We are UHB: Pallavi Karkhanis, Consultant Obstetrician and Fetal Medicine Specialist

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust runs Good Hope, Heartlands, Queen Elizabeth and Solihull hospitals, and Solihull community services.

My love for medicine stems from watching my parents, both brilliant and hardworking doctors, working in India, back in the 1980s. As a little girl, I would follow my dad, a GP, on home visits and accompany my mum, an obstetrician, to her clinic. Little did I know that my training as a doctor had already begun!

Obstetricians, in those days, had several roles to play and was a complete package – right from treating fertility issues to delivering babies safely, helping new mothers establish breastfeeding and even caring for preterm babies. The work my parents did was truly incredible and inspirational. My mother will always remain my hero, as she instilled the values of kindness and compassion on me, something I always remember whilst caring for my patients.

After completing my postgraduate degree in obstetrics and gynaecology, I moved to the UK to join my husband. I started my specialty training in the North East, and moved to Birmingham for the last two years of my training. My twins were born whilst working as a senior trainee here, and for this reason, Heartlands Hospital will always hold a special place in my heart. Soon after completing my training, I started my consultant post here too.

I have been a Consultant Obstetrician, specialising in fetal medicine, at UHB since 2015. I have been the Clinical Lead for Fetal Medicine since 2018, a role that I have enjoyed and developed with passion and dedication, and one that led to the development of our new Fetal Medicine Unit in 2021. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fetal Medicine Unit has delivered high quality and prompt services to our high risk patients, with excellent results. There are various services that have been developed under the umbrella of Fetal Medicine, such as the multiple pregnancy (such as twins or triplets) service, the placenta accreta (an abnormally invasive placenta) service, and now the Rainbow Service.

In August 2021, inspired by the Rainbow Clinic at St Mary’s in Manchester, our team set up the Rainbow Placenta Clinic at UHB. The team involved was made up of multiple disciplines, including a group of consultants, the service’s matron and the bereavement midwives. This clinic is a specialist service for women and their families, to support them in the first pregnancy following a stillbirth or neonatal death. It is run jointly by specialist consultants, specialist midwives and specialist midwife sonographers in the Fetal Medicine Unit at Heartlands Hospital.

Becoming pregnant after a stillbirth is an incredibly daunting prospect. Around half of all stillbirths are unexplained, leaving parents feeling powerless in their following pregnancy to stop it from happening again. Setting up the clinic was challenging, but extremely rewarding. The women and their families have been through some life-changing events, and as a clinician, you are asking them to trust you and trust in antenatal care, which may have previously let them down. Some days, the pressure of the role seems overwhelming, but the support of fantastic consultant and midwifery colleagues is tremendous and the outcomes are incredibly gratifying.

I believe, humbly, that having chosen the specialty of obstetrics in general, and then diagnostic ultrasound and maternal fetal medicine in particular, is the best choice I’ve made in my professional life. This area of medicine is growing rapidly, with many advances in genetics, molecular biology and imaging, bringing a lot of excitement about what the future holds.

As we celebrate the first anniversary of the Rainbow Service at UHB, I look back on how far I’ve come in my journey. Reflecting on the highs and lows, I remind myself that it’s the ‘doing’ that’s more important than the outcome.

Join the kind and compassionate team supporting women and their families at every stage in their pregnancy: