Looking to the future
I had tea with an independent midwife the other day and she asked me what my plans are for when I graduate.
My options are:
- Work as an independent midwife immediately
- Do another year of study to also be registered as a nurse
- Do a year as a graduate midwife on rotation (with little control) through a hospital
- Go to work in a hospital (which may or may not happen straight out of university without a graduate year)
I hadn’t thought of these 4 on equal footing but there is nothing to stop me doing any of these. We’ll put aside politics, interviews, opportunities, the next two years’ experiences and the rest, yes? Technically, once I complete my 3rd year I will be a registered midwife and fully qualified. I will be somewhat experienced - I have a stackload of births to accomplish to qualify so I won’t be completely wet behind the ears, just very damp.
This is my journal so I will be honest. The first is where I want to end up. I believe to my core that women deserve one midwife and continuity of care, and I hate for the most part working in a hospital setting. I love being with women and I am somewhat in awe of the power that there is in my voice when I work with women that I have been beside for their pregnancy. I cannot fathom working in the hospital setting permanently but the idea of being independent is terrifying in the unknown-ness of it all.
I can see the point of doing the second. Here in Aus, outside of the capital cities, many hospitals won’t/can’t employ you if you’re not also a registered nurse. I can see the point. But I don’t *WANT* to be a nurse. I don’t want to work with sick people. I have nothing against sick people and have been sick myself 
but I don’t want to work in that setting. If I had to go that way, I would, and I may in the future, but for now I don’t want to. I will pay lipservice to this option when confronted with the large number of midwives and nurses who tell me that direct entry midwives are worthless, but I don’t believe it in my heart and soul.
The third - I don’t know. On paper it’s a good idea. It’s a year with training wheels. But - of the two graduate years I’ve done in other contexts, neither of which equipped me for my jobs at the time, and the information I’ve gotten from a couple of the recent graduate midwives, I can’t see that doing a year of graduate midwife program would take me where I want it. It would see me on shift rotation with some preference but no ability to choose my placements, and learning how to be a "good" hospital midwife. Which I don’t want to be. I will be 31 when I graduate and receive my piece of parchment; I will be 30 when I register. I don’t feel the need to have that year out there to find myself or to find my feet per se. If it was a year working every possible moment with birthing women and with pregnant women in a supported placement with homebirthing women, then sure, I’d be there in a minute. But it won’t.
And option #4 I’m not sure I can do but there is that option as well. Again, I would have to learn to work in a hospital which isn’t what I want to do. I want to work with women.
Thoughts?
