The new requirements insure several things that are important to CONSUMERS.
Our field is multidisciplinary.   Candidates from non-health care
professional backgrounds must be up on the anatomy and physiology etc so
they have enough education to communicate with other health professionals
and to identify medical issues beyond their scope of practice.  We need the
nurses to be trained in counseling and child development in order to allow
them to be more effective as teachers and to improve their communication
skills.

 If it were up to me, I'd insist on 4 years of training in a university
setting with a supervised clinical practicum before I turned any LC loose on
a community.  Those of us who practice in hospital settings and clinics and
those of us who practice in the community have somewhat different focuses
(ie normal vs unusual situations) but ALL of us need to be able to practice
competantly in ANY setting.  LCs are not peer counselors.  There is nothing
in the world wrong with being a peer counselor -- when I wear my LLL Leader
hat, that is what I am:  the equal of the mother, involved in giving
encouragement and information,  but not directing care.  As an LC I am a
professional member of the health care team, and I have a very different
level of responsibility that includes communicating my findings and
suggestions with the supervising physician.

Until LCs are educated as professionals we will continue to be disrespected
and dismissed as superfluous to maternal-child health care.  Anyone who
wants to cont. to have low wages and poor job security and no respect can
continue to gripe about increased standards, but it is not in their best
interests to do so.  And it sure isn't in the best interests of consumers,
who after all, are the main focus of certification standards.  Certification
isn't some afterthought that you get because it isn't too much trouble.
It's what separates the sheep from the goats.

Proud to be a goat.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates, Austin, Texas
http://www.jump.net/~bwc/lactnews.html

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