Following the lead of Quebec and Ontario, British Columbia has become the third Canadian province to offer a degree program in midwifery. The 4-year program, which begins this fall in the University of British Columbia's Department of Family Practice, will admit only 10 students annually because of a shortage of training sites. About 400 people have already expressed interest in applying.
Dr. Heidi Oetter, president of the British Columbia Medical Association, welcomes the new course. “Midwives are here to stay,” she says, “and a 4-year program is a good start.” However, she objects to the inclusion of home birthing in the curriculum because “home births are still very much a problem for us.”
The course director, Elaine Carty, says the degree program “secures the place of the profession.” Carty, a professor in the UBC school of nursing, hopes some graduates will practise with overworked rural family doctors. However, Oetter is skeptical. She says that new midwives — like their medical school counterparts — will also be “globally sought-after commodities” who may move elsewhere. She predicts that those who do remain in BC will stay in the Lower Mainland, like members of other health professions. Oetter is not sure how family doctors will respond to having midwives in their midst, although she points out that care by a midwife is more expensive than physician care and “that is a bone of contention among family doctors.” — Heather Kent, Vancouver