Student Midwife

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever stop being a student midwife. The more I learn the more I realize I don't know.

I've decided to drop AAMI. I'm not happy with some of the ways Carla has handled things, but more importantly I'm not happy with the curriculum. It's a lot of busy work, things that I really don't think are needed, like writing a Childbirth education workbook for your clients. There are so many great books out there, I can see evaluating several and choosing one you would recommend but writing an entire one??!! Some of these authors have spent years doing that! Why reinvent the wheel. I also feel like the add-ons for the Philomath are not nearly worth what she's charging for them. I paid for the Great Start-4 and am disappointed with the AEU's. The fetoscope one asks for the four ways to hear heart tones and then gives you a chart to record them. Hardly what I would call educational. The 4 year study calendar is printed calendar pages, anybody could create one themselves, I was hoping for something with goal planning and such on it. I haven't requested the NARM study questions yet so I can't comment on those.

So on my preceptors recommendation I'm going through "Becoming a Midwife" by Carolyn Steiger. Much more realistic IMO and things that will actually be useful to my clients and my education. I started on the skills checklist and realized I really need to start using a fetoscope during prenatals. I also want to order a pinard horn. I'd love to find a beautiful hard wood one that was hand crafted, I'm such a sentimental.

I'm struggling with my preceptor. I feel like she's not wanting to call me for births, now maybe they've all just been fast lately, but I don't know... I'm sure it's my own insecurities. I need to talk to her about when she calls me. It seems she doesn't call until after she gets there and decides if I have enough time to make it. I'd rather she called when they called her, especially if they call and put her on alert. I just don't know how to bring it up, I'm so incredibly afraid of offending her, there are no other options for me here. Don't get me wrong, she's far from tyrannical and I agree with how she practices (mostly)so in the grand scheme of things she's great and I couldn't have found a better preceptor. I'm just not sure how to tell her I need more direct teaching and I want to see more births.

I don't feel like I'm learning anything new, but I also don't feel like I'm doing very well at perfecting my clinical skills. I think I've got blood pressure down, but I still struggle with hearing it over the movement of the tubes and such especially if mom is talking and moving her hand. I'm having difficulty with fundal height on many women, especially the fluffy, newly pregnant ones and I haven't memorized FHT chart so I'm always looking like a fool with that.

Gas is getting insane, and it's a 160 miles round trip for every clinic day and then where ever the birth is. I'm sure this has alot to do with why my preceptor doesn't call me, it seems a waste of gas to drive up there to miss a birth. I don't know what to do.