Dear All:

Once again, I really suggest one keep an open mind.  When I worked in public
health it was pretty easy to come up with stereotypical opinions about
certain cadres of health workers.  I remember one year when I went out to
train Peace Corps volunteers to do nutrition work.  Many of these young
women would go through what I call the "cynical" phase of development work
where the first luster of exocitism wears off and you see the reality of how
difficult it is living and working in a developing country.  No more
romanticism.  During this phase many of these volunteers would make fun of
their local counterparts in the Ministry of Health.  It reminds me a bit of
the overworked, undervalued nurses here in this country who are easy to
criticize.  The health care workers that the Peace Corps volunteers worked
with were often not very motivated.

So what happened over time was that some of the Peace Corps volunteers would
move onto a new phase beyond cynicism where they would grow into a much more
"adult" role towards their counterparts, really trying to understand their
problems on a deeper level.  And, I am happy to report that I saw a
marvelous transformation in the Ministry of Health workers in Niger when a
nongovernmental organization worked with them to do their own operations
research and developed a much more participatory system of interaction
between supervisors and workers. Many of these so-called "unmotivated"
workers, florished when empowered to work out some of their own problems.
Despite what many said, it was not just simply a matter of being underpaid.

As for my reason for mentioning it here, I feel that characterizing NEW
IBCLCs as not as dedicated is not particularly helpful either.  Two of my
colleagues started around the same time as I did and I have to say that I
have learned equally as much from them as I have from the so-called
"oldtimers".  And just as I have learned a lot from some of the IBCLCs who
have been working on lactation since the very beginning of the profession
who are still highly motivated and keep up with the latest information, I
have been disappointed by others who have stopped growing and become stuck
in their routines.  Motivated newcomers should be looked upon as a potential
resource of new ideas that could reinvorgate the profession.  Since none my
colleagues come from the medical profession, I could come up with another
stereotype about recruiting newcomers from nonmedical backgrounds, but that
would be silly.

So, while we can make generalizations from what we observe, be ready to
cultivate whatever we can, whenever we can.  Remember Dr. Trendy who thought
LCs were overpaid emotional handholders and wrote about that in his book, is
making babysteps towards progress.

Best regards, Susan E. Burger, MHS, PhD, IBCLC

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