Back to School??

For several weeks now I have been thinking about going back to school. I would continue to work the weekends and begin working on my bachelor's degree. In Iowa Nursing is one of the few areas that you don't get compensated for the extra two years of work. Some of the programs I have considered are University Of Phoenix, U of I, Grand View, Allen, and Graceland. I think I am most interested in Graceland because the have the fewest prerequisite courses and are also the cheapest. I have also been thinking about becomming a midwife as a long term goal. I had such an amazing experience with my midwife that I would like to offer that same experience to other moms. Today I had a check up and got to ask my midwife, Jayme, her feelings.

My first concern was that it would take me away from my family. She said that although she is pretty much on call 24/7 most facilities don't have just one midwife and you would share call time with other midwifes. Although I enjoyed that she was always on call because I knew to expect her at my delivery.

My second concern was that as of now I don't really have any OB experience besides my own. She told me she was a very nontraditional student in that fact that she went into the program with no OB experience.... I would of never guessed. Her background was in ICU and transplant patients. She said that her clinical instructors were much harder on her because she had no experience but she also learned a lot!

My third question was that in 2015 they will be requiring a doctorate instead of a masters for all nurse practitioners. She felt that it would be an extra three years beyond my bachelors instead of four. She also encouraged me to go for it and said that she thought I could get it done before then and then could be grandfathered in.

We also talked about the online midwife programs. I enjoy online courses but I don't know if I would feel prepared with an online degree. She assured me that I would be able to do at least my theory courses online and that most of my education would come from clinical experience anyways.

Lastly she encouraged me to at least get my bachelors now so that even if I wanted to wait until my kids are in school I would just have to complete the midwifery program. I still have not made a decision but I know I would love being a midwife and specializing in one area instead of knowing a little about a lot of areas.


My midwife Jayme and Kinnick