Graduate Story

BSc (Hons) Midwifery Shortened Student

I had worked as an ICU nurse before I started the course, and while I loved my nursing role and job, I felt I needed to develop my skills further and concentrate on the “other end of life”. On reflection, I was very naive about what midwifery entailed – I thought it would be sitting in a corner, mostly observing, like you see in “Call the Midwife”. The reality is that the course and job are full-on, with practice and theory that challenged and stimulated me in equal ways. I loved that I was exposed to all aspects of midwifery practice, from community to hospital, and how different while similar it can all be. 

I love that we don’t use patients in midwifery, but women, to promote their empowerment in the care, recognising that most of them are actually healthy – pregnancy and birth at the end of the day is a normal part of life. This did took me some time to adjust, I guess I had been a nurse too long, but now, even when working as a nurse, I do not use the word patients but I refer to them as service users, as I believe that they need to be empowered too. 

Studying to become a midwife has been the best decision of my life, and though I can now reflect on the naivety of my original reason for wanting to do it (babies and mothers do die too) I feel that I am part of something extraordinary every day and would not change it for the world.