International Day of the Midwife was appropriately celebrated on Tuesday with a graduation ceremony for newly qualified Midwives at Narrabri Hospital.
Rebecca Sharpe (Tamworth) Tahnee Reynolds (Tamworth), Samantha Quarmby (Armidale), Rebecca Collyer (Inverell) and Kate Burgess (Narrabri) were surrounded by family and friends as they were presented with their diplomas and officially inducted as Midwives.
They had graduated from the Hunter New England Health’s innovative Rural Midwifery Education Program, an intensive one year distance education Post Graduate Diploma, conducted in conjunction with Charles Sturt University, undertaken while working with experienced midwives at hospitals including Narrabri.
Students learn in their home town hospitals with the benefit of working with experienced midwives. Each graduand spoke to attendees about their experiences training to become a midwife. “After 33,000 words worth of assignments, multiple placements and plenty of sleepless nights, we’re here. It’s been the most testing year of my life, but I don’t regret a second of it,’ said Samantha Quarmby.