviewed her on October 19, 2022 as part of the Duke Midwifery Service and Durham Maternal Health Oral History Project.
Kim Đâu went to Duke University for undergrad and received her BS in Biology in 2001. She met Duke Midwifery Service's Amy MacDonald when she invited her to speak about midwifery to her student-taught House Course. Đâu then shadowed MacDonald during her undergraduate education, learning firsthand about midwifery. In 2007 Dau was recruited back to Duke Midwifery Service as a Staff Midwife and the Coordinator for the Centering Pregnancy program facilitated in collaboration with Durham County Department of Public Health in locations including Lincoln Community Health Center and El Centro Hispano. She remained in these roles until 2010. After leaving Duke, she moved to San Francisco where she was Director of UCSF's Nurse-Midwifery/WHNP Program for 10 years.
During the interview, Đâu talks about her introduction to midwifery as a profession by Amy MacDonald, and discusses how she applied the Centering pregnancy model and innovations by her own mentors to El Centro Hispano in Durham. When reflecting about what she learned, she shares:
“I think what I would describe as what I was learning was learning how powerful the role of healthcare provider is. It’s just – these visits, especially the group visit, there’s such a point of exchange, right? Healthcare is an exchange and partnership. Exchange and partnership. And I think the power of that – to now be in a role that held such great responsibility – was quite humbling. … I got to experience more directly what it was like to have the health care provider conceptualized as a community member. As someone who, I don’t know, became a part of something, right? It was a joining. It’s a very different feeling than when I work in a clinic and see people one-to-one. In that space, there’s less opportunity to get to know people personally. When you sit in a group, even though it’s a group space, you gain a lot more learning about people’s personalities and how they are. You develop a relationship where there’s trust. In the one-to-one visits, it’s also an exchange, but it feels much more transactional and not relational.”
To read the full interview transcript, visit MedSpace. You can also find her profile on the Joining a Community of Care: Duke Midwifery Service digital exhibit. To learn more about other oral histories, please contact the Archives.