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>From: "Kathleen G. Auerbach, PhD, IBCLC" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "Kathleen Bruce" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: For Lactnet
>Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 08:54:32 -0700
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>Importance: Normal
>
>Could you send this on to Lactnet? Everytime I try, it bounces. I don't
>know why...
>
>The threads re: the LC profession and professionalism prompt me to share a
>bit of information which I had not previously planned to do. Having
>stepped away from the field to the extent that I only rarely do
>presentations anymore, even less often submit for publication, and read
>only on LACTNET, I now speak as a "former" volunteer and one who strove
>mightily in the past to help the LC gathering become professional.
>
>I had to leave the active arena because I could not come close to
>supporting even a small private practice on the income it generated.
>Having switched professional foci, I have to say that it is a JOY to
>actually make a living working with people and helping them meet their
>needs. Virtually all the skills I honed when working both in a private
>practice and as a mentor of junior, fledgling, or newbie LCs (you pick the
>adjective you prefer) have come in handy in my new role as a real estate
>consultant. In some instances, I have even thrown in free breastfeeding
>advice when my clients have included moms with very new (or older) babies.
>Just call me a "full-service" professional realtor, one who practices what
>I like to think is "good mothering through real estate!"
>
>More to the point is how much more positively I have felt about what I do
>because I can now put food on the table and pay for private health
>insurance (something I could not do when working exclusively as an LC),
>and even contemplate replacing my aging car which now has nearly 150,000
>miles on it.
>
>Having watched so many others struggle, particularly those who are not
>nurses and/or do not work in hospitals, I have concluded that until LCs
>are recognized as a LEGITIMATE profession (not just as an allied health
>group), attracting--and keeping!--skilled people will be extremely
>difficult. One can love what one does only so much. Said love does not pay
>the bills.
>
>Forcing the profession to be only nurses (or similarly trained, licensed
>people) I feel weakens the profession, but then I am speaking as a
>non-nurse and I am sure the nurses out there who are also LCs will
>probably disagree with me on this point.
>
>The other option, of course, is to limit the profession to persons who are
>married to spouses willing to subsidize the LC's work. But not all of us
>are married and not all of our spouses are willing or able to do that.
>
>I hope you don't feel that I am totally negative about the above picture;
>rather, I have very reluctantly come to this conclusion having watched for
>a lot of years too many people leave (as I had to do) because certain
>economic imperatives drove them out.
>
>Would that reality were different...
>
>Kathy Auerbach
><http://www.kathysrealestate.com/>www.kathysrealestate.com
>www.kwbellingham.com/kathy
>
>
>Remember: "Together, we'll get it done!"
>
Kathleen B. Bruce, BSN, IBCLC co-owner Lactnet, Indep. Consultant
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://homepages.together.net/~kbruce/kbblact.html
LACTNET Archives http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/lactnet.html
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