Academic Preceptor

So, I'm coming up on one year of being a licensed midwife (yay!), and I've discovered that the one year mark magically opens up new professional opportunities for me.

One of these opportunities is to become either a clinical or academic preceptor for students enrolled in midwifery school. I'm nowhere near ready to take on a student and supervise their mastery of clinical skills (ha!), but the academic preceptor possibility is rather intriguing. My role would vary slightly, depending upon the school, but generally I would be responsible for meeting with a student on a regular basis to set the coursework plan, review their academic progress, assign grades, submit evaluations, approve and supervise research projects, etc.

The benefits to the student(s) I work with would be that I'm seriously committed to the further professionalization of direct-entry midwifery, I'm easily accessible from most parts of the Bay Area, I'm the only Latina licensed midwife in the whole region, I have access to tons of resources such as textbooks and journals both at home at through Mills, and I'm flexible about balancing school with life's varying circumstances. And, I ain't no hippie. Since I am a recent graduate, I fondly remember how tough my teachers were with me, and how I came to appreciate their high standards and lack of airy-fairy bs. When I was teaching at Casa, I discovered my big-sister-bossyness comes through loud and clear, so I'm not really worried about whether I will enjoy precepting or not.

The benefits to me would be that I would get paid, I would be forced to stay current with the latest research and guidelines, I may be challenged to research info I don't know, I would get paid, I would get to discover a whole new side of midwifery, I could schedule student sessions between births so that it wouldn't interfere with my practice, I could work from home, I would get to challenge and encourage the next generation of midwives in my community, oh, and I would get paid.

I still plan to do some more research about the possibility of becoming an academic preceptor, but I am definitely interested.

Each one teach one.