Thank you for your post Alice.
You have explained what I should have said more clearly.
I understand that a RN degree is not *required* to become an IBCLC - but there is no other way I can obtain the relevant health sciences education (as a non-health professional) in this country. There are no other on-line courses which would fit this. Health e-Learning, while providing a number of lactation specific courses, specifically does not provide the health education subjects required at tertiary level. I am unaware of any other way to do this in Australia at present.
I am very disappointed that my life circumstances prevented me from sitting the exam before the change in requirements.
Anita
ABA Counsellor
Australia
On 14 Aug 2014, at 12:56 am, Alice Farrow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Michelle,
>
> Currently, this is actuallly true "medical school" IS "unattainable" - IBLCE has introduced prerequisites that are unfindable outside the US. There is no "medical school" for lactation consultants outside the US and even within the US there are few formal education options. IBLCE requires health science courses without their being an education infrastructure to support this.
>
> For current candidates, it has become very expensive (or impossible) to become an IBCLC outside the non-HCP pathway and the education we are asked to undertake is a 'patched together' collection of courses which, while recognised by IBLCE, would not be recognised by anyone else as a course of education.
>
> It is simply disheartening and in a way humiliating, having to study courses that have nothing to do with lactation but are the only route for me to become a lactation consultant. From 2012 onwards, I have studied specifically for this qualification;
>
> 1st year social science - traffic, garbage disposal, shopping, social identities (social science faculty)
> 1st year introductory health science course unusable for the exam, but enables me to study second year biology, anatomy, physiology, and nutrition (health science faculty)
> 2nd year child development - education theories, child development and psychology (psychology faculty)
> 2nd year molecular and cell biology at a much higher level than necessary (science faculty)
>
> I don't know if anyone here can imagine how STRESSFUL it is to study across faculties, study courses that contain a small component which is necessary for the IBLCE preqequisits and much information that is not, courses that are entirely unrelated and therefore do not BUILD on each other. Anyone who can study across faculties and also get good grades, is remarkable.
>
> As the Australian Breastfeeding Counselor mentioned - IBLCE, outside the US, is advising candidates to get a health care degree in order to sit the exam. This is standard advice across Europe yet, very few people (if any) are prepared to study a degree in something they do not intend to practice (especially as there is no guarantee that the profession will still be on the list when we qualify - many professions have been removed), leaving us the choice of independently sourced courses from different institutions, different countries, different languages.
>
> Are there any health care professionals that have to source their own courses outside of a degree or diploma? Does their list of prerequisites change without warning? Do they have to study across faculties? Do they study online courses in another country from insitutions they have never heard of? Do their first year courses prepare them for their second year courses, or do they find themselves in the deep end, studying second year courses without having studied that faculty's introductory courses?
>
> Doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals WOULD be complaining about the cost of their eduation if this is what their education looked like. If IBCLCs would recongise that this current system is absurd, then we could push for solutions - candidates are fighting the double battle of getting the education AND pushing back against the system. We need support,
>
> Alice Farrow
> Rome, Italy
> founder and administrator 'Want to be an IBCLC?' https://www.facebook.com/groups/wanttobeanibclc/
> www.cleftlipandpalatebreastfeeding.com
> www.languageofinclusion.com
>
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