WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

Protection of Participants
Each participant was given information in the Participant Information Sheet regarding
availability of counseling via the Auckland University of Technology’s Student Health
Centre, however there was no indication at interview or thereafter that this was required
by any of the participants.
The midwives fulfilled the requirements to be part of this study in their positions as
midwives with extensive midwifery experience who were working in coordinator and
charge midwife positions. They were each experienced practitioners with pseudonym
names assigned by me as Sally, Alice, Amiria, Jane and Irene.
Interviews
As the interviewer, I was tasked with listening to personal life experiences within a
framework of conversation where I needed to be disciplined and focused on the demands
of a hermeneutic phenomenological study. Van Manen (1990) identifies two purposes of
this interview which are exploring experiential material which becomes the resource with
which to develop “a richer and deeper understanding of a human phenomenon” and
utilizing the interview as a means of establishing a conversational relationship with the
interviewee in order to gain meaning from an experience (p.66). So, I needed to
encourage the telling of stories and experiences which came to light for interviewees, and
at the same time, in the background, there was a constant challenge of trying to maintain
a relaxed atmosphere, asking the right questions, allowing for silences and trying to
explore experiences to gain greater depth and understanding.
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