I've been following this discussion with a lot of interest, since I'm one
of those wanna-be's everyone's talking about.  However, I intend to put in
my years of sweat.  (Probably going to do the MA program at the Lactation
Institute, etc, etc, etc.  No quickie 6 week courses for me.  I know
there's *way* more to learn than that.  Plus, I have a lot of personal
experience.)  Personally, though, I'd have to say that what I would *most*
like right now is a mentor relationship with someone.  I would happily do
scut work for knowledge.  And I do have some amount of time- I'm a SAH mom.
 I know many people who are interested in LC work go through a period at
home, where with some amount of finagling they could probably give time for
knowledge/learning.

One local LC let me watch for a short time at some drop-in hours she has.
It was wonderful!

I just wanted to contribute the data point that some of us wanna-be's out
here would be interested in this type of program, and are interested in
putting in our years of sweat beyond/before (whichever) such a mentoring
relationship.  I'm sure there are others like me who would want to make
sure the mentor got something out of it, too.  But it occurs to me that my
pediatrician has students with him all the time.  He's on staff at a
teaching hospital, but don't physicians mentor students to some degree-
with no expectation of compensation?  Or am I wrong?  What are the patterns
in other professions?

Tricia Jalbert,
in Oakland, CA