Our Students...
Student Midwives are a Vital Part of the Birth Team
At Global Midwifery, we believe in and support the apprenticeship model for the training of future midwives. We believe that midwifery is an ancient art and a "calling," not just another professional career choice. Classroom learning with only random clinical experience would not equip a student properly for relating to clients with individual and unique needs. Apprenticeship is the absolute best model when it comes to teaching future midwives continuity of care for their clients. Students see clients from the beginning of their pregnancies, through their births and the postpartum period. They learn to care about the individual as an individual, and they learn to recognize first hand that what might be the "right" answer for one particular woman many not be the right answer for another.
How Our Students Interact With Our Clients
At Global Midwifery we are very careful about whom we accept as a student into our apprenticeship program. It is very important to us that our students share our values and are compatible with our own personalities. For this reason, we hope that if you have hired us, you will also like our apprentices. But even though we are careful, we recognize that not every client will always be completely comfortable with every student. That is why we want our clients to know that they always come first with us. So we encourage our clients to fill out occasional evaluation forms for our students. This helps both the student and us know how they are doing and if they need improvement ...and if there are aspects of their skills and/or training that need improvement.
Students are always supervised and they are only allowed to do midwifery skills that they have been taught. We also only allow the students to interact with clients whom we believe are comfortable with the student. If at any time you do not feel comfortable with one of our students, please let us know. It is very important to us that our client’s needs are met first and that you feel comfortable with our entire staff including students.
Currently, we have one student working with us at Global Midwifery. We invite you to get to know her...
Jen Hoeprich
Jennifer has lived in Arizona since age five, and loves the desert nights. She has worked as a birth doula since 2005, serving close to 150 families in the Phoenix Metro Area, and has taught private childbirth education classes as well as public classes at Chandler Regional Medical Center. She has been working with Wendi as a homebirth midwifery apprentice since March of 2008, and has been a student of Marinah’s since 2005. Her biggest thrill in life—second only to her family and the birth of her son with a midwife in 2004—is helping women birth their babies. She feels that her role as midwife is to educate and empower moms in this momentous time; to encourage them to trust the wisdom that is wound in their DNA, helping to ensure that the process of birth unfolds in a safe place. She considers it a deep honor to share this sacred space with women as they birth.