WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

varying from uneventful normal birth experiences to highly complex care situations. By
comparison, coordinators experience a vast overview of childbirth situations every day. A
coordinator will be potentially involved with more clients in a week than the LMC will
care for in a year.
It does not appear to be the intention for Amiria to use her knowing about colleagues’
practice to undermine them; rather she is revealing her ‘need to know’ in relation to her
desire to feel assured of safe practice for mothers and babies whilst she is in charge of
her shift. Her ‘techne’ is the knowing of ‘what is’; the ‘phronesis’ of these situations is
having the wisdom to manage the situations so there is a safe outcome for everyone – the
mother, the baby, the midwife, the coordinator and the organization.
Jane explains it is not just the clinical skill base of midwives that has to be taken into
account; it is also how midwives manage under stress which in turn impacts on her in her
coordinator’s role:
As a coordinator, the skill mix I have to work with can be a huge stress on how
the shift goes because I know that this person can’t do that or that one’s gonna
crack under that sort of pressure, or I know that there’s three middle-ish
midwives, but they’re all really good and they think and they’re not afraid to ask
and they will get on with it.
Stress is an unavoidable, integral part of the delivery suite setting. The response of a
practitioner to stress in delivery suite will be unique to that person. Jane has no choice
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