I can’t wait for the end of this semester, not that I didn’t enjoy every minute of it, but I am done for now. I have been mentally exhausted by failing my first skills exam and finding out that I do not have to take first semester classes, just learn the skills. It has been like losing the winning lottery ticket. My emotions have been all over the place this week—from pack-up-and-leave mad to over-the-moon happy.
Surprisingly I was not sad about my skills exam. I was more pissed off. I have worked very hard at memorizing the skills verbatim as instructed and doing the skills adequately. I thought I deserved the right to finish demonstrating the rest of the skills, even if I did not “pass” 2 out of the first 3. It was the fact that I was humiliated in front of my peers which gets me. No one deserves to feel that way over anything really, including skills which they had obviously put some time and effort into. Just because all the pieces did not come together as a full-fledged qualified midwife would have done, doesn’t mean I did not complete the skill to a level of understanding. The trash can not being moved closer or the room not being set up exactly right, does not mean I cannot perform the skill.
When I am running my own midwifery program, I guess I will do the skills test out a bit different and explicitly say what is expected. Likewise, I will not grade on technique, but of a holistic understanding of the process. Just because you forgot a bandage, would not be grounds for failure, if you can explain why you didn’t put one on. Plus, I may judge that if someone forgot a certain step in the skill, like failure to check the expiration date of the medication that that would be an automatic failure, whereas forgetting a bandage, which would not kill the client, would not be an automatic ejection, but this is just my rational brain at work.
Additionally, I don’t know how long it will take me to feel comfortable doing these skills as I didn’t go into midwifery to do medical skills. I do not want to approach midwifery from a medical angle and obviously do not want to embrace it. Is that wrong that I am different? I also know that some of the students did the steps out of order, according to their own style. Plus, some did not say them verbatim. So, we can throw the word standardization out the window and insert the word subjective.
It was annoying, to say the least, to hear from fellow exam takers that they also could not get ALL the medicine from the ampule as I could not. The difference in our outcomes—them passing and me not– was that I told my instructor that I could not get it all out and they just kept going, as if they got it all out. HMMMMMMM. So, moral of story might be that if it is close enough, one should cut corners to pass the test. Well, I don’t believe that is the best policy. I have integrity and do honestly want to become a good midwife. And even if I never use these skills again, except to pass the NARM PEP skills test, then so be it. I would bet money that none of my fellow students know the skills verbatim; but, since they could act convincingly medical, they passed. I hope that is not how this whole game is played because I stopped playing games once I left the state of Louisiana.
I do not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings or blame anyone for the outcome of my own actions. I will take full responsibility. I am trying to learn to release my energy in a more positive way, but this is my defensive reaction right now. Perhaps I should look at this failure scenario from another angle—that maybe I am being held to a higher standard or more is expected from me, since I will succeed at this profession? Well, that is the positive spin I will leave on it for now. It makes me feel better than the alternative that I was put in my place by a cruel game involving power and control.
Another line that I have heard this week (and that is its own journal entry) was that if I want to be a midwife, I need to step up to the plate. I get that, I really do. And that may be what is happening right now—the transformation that was touched upon—from Doula to Midwife—and the losing sight of shore which must accompany that journey. Maybe me failing my skills was the push I needed to get off the cliff and fly?
My Journey as a Licensed Midwife in Louisiana 