Kathy leads the private group practice of Kathleen Slone, CNM & Associates, where a full scope of midwifery care is provided including routine gynecologic checkups, family planning services, prenatal and postpartum care, and delivering babies.
Before beginning her private group practice, Kathy served as a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the School of Public Health and Hygiene. She is still an active clinician at the Student Health Services at Johns Hopkins Homewood campus.
Kathy is a member of the Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honorary Society and the American College of Nurse Midwives.
Bayla Berkowitz, CNM, MSN, was originally pre-med as an undergrad at Boston University. While volunteering in a medical gynecology office, she was turned off by the medical model of care towards patients. She also didn't want to take physics and organic chemistry! Thus began her search into the nursing field. What Bayla preferred about nursing over medicine was the direct patient contact and more holistic approach; she was treating the patient not the disease. While in nursing school at Johns Hopkins University, Bayla worked as a student doula in the Birth Companions program. Following graduation, she began working as a Labor and Delivery nurse at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD and then at Mercy Medical Center. In both institutions she also taught childbirth classes.
As obstetrics has always been her passion, the next obvious step was nurse-midwifery. She began the program at the University of Maryland while working as a labor and delivery nurse. Upon completion of her Masters of Science in Nursing, Bayla began looking for a job which best fit her philosophy. Having known Kathy Slone and her practice from working at Mercy, Bayla was excited to find out that there was an opening in the group. The open, patient-centered, warm atmosphere as well as the strong connection to creating a holistic, natural approach towards pregnancy and birth, jived well with the type of midwife Bayla was hoping to be.
Bayla has 2 beautiful boys, both births attended by Kathleen Slone and Associates, and the second of which was a waterbirth.
When not working as a midwife, Bayla promotes Natural parenting, Cloth Diapering, Babywearing, and more through her store in Hampden, Soft and Cozy Baby.
Kathryn O'Brien, CNM first got the call to become a midwife while studying biochemistry at St. Michael's College in Vermont. She transferred to Salisbury University where she completed her bachelor's degree in nursing. While studying at Salisbury University she was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau, the nursing honor society. After graduating in 2006 and passing her boards, she immediately went into her midwifery education at Georgetown University. She had the opportunity while in school to train in very diverse settings ranging from two different birth centers to large, hospital-based practices. Katie found that she preferred the birth center philosophy.
Upon completion of her degree in 2007, she began looking for jobs where she would have a mentor who shared her principles. She found that in Kathy and her practice. Katie moved to Baltimore and began working at Kathleen Slone CNM and Associates in April of 2008. She was full time until she had her baby girl (delivered by the practice of course!) in September 2010. She now works part-time and is very thankful for the privilege of helping families bring their babies into the world while still watching her family grow.