Karen Johnson Feltham, Assistant Professor and Director, Nurse Midwifery Program
Health & Life Sciences Building, Office 110, (540) 678-4374

The Nurse Midwifery Master’s Degree Program is designed to provide the student with the necessary knowledge, skills, values, meanings and experiences to assume the role of a certified nurse-midwife in a variety of clinical settings. Didactic and clinical course content focuses on role development, assessment and management of women’s health — antepartal, intrapartal, postpartal and neonatal periods, as well as primary women’s health — throughout the lifespan. Clinical experiences are in a wide variety of settings subject to availability, including ambulatory, birth center, home, community and hospital environments. Students may also be placed in rural and medically underserved health care settings. Faculty, staff and students work together to obtain and finalize clinical placements. Approximately 720 clinical hours are inherent in this program; however, the curriculum has two unique features: it is competency-based and is dependent on the birth of babies. Both features may require more clinical hours than are allotted in the formal clinical clock hour ratio outlined in the graduate program. These two unique features are emphasized in the Spring and Summer semesters when students begin the intrapartum clinical placements and are explained to students upon entry into the program. Graduates of the Nurse Midwifery Master’s Degree Program are eligible to sit for the national certification exam given by the American Midwifery Certification Board (AMCB). Upon successful completion of this national examination, the graduate will be recognized as a Certified Nurse-Midwife.

The Nurse Midwifery Master’s Degree and Post Graduate Certificate Programs are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education (ACME). For inquiries about accreditation, please contact ACME at 8403 Colesville Road, Suite 1550, Silver Spring, MD 20910-6374; www.midwife.org/acme, or email acme@acnm.org.

Nurse-Midwifery Objectives

By the completion of the Midwifery Program curricula, the graduate will:

1. Synthesize theories from nursing and related arts and sciences in providing nurse midwifery care for diverse women and their families.
2. Synthesize nursing knowledge, skills, values, meanings and experiences in the provision of comprehensive nurse-midwifery care and management for diverse women and their families.
3. Using the nurse midwifery management process, coordinate and deliver care for diverse women and their families across the lifespan.
4. Assume individual responsibility for the choice of therapeutic nurse midwifery interventions and accountability for their outcomes for clients and families.
5. Synthesize the impact of practice standards, as well as legal, ethical, political, economic, accrediting and controlling factors on the delivery of nurse midwifery care.
6. Positively influence practice standards, as well as legal, ethical, political, economic, accrediting and controlling factors impacting the delivery of nurse-midwifery care.
7. Contribute to the discipline of nurse-midwifery and the profession of nursing through scientific inquiry.
8. Provide collegial and collaborative leadership among professional nurse-midwives and other health care providers.
9. Demonstrate the desire for and value of continued professional growth by identifying individual learning needs, as well as the needs of the discipline of nurse-midwifery and the nursing profession.
10. Design a career development plan based on self-evaluation, the desire for continued professional growth, the needs of the discipline/profession and those factors influencing the discipline/profession within the region where you intend to practice.
11. Additionally, graduates of the post graduate program in Midwifery will be able to lead nurse-midwifery and potential interprofessional student colleagues in the following core competencies for basic midwifery practice: “incorporation of scientific evidence into clinical practice,” “development of leadership skills” and “participation in self-evaluation, peer review, lifelong and other activities that ensure and validate quality practice.”

In addition to the 22 required MSN core courses, the Nurse Midwifery requires 22 credits of specialty courses: