Name
Di Barlow
Job Title
Paediatric Cardiac Nurse Specialist
Interests / expertise / research in CHD
Inherited cardiac disease, Arrhythmia, Pacemakers/Implantable cardioverter defibrillators' Fetal cardiology and Genomic medicine.
Current role and experience
In 2010 Di was appointed into her current role as Cardiac Nurse Specialist, (CNS). She works in a dynamic team of expert cardiac practitioners. In this role Di is engaged throughout the patient pathway from antenatal care to transition to adult services. The role involves meeting families at various times in their journey, from :
• the antenatal journey - supporting families with a diagnosis in decision making and preparatory work in readiness for delivery.
• during inpatient stay for medical, interventional or surgical treatment – to support and assess needs of patients and families during their admission, to aid discharge planning, to educate patients and families and attendance at multi-professional meetings to ensure effective communication.
• during outpatient visits at Bristol ( cardiology clinics, pre-admission clinic and surgical clinic), – assessment of patient and families, education and information provision, support,
• to link with their local community - to support nursery and school, education, effective communication to local teams, resource for local teams.
• during transition to adult services – to prepare patient and parents for transfer to adult services prior to transfer.
Di currently leads for two specific patient groups within the CNS team at BRCH, inherited and fetal.
Di is lead CNS for fetal cardiology. Recently she helped organise the first meeting of the UK Fetal Cardiac Nurses, with a plan to continue to network this group with the support of the UK Congenital Cardiac Nurses Association.
In the inherited service, Di works closely with Dr Stuart and Dr Walsh. For this group of patients, there can be complex issues, such as, chronic illness management, genetic counselling, pre-assessment for electrophysiology study with radio frequency /cryo ablation and device implantation.
At the beginning of 2017 Di took on a role with West of England Genomic Medicine as a Genomic Champion to raise awareness of the 100,000 Genomes project for Cancer and Rare Diseases.
Part of her role is to be a highly competent, knowledgeable and visible practitioner within the specialty ensuring the provision of excellent, evidence based nursing care for the children, and to be an approachable resource for colleagues, families, schools and other agencies.
Interests outside of work
Di is currently studying to become a psychodynamic therapist, which takes up a lot of her spare time. To relax Di loves to cook and is a frustrated vegetable gardener – slugs! Di's flower cutting garden is developing and she loves to flower arrange. To burn off energy and to get a bit of exercise Di loves to run with friends. She has done one marathon, (years ago) and that will be her only one – a great achievement but she much prefers 10k distance and is aiming to work back up to a half marathon.
