WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

egarding this overspill or emotional ‘run off’ of her coordinator experiences into her
home life. Alice regards this as something that she has to work through, in order to
understand and rationalise her experiences.
Kouzes and Posner (1995) write that “knowledge gained from direct experience and
active searching, once stored in the subconscious, becomes the basis for leader’s
intuition, insight and vision” (p.105). Alice processes her past experiences which help
her manage future ways of managing situations. She does not comment that her
experiences are stressors to her, rather this is the way it is, and she reveals she has
developed the life skills she needs to cope as a coordinator.
The question can be asked whether interrupted nights’ sleep are sustainable for Alice’s
long term health and wellbeing, and will her responses change over time?
Jane reveals she has learnt to cope over time:
My coping is a learned thing as time goes by. I remember in the beginning when I
was a new practitioner being hugely upset about stuff but you have to learn to put
up a wall otherwise you can’t survive. You can’t come home to your family and
bring all of that crap home with you; you’d never survive. I think if I let it all get
to me I would have gone under years ago.
Time and experience have taught Jane how to survive. Hunter (2001) writes “the context
of midwifery work, particularly when it involves childbirth, could be described as an
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