Midwives transition to practice: Expectations and experiences
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Fenwick, Jennifer
Carter, Amanda G
Sidebotham, Mary
Gamble, Jenny
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Abstract
The Rural Private Midwifery Education Program (RPMEP), a 2013 strategic response to midwifery workforce issues by the Queensland Government was unique in the Australian context. Midwifery students were embedded within a private midwifery caseload practice or rural publicly funded midwifery group practice (MGP). Continuity of midwifery care was at the core of the students’ learning experience. This paper describes a study designed to explore the expectations and experiences of this group of newly qualified midwives as they transitioned to practice. Using a qualitative descriptive methodology, eight newly qualified midwives were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data set. Six themes were identified; ‘Midwifery – an unexpected career path’, ‘The ‘gifts’ of being embedded in caseload as a midwifery student’, ‘No jobs - no real choice’, The hospital system - A whole different world’, ‘Resetting (or Adapting) expectations - Drawing on what I know to be true’ and ‘What the future holds’. Transitioning to practice after being embedded in caseload midwifery as a student provided challenges for the newly qualified midwives. At the same time it ‘gifted’ them a strong commitment to woman centred care, continuity and a social model of maternity which they draw on to support their transition.
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Nurse Education in Practice
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41
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© 2019 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence, which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
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Subject
Nursing
Curriculum and pedagogy
Midwifery
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
MIDWIFERY STUDENTS EXPERIENCES
CONTINUITY
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Griffiths, M; Fenwick, J; Carter, AG; Sidebotham, M; Gamble, J, Midwives transition to practice: Expectations and experiences, Nurse Education in Practice, 2019, 41, pp. 102641: 1-102641: 22