Mary Kay,

      Thank you for your words--it provides some encouragement.  The only LC
that has been hired by a hospital in the Florida Tampa Bay Area (without an
RN) was an IBCLC who had hospital experience from Atlanta, GA.  If she had
never worked at a hospital, I doubt that she would have gotten the job.
Hospital administraters in the North East and West coast don't appear to have
much difficulty about LC credentials without an RN, but in our area they
would rather hire a nurse that just worked for a podiatrist, then deal with
an IBCLC.  When they need a lactation nurse, they usually make a general ad
for a floor nurse.   This makes it even more difficult for "just an IBCLC" to
be hired.  I also have a Ph.D. in counseling, and although I could easily be
hired in other areas, my hands appear tied here.    As a profession, we need
to do whatever we possibly can to elavate the IBCLC credential.  No one would
think twice about insisting that a speech pathologist or an occupational
therapist have an RN credential.  Why do so many insist that an LC have an
RN?

                                 --  Debbie Albert, Ph.D., IBCLC

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