Gretchen said:

"If the LC field became so restrictive as to allow only those who entered via
the professional medical field, I think we would lose some potentially
wonderful practitioners who could add so much from their various perspectives
as our profession is emerging and seeking its place in the health care field."

I'd like to add to this by comparing LCs to another very important grassroots
profession: midwifery. The cost of moving all midwife training into the nursing
schools has been of immeasurable detriment to the profession (IMHO) for the very
reasons that Gretchen says varied LC backgrounds are important.

Not every problem is a medical one and, when all care
providers develop a medical mindset...it is the client who pays......with more
interventions, less empowerment and fewer choices.

One of my mentor/ heroes,the late Dr. Martha Rogers, Professor of Nursing at NY
University made a lot of enemies by referring to the nurse practitioner movement
as a movement to turn nursing into mini-medicine. It was something she was
adamantly opposed to, and so am I.

My suggestion is that we resurrect the apprentice model of training midwives (as
is done in most of the world) and while we are at it, we can develop a similar
model for the training of LCs!

Susan Keith-Hergert RN, MS, CPN, IBCLC, PLA (ALACE)

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