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Winter Break is finally upon us, and I have finally breathed. I think its been a couple of months since I've had a moment of guilt-free relaxation! Needless to say, this semester was very busy. Also needless to say, its going to get busier as I gear into placement first thing after New Years day. Between a demanding placement, the commuting issues that will accompany it, and my family, I don't anticipate many blogging opportunities during my placement. So perhaps I'll give it my best go and give you a big long one now that I have time to do it by summing up my third semester in school.
According to the Ryerson schedule, full-timers are to take Clinical Skills, Pharmacology, Reproduction & Physiology, and two elective social science courses. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this is impossible. Nobody in their right mind can handle this kind of a course load and do well at any of it (as far as I can see, anyway). If you can get those electives out of the way (or even Pharm or Repro) in first year, during the summer break, or before you enter the program, do it!!! You will thank yourself later!
To sum them up fairly briefly:
Clinical Skills: Is a 3-credit course taught by two midwives with many guest instructors that come throughout the semester. Because its three credits, and there is an absolute TON of material to cover, class time is a full day plus a half day per week. This year it was Monday afternoons and all day Tuesdays - but sometimes we needed to do full days on Mondays as well. Assignments were simple and no stress. A few quizzes and a final exam - I didn't find any of the evaluations in this course to be a major challenge. The material, though, was overwhelming. This course covered just about everything that we will encounter in everyday clinic, home visits, and births.....
.... That's prenatal forms, breastfeeding, nutrition, physical assessment, prenatal screening, ultrasound, vitals, mechanisms of labor, telephone assessments, labor support, baby-catching, fetal monitoring, cervical exams, pap smears, suturing, newborn resusitation, newborn physical exam, IVs, administering meds, phlebotomy, infection control, and a million other things I can't think of off the top of my head....
As you can imagine, thats a LOT to cover in one semester. And a ton of reading to go along with it. Most topics only got a 3-hour lecture or workshop. Its a real glossing over of the whole thing, which I think was scary to many of us who want to walk into our first placement as competent students, but it turns out they dont really expect us to be competent when we begin placement. They only expect that we've seen the equipment before and have an idea of how to use it. For me, having had the experience both as a client of midwifery care and as a doula who is familiar with much of what I listed above, I found the course to be enjoyable, but a bit of a repeat on things that I already knew. I didn't miss a class and I definitely leared at every class, but the lecture portions were often a review. I really found myself feeling for those who have less experience in the field coming into the program, as it was a lot to absorb at once. Pretty much nobody could actually do all of the assigned readings, as some weeks were upward of 300-400 pages (only a couple were like that though). My challenge with this course was the hands-on skills - particularly IVs and suturing. I've got lots of hands on experience at things like labor support, but hand me a needle and I'm a bumbling idiot. Luckily we got rubber arms for IVs and beautiful little plush vaginas to practice suturing on. There were definitely lots of good times in this class!
Pharmacotherapy: I found my arch nemesis in this class. Not the instructor, who's been teaching this class since its inception 14 some odd years ago, but my brain. This course introduced all of the drugs that midwives can administer and prescribe as well as all the drugs we may encounter our clients taking, and the concepts of how they actually work at the cellular level. Really, really fascinating stuff. But really, really hard for a concept-based kinesthetic learner like me to memorize a gazillion drug names that sound the same and know the subtle differences. I think I made a come-back at the final exam (grades aren't up yet though), but the midterm knocked me on my butt-hocks (as Willow says).
Reproduction and Physiology: A great and fascinating class. This class introduces us to the method of learning we'll be using for the rest of our career as students: situation-based learning. So, the instructor (a scientist who also has been teaching this course since its inception many moons ago) gives us a situation at the end of class and we decide what we need to learn from it. Then we go out for the week and research it, and come together at the next class and teach eachother. There's very little teaching that the instructor does, mostly just mediating - its us that do the teaching. Its really interesting. Preparingn for this class was definitely my biggest time commitment, I'd say easily a full day of research to prepare for this class each week, but it was fascinating. It covered the ovarian and uterine cycles, embryological genital differentiation, embryogenesis, fertilization, implantation, placentation, maternal adaptations to pregnancy, fetal adaptations to extrauterine life, and the initiation of labor (parturition). Overall a great course (in my humble opinion).
There you have it! My novel for the semester. Thanks for tuning in!
p.s. I've had questions from a few people about applications and interviews into the program - to those of you asking, and others wondering - I'm so sorry I haven't had the opportunity to respond as I would like. I've been grabbing life by the horns and trailing behind trying to make sure I'm holding on tight! In a nutshell, my friends, the wait is stressful but show your true colours and keep your heart pure and that is the best that anyone can do.
