Midwifery vs nursing

[Whatatodo79]

Just a quick one - family friend A level results through, 1st choice course midwifery not met the requirements, but been offered an adult nursing course. Might she be able to swap after 1st year exams if still keen and doing ok?

You would have to ask the university, they can advise their policy. Would somebody else need to drop out of the midwifery course to make space. I think a more usual route is being able to do another course after completing the adult nursing course to become a midwife, rather than switching half way through.

But - nursing is tough, I wouldn’t go into it if your heart wasn’t in it. Would she be interested in perhaps working in gynaecology as a nurse?

No, it's a completely different course both in content and practice elements. If she completed the nursing degree she could do a two year master's to qualify as a midwife.

I was RGN to MW, only 18 months top up, -but- like pp said nursing is tough, (midwifery is too don't get me wrong!) but you have a much broader remit of acute, post op etc etc. it's a good background to have but you have to really love nursing to survive.

Could take a gap year instead, get some experience and apply again with grades in hand?

As an obs anaesthetist highly recommend nursing then midwifery, those that have done the historic route have a much superior knowledge of managing the really sick ladies, it's never going to do you harm to have both (obv financial costs excluded

To be honest OP, I originally applied for midwifery, put one option adult nursing, ended up only being accepted for adult nursing. Having completed the training and the experience I've had since, both professionally and after having children I'm so glad I didn't get accepted for midwifery! I really don't want to do it now. Much prefer adult nursing. Might be a blessing in disguise

No not at all. I’m a midwifery lecturer. The nmc specify in order to be a midwife you have to do 2300 theory hours of a midwifery degree, so the full three years.

this morning over 40 midwifery courses were in clearing. She’d be best off looking at clearing, what ucas points has she got?

And there’s absolutely no need to do nursing first in order to be a good midwife or to be able to look after sick women. If she isn’t interested in nursing I wouldn’t recommend it, totally different career. The 2 year conversion/top up course to become a midwife is hard to get onto and not widely provided. Obviously if she thinks she might also like nursing then fair enough. But it’s a tough three year course if not interested.

Depends entirely on the uni but modules in midwifery are different from modules in nursing

Thanks all helpful, we thought they may have basic modules in common so good to know

Adult branch nurse here. I’d definitely recommend she go for adult nursing. It opens up the doors to so much, including midwifery in the future.

Let us know what she decides to do, op. Wishing her success whatever she chooses to do.

The modules will be different but also the placements in year 1 of nursing wouldn’t count to midwifery placement hours. Placements start in year 1 and are 50% of the year.

Does your friend's daughter like babies? I always thought you need to be a paediatric nurse to work with babies on the neonatal intensive care unit. My local hospital would take adult nurses and train them. Neonatal care is considered separate from children's care. One suggestion would be to get a job as a Bank healthcare assistant in her local hospital. Then she would get the exposure to various wards and can make up her mind where her heart is. My hospital sponsored a few healthcare assistants to train as midwives and nurses. The route to a healthcare assistant role is usually through working in a care home first. I got in after volunteering in my local hospital 3 hours a week for 6 months.

I'm not a midwife but work alongside many of them. The majority have done adult nursing and then transferred to midwifery. I know of one who did just midwifery and regrets it now as she wants to do less patient facing work but none available for a midwife in our Trust.
a friend is a paediatric nurse and specialises on the neonatal unit, they are all paediatric nurses in our Trust, none of the neonatal and children's ward nurses did adult nurse training.

if my young person was to choose between midwifery or adult nursing, I'd try to encourage them to do adult nursing, it opens so many more doors.

I'm a direct entry midwife. I love being a midwife but I have at times felt trapped. I wanted to do sexual health but was restricted by not having dual registration. I think doing nursing and then a conversion gives you more options

Conversion courses used to be funded by NHS. Not any more. So there are financial implications as well as having to spend 18 months on a conversion course which many universities stopped offering due to financial unviability (not enought applicants). I am a direct entry midwife. The drop out rates are about 30%. And then many more midwives leave within 5 years of qualifiying. I suggest your friend's daughter doesn't rush into things. I suggest she gets a job working as a healthcare assistance in her local hospital and get exposed to the reality of working for NHS. I used to only do what we call Bank- pick and choose your own shifts across the entire hospital, there is always some availability. I worked in every area except the intensive care. Including postnatal, antenatal and labour wards. Lots of hospitals do apprentichips these days. If she is bright and hard-working, she might well get sponsored. We have a couple of midwives on our unit that went through this route. She shouldn't give up on her dream.

@TrixieFatell (sorry op for the derail!) but pp did you think of doing MW to HV? You could do a sexual health module after that, as scphn is a public health community nursing qualification (bsc or msc) and they accept MW or RGN/RMN in my area. Usually funded at b5. It's intense but a way out of mw or adding to your skill set?

Adult nurses can work in NICU

I wouldn't do adult nursing if she definitely wants to be a midwife. The conversion courses are not widely available anymore.

As a paediatrician, I absolutely agree. The absolutely best midwives I have known were nurses first. Don't get me wrong, I know some great women who went into midwifery direct, but when the shit is really hitting the fan having nursing experience first tends to really tell.

I did my Adult Nurse training as was advised by a family friend to do it that way, then planned to go onto do midwifery. 26 years after qualifying I still haven't got round to doing it 😆