WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

A new midwife on her first rotation to delivery suite was terrible with this. It was
really quiet one day and she did exactly that. I explained what could happen if
something else comes through the door and she saw my point. Then, we had three
admissions, each a nightmare and it was really good. She said “I get what you
were saying”.
Heidegger identifies the two faces of ‘Being’ as being in “the shadow” or “the light” and
the “veiling” and the “unveiling” (Harman, 2007, p.3). Time is already ‘at work’ in the
new midwife’s environment before she becomes aware of it. The ‘light’ or the ‘unveiling’
may occur with an emergency which the new midwife finds she is unable to manage as
she is not prepared.
However ‘woman focused’ Sally wants to be and wants her staff to be, the reality is the
potential for the unexpected to occur in a tertiary delivery suite setting. By giving ‘too
much time’ to one mother and baby the new midwife may inadvertently compromise the
safety of another woman and her baby. Sally in her position of coordinator knows this so
she teaches the new midwife about realistic use of chronological time to safeguard
subjective time. Sally teaches this midwife to understand the importance of ‘time
management’ so every member of the team knows she is as ready as she can be for any
eventuality. Sally teaches her to complete necessary tasks within a realistic time frame
and to then offer the ‘niceties’ if there is time when other tasks have been completed.
Sally is protecting the mother and /or her baby in utero who are as yet in the ‘shadow’
and ‘veiled’. The new midwife learnt by Sally’s teaching and experientially by the
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