I wait tables in Nashville from time to time and am often caught explaining to people what I really do. Servers love this question because it manages to be invasive and critical at the same time. On one such occasion I was explaining to the stranger who had inquired that, in addition to supporting myself by waiting on people like her, I was a nurse and studying to be a midwife. She became very excited and said, “Oh, wow! My niece is doing the same thing. Oh, no… wait.. No, I’m sorry, my niece is going to be a nanny.” Now, I’ve answered an impressive range of questions about what a midwife is, how it is similar to a doctor and how it differs from a witch. But this genuine mistaking of a midwife for a nanny has been by far the most amusing.
Nursing school is a bubble land and it can be very difficult to remember how little the public really knows about advanced practice nursing. This is partly because the profession is evolving and has been for the past several decades, but it’s also because the general public doesn’t really care where their healthcare comes from — which is fine. It’s my job to know how to be a midwife, but it’s also important to offer digest-able knowledge to people when they want it (if only for the survival of our trade). To that end, I went digging for some straightforward definitions of what a midwife is and came across this infographic from 2010.* Some of the information might be a little dated, but I think it breaks it down pretty well. What do you think?
Infographics: making complicated concepts simple enough for you, me and everyone we know.
(Source: Scrubs Magazine)
*That’s a lie — I was looking for giggle-worthy memes and found this by accident. Whew, felt good to get that off my chest.
Eat. Read. Ask. Do. Be. 