I stumbled upon this project quite serendipitously. My purpose is threefold, to inspire future students of the Midwives College of Utah when they create their own ePortfolio, to create an ePortfolio to be viewed by potential future colleagues, and to process and reflect on my journey to becoming a midwife. I actually intended for my capstone project at the Midwives College of Utah to be a Commonplace Book. In it I recorded my favorite quote from the 2006 book The Birth House by Ami McKay, “The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women.” I am still common placing my studies but I believe this website will be a better means to that end.
The courses I call my capstone is the Advanced Midwifery Studies courses. Advanced Midwifery Studies (AMS) are dynamic student-led independent courses that provides MCU students the opportunity to pursue their unique interests while still receiving MCU credit. They allow students to enroll in approved seminars, symposiums, trainings and courses outside of MCU. The students will make a final proposal for further action. Community action and service are vital aspects of a midwife’s role, and the goal of the project is to support the individual’s transition from student to midwife. The actualization of the project is the subject of Advanced Midwifery Studies II which I am currently completing with this ePortfolio.
As I reflected upon the exploratory nature of the Advance Midwifery Studies courses I had some difficulty describing the affects of the work I had done thus far until I focused on how my vision of myself as a midwife in the future has changed. In my searching I have come to realize that I don’t need to know everything, I must be thoroughly educated in the birth mechanics and the anatomy and physiology of the birthing woman and have a set of skills and research competency that qualifies me as a midwife but am not omniscient when it comes to life. I am more adept at releasing rigid expectations and letting go of control while I increase my trust in the process of learning since the exercises and self reflection I have undertaken in these courses. I have come to more intensely value serendipity, intuition and inspiration. I hope that I have also gained more experience assessing strengths and weakness and I am quicker to acknowledge the need to be humble. This experience has changed how I approach a situation where I am not finding my answers in the manner or theories I have used in the past. I am more prepared to take this message to my fellow students and future clients because I have experienced this myself. When I was lost in the research, taking time to journal my thoughts and write the experiences out for my instructor proved to be a turning point to finding the answers I needed. To become a CPM, I must demonstrate expertise in normal childbearing and woman care, but I don’t need to know everything.
As midwives we must assimilate knowledge to the depth of our being. It is vital at times that we are able to recall information learned, sometimes, years ago and may have only seen once. The ePortfolio can become a tool for our education, a tool for our future practice and a tool for our lives. Reflection as a matter of self-evaluation can be powerful. Rebecca McClanahan is quoted as saying “First, reflection is a process of change. In the language of physics, reflection is the phenomenon in which energy is returned after impinging upon a surface...What we see, in reflection, is never the thing itself, but a reconfigured version. When we reflect, we in effect break an experience into pieces then reassemble the pieces into a new form” (n.d.).
It will move me so deeply to see my project shared with all MCU students in the future. If the ePortfolio becomes as valuable to me as I believe it will be, the effect upon the care of women by future midwives would impact generations. I have also dreamed of the possibility that readers of my journals and ePortfolio from the next generation of midwives will also be impacted. These readers may be my own descendants or if I were to think on a grand scale possibly a historian will find my humble journals and ePortfolio and make of it a book like the one written by Laurel Ulrich Thatcher (A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812). One can dream right!?
References McKay, A. (2006). The birth house: A novel [Kindle]. Retrieved from Amazon.com McClanahan, R. (n.d.). Reflection: Thinking about Learning. Retrieved August 12, 2016, from http://slccreflection.weebly.com/ Ulrich, L. T. (1990). A midwife's tale: The life of Martha Ballard, based on her diary, 1785-1812 [Kindle]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
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