> It is my personal belief that our profession will never gain acceptance 
> and
> respect of the medical profession until there are serious, accredited 
> college
> programs with required, verifiable internships as part of the program. 
> The
> programs must include not only lactation, but the basics of anatomy and
> physiology, medical terminology, and other elements currently outlined in 
> the
> pathetically inadequate 4 clock hour requirement that everyone panicked 
> and
> complained about several years ago.  No other allied health care 
> profession  enters
> employment and expects professional respect without a standardized 
> college
> or Associate degree.  Even the programs in existence, according to 
> reports I
> have received from current and past students, do not meet these 
> standards.
>

I am going to respectfully disagree. My personal feeling is that it is 
unfortunate that so many professions have become reliant on the 
college/university degree for entrance. People used to be able to become 
lawyers, midwives, etc., by apprenticing and, in some cases, writing an 
exam. Many people learn better this way than in a classroom and I think they 
learn different skills - including the all-important skills of actually 
working with people.

I am old enough (sadly) to remember when the midwives in my home province of 
Ontario were unlicensed. The midwives we had at our births were women who 
had given birth themselves, who apprenticed with another experienced midwife 
or two or three, and who balanced their "textbook" knowledge with a deep 
respect for women and their choices. Now we have a University program to 
train midwives, and the majority of the new midwives I see are much, much 
more medically-oriented and much less skilled at working with women to help 
them make their own choices, deal with the emotional aspects of labour and 
birth, etc. I know I am speaking in generalizations, and we certainly had 
not-great midwives before, and some great midwives now. But this is my 
general observation.

I worry that if the Lactation consultant designation becomes dependent on a 
college degree, then it will become a highly medicalized, academic field. 
The cost of the education will rule out less-affluent women, and the 
concentrated period of time away from their children will rule out still 
more.

If we are concerned that it is too easy to pass the exam, rather than 
requiring more formal education then let's make the exam more demanding. Or 
perhaps we could find another way to evaluate a person's actual experience. 
For example, perhaps each applicant could be asked to complete reports on 
the last ten women they counseled, outlining what they observed and what 
they did, and the women could also be asked to report on their experience 
with the applicant. I know, time-consuming, but it might provide a better 
assessment of the person's knowledge and counseling skills.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario 

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html