UPDATE: The judge sentenced Katie to 3 years probation and told her she cannot work as a midwife during that time. She was not given any time in prison or jail, but was instead given 280 hours of community service and $10,000 in restitution to the CA Medical Board, which was down from the nearly $45,000 they were asking for. Katie is unable to work in her profession during the probation and the medical board will revoke her license as a result of the conviction. She may never be allowed to be a midwife in CA again.

Please consider making a donation as Katie struggles with her two children to find some new avenue to provide for them during this economically difficult time. There is both a paypal address to send donations at the "donate" tab above and also items for sale with proceeds going to Katie's family.

We are deeply grateful to Stephen Demik, Katie's pro bono attorney as he continues to work tirelessly toward an appeal and the hope of Katie regaining her license somehow. He can be reached at 619-813-4347 with any questions.

For further information, please take a moment to read what the media has had to say: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/los-angeles-midwife-gets-_0_n_966558.html?ref=fb&src=sp&com

On August 17th, 2011 Katharine “Katie” McCall, a licensed midwife, was convicted of practicing medicine with out a license for a 2007 birth she assisted as a student. After the verdict, so many people wanted to know what they could do to support Katie in this time. We created this site as a source of information regarding the trial and helping people find ways to support her.
 
The charge arose from a home birth where Ms. McCall's preceptor could not arrive because she was at another birth. Instead of leaving the family to birth unassisted, Katie stayed.  She recommended that the family transfer to the hospital around midnight and the family refused.  They were aware that she was a student midwife and that her preceptor would not be coming to the home birth. 

When the mother began to push, the baby got stuck in a condition called shoulder dystocia.  Using her training as a student, McCall performed a maneuver to free the baby.  The maneuver was successful, however, the mother began to hemorrhage due to a partially retained placenta.  Again, using her training, Katie was able to stop the bleeding by manually removing the placenta and applying sutures.  At trial, Ms. McCall argued through counsel that her practicing medicine was justified due to the emergency situations above.  However, the instructions placed the burden of proof on the defense and the one-count information was amended by the District Attorney mid-trial to include alleged prenatal visits performed by Ms. McCall.

Despite testimony from the Assistant Director of the Emergency Department at UCLA-Santa Monica and a renowned OB/GYN that Ms. McCall's actions potentially saved two lives, a jury convicted her at trial.  

Many issues came to light during the trial-- midwifery students' ability to do vaginal checks, take blood pressure, temperature, listen to baby’s heart beat, etc... all things commonly done without the presence of a preceptor in the room.  In 2007, the lines were very gray about what could and couldn’t be done by student midwives and who their preceptors were.  

What may be one of the most disheartening things about this case is the District Attorney and Medical Board's decision to prosecute Ms. McCall after she earned her license from the same Medical Board in 2010.