Midwifery

As part of the course you will be exposed to all areas of midwifery practice, you will be undertaking work in antenatal clinics and antenatal wards, you’ll be working in the birth suite, you’ll be working in the postnatal area, you’ll be working in the community, you’ll be working with women who are culturally and linguistically diverse and you will get the opportunity to undertake if you so wish, although it’s not compulsory a rural placement yourself.

Midwifery is a career that offers lots and lots of diverse opportunities, you may choose to work in a hospital setting, you may choose to work in the community, you may choose to work out in an independent role, as a midwife working autonomously. There are lots and lots of opportunities for registered nurses to build upon those skills and undertake our 18 month course, which is actually a two year course fast tracked over 18, which will provide you with registration as a midwife and a degree in midwifery.

Undertaking a Bachelor of Midwifery here with us at CQU will enable you to develop your skills further and somewhat increase your employability, for example we often get applications from registered nurses who are currently working in rural, remove settings or working for the Royal Flying Doctors service who are keen to develop or extend I should say their nursing skills so that they possess the midwifery qualification, obviously all skills and knowledge that go with that which enable them to work across all areas of health services.

In order to apply for our course you will need to be a registered nurse with APHRA. You’ll need to have current unrestricted registration and you will also need to be in possession of a Bachelor of Nursing degree. We build upon those existing skills, you are provided with one year of advanced standing in the course, so we don’t teach you those basic nursing skills as part of our program you will need to come to us all of those skills in place and we build upon those with midwifery skills and knowledge.

Our Bachelor of Midwifery here at CQUniversity is offered predominantly by an online mode of delivery so that means there is no requirement each week to attend lectures on campus, all of the learning takes place online. Two days per week you’ll be required to undertake clinical placement so that rather than happening in a block it happens as I say two days a week across the entire 18 months duration of course which enables you to continue working as a registered nurse alongside that to support yourself financially. In addition to the online delivery of the theoretical content you will also be required to attend three residential schools which are one week long each in length and they are offered at the beginning of terms one, two and four.

Residential schools provide you with a bit of an introduction to what you’ll be learning that term so for example in the first term we will provide you with all the skills and knowledge you need to care for normal low-risk healthy women and babies during the childbearing continuum. Part of that residential school you will spend in the simulation laboratory so practicing things like abdominal palpations, how to listen to the foetal heart rate, how to care and support women during labour and birth, how to undertake vaginal examinations, all of those practical skills we try when possible to arm you with those I guess, so when you go out into practice, you understand what everyone’s talking about, what the midwives are referring to, so you have some degree of base knowledge and to start you off before you commence your clinical placement.

Here at CQU we have developed and sustained some strong relationship with industry partners in and around Queensland. Majority of our students go on to secure full time employment on graduation but we also have students that have chosen to go and work for the Royal Flying doctor service, we have others that have chosen to work in low income countries in monetary roles, we also have midwives that have gone on to undertake further qualifications and skills to allow them to be eligible midwives with their own prescribing rights, so there are lots of opportunities for midwives that complete the course successfully.