The nurse-midwifery is a 2- year master degree program with specialization in midwifery. Graduates are certified nurse-midwives who are responsible and accountable as primary health care providers to women throughout their life cycle and newborns. They are expected to practice within a health care system that provides for consultation, collaboration or referral as indicated by the client’s needs.
The program is combining both advanced nursing sciences and nurse-midwifery core competencies as developed by the American College of Midwifery Education (ACME, 2012). It provides advanced preparation in research, theory and scientific basis for clinical judgment in nursing practice as well as basic requisites for nurse-midwifery. Therefore, it incorporates master level courses in scientific inquiry and professional development in addition to core courses of theory and practice related to nurse-midwifery. Graduates are expected to have a knowledge base for midwifery practice, and transfer research findings to practice.
Students must complete 54 credit hours to be awarded the master in nurse-midwifery. This includes course work as well as clinical rotation work with a preceptor in a variety of subspecialty-related settings and submission of master thesis. A total of approximately 328 hours of didactic instructions, and an average of 875 hours of supervised clinical practice and additional 180 hours master level courses must be fulfilled. The program culminates in a master thesis.