To work or not. That is the question.

I think it would be a really good experience to get L&D experience while doing your didactic. While in clinicals, I would not recommend working. Will these places hire an RN who doesn't have L&D experience?

Well, one place says 2 years L&D experience required, but they have 2 full-time nights and a PRN available. The other place has 2 full-time days, but they are in a neighboring state (45 minutes away) and I would have to apply for licensure there.

If I did try to work, would full-time classes be possible? I also have 4 kids at home, but I'm a good multi-tasker.

It is very difficult to give school full attention when you are learning a new job. It takes 1-2 years to become comfortable in L&D. The experience is valuable. It isn't necessary to have the experience to get into grad school to be a midwife. However, hop on to the ACNM's website www.midwife.org and look at the job postings. Most jobs want 2 yrs experience as a full-scope midwife but many will consider new grads with strong L&D experience.

Only you know if you can handle a job, 4 kids, and grad school. However, if you are in grad school, plan to spend 40-80 hours a week on class and clinical rotations if you go full-time.

Well....PA's dont usually have prior experience and they write all sorts of orders

However....I think you should work as much as you can until school or sanity starts to suffer. I'm bearing down on the end of my FNP program and I quit my night ICU gig about 40 days ago now. It just got to be too much, and when balancing things out the payoff for my NP Cert is much more important than the hourly pay I was getting. I knew there would come a time that it would be very hard or impossible to work so I prepared for it.

Signed: Eating top-ramen and buried in books

Well....PA's dont usually have prior experience and they write all sorts of orders

PAs also typically have about 3 times the number of clinical hours when they graduate, compared to NPs and CNMs.

thread hi-jacking ...my bad. Best not to get started on PA -NP thing. 😊

HOWEVER. the two year (total) education of a PA is very impressive. All nurses generally agree on that. 😁

back to working or not working while going to midwife school!

Here's what I did - my situation is different than yours, though.

I enrolled part-time in school and took a job in L&D part time.

Working while I'm in school is allowing me to pay tuition as I go (no student loan debt!). And working in L&D is allowing me to gain a lot of skills. It's paid training, really.

I will probably go to per diem at work when I get to clinicals.

Some people really want to get through as quickly as possible. I do think it's feasible to go to school full time and work part time at FNU.

I think L&D / OB nursing experience is pretty valuable to have for student nurse-midwives. I will always recommend it. Not always necessary - but very valuable experience.