Overview

Breathe new life into your career with midwifery

If you are a Registered Nurse currently registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and wish to pursue a career in midwifery, this two-year full-time or part-time equivalent course will open up a whole world of exciting new opportunities for you. Through a combination of theory and clinical experience, you will receive broad exposure to the philosophy and midwifery practice of being ‘with woman’, using health promotion strategies and contemporary evidence-based practice within a primary health care approach.  

You will experience a wide variety of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) opportunities, including a minimum of 1046 practice hours across the two years. You will provide continuity of midwife care to 12 women across their journey through pregnancy, labour, birth and the postnatal period. From a theoretical perspective, you will learn midwifery-specific language, and become immersed in midwifery philosophy, social and ethical principles, and the law, developing significant research abilities, clinical reasoning, and critical thinking skills which will be applied to working with women and their families. You will graduate as a competent midwife, prepared to practice within the full scope of midwifery.

Study a Master of Midwifery Practice at UC and you will:

• participate in WIL placements, including rostered and on-call shifts
• learn to contribute to the development of services, policies, and research into maternity care now and as a future leader
• work at individual, family and community levels to facilitate all women’s rights to, and responsibilities in, active participation in their maternity care
• contribute to new understandings of midwifery and other work by participating in research activities
• experience a variety of workplace settings, including birth centres, regional and rural maternity units, and tertiary hospitals.

Work Integrated Learning

With a minimum of 1046 practice hours across the two years of this course, UC invests significantly in the WIL route compared with other universities. From the moment you begin your studies, you will engage in clinical practice experience across a range of Canberra maternity settings, such as Calvary Public Hospital, Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, and Queanbeyan District Hospital. You will support 12 women in continuity relationships during the course and will graduate job-ready, with an in-demand qualification from an innovative university.

As part of the UC midwifery student community, you will be encouraged to join the University of Canberra Midwifery Society, which has student engagement as a primary focus.

Please note: throughout your degree, you will be working in continuity with women and will be required to attend their regular antenatal and postnatal visits, and be on call for the woman’s labour and birth. The nature of continuity work means that you will need flexibility in both your personal and professional life and be able to adjust your commitments accordingly.

Career opportunities

Upon completion of the Master of Midwifery Practice, you’ll be eligible to register as a midwife in Australia across a variety of settings, including rural and remote areas, hospitals, birth centres, communities and in women’s homes.

Course-specific information

To apply for this degree, you must have successfully completed a Bachelor of Nursing degree and be eligible for registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (APHRA).

There are non-standard English language requirements for this course. To be eligible you must have an academic IELTS of 7.0 overall.

Professional accreditation with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC) is being pursued for this course.

Prior to undertaking any clinical experience, you must:

• provide your immunisation history
• apply for a national police check
• apply for Working with Vulnerable People registration
• undertake a tuberculosis (TB) screening test
• sign any required NSW Health forms.

Professional accreditation

This course is accredited with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC). Graduating students will be eligible to apply for registration as a midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.