People embarking on a career in medicine will be astonished to hear that the University of Wollongong will not offer training for the Midwives certificate in 2013. The course will be dropped for at least next year while the university ponders whether it should remain in the curriculum- and if so - in what form.
Those seeking this certification will be required to travel to either Sydney, Newcastle or Canberra for the required training and obviously that will impose travel and accommodation costs. This seems to be an amazing contradiction as trained midwives are in short supply and this is one of the medical disciplines that urgently needs expansion.
This decision seems to fly in the face of the status that has been conferred on both Wollongong and Shellharbour hospitals. Both have gained the recognition as " teaching hospitals ", with the elevation of their top medical staff to the titles of " Associated Professors " and the recognition that they have the ability to train and certify our future medical doctors and nurses.
It seems inconceivable that one of the most basic skill certificates will no longer be obtainable locally to those who choose to do their training here in the Illawarra, because the university which is supposed to work in lockstep with our teaching hospital status - has decided to drop that course.
Medicine is a rewarding career, but it requires the men and women who serve as our health guardians to constantly upgrade their skills and enhance the scope of their qualifications. Those engaged in nursing are constantly seeking to add new skill certificates, and nursing has moved completely out of the " on the job " mode of training. A university degree is now the basic starting point.
It makes a mockery of upgrading our local hospitals to the status of training hospitals, if at the same time the means of accessing a full range of certification is shrinking.
If nothing else, those in medical training deserve an explanation as to why this illogical decision is being implemented !
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