Degrees in integrated children's nursing and midwifery are being offered for the first time this year and are already attracting interest from prospective students, writes Áine Kerr
Innovative new nursing courses that provide for direct-entry into children's nursing and midwifery for the first time are sparking interest among prospective students.
The new integrated children's and general nursing degree and the four-year midwifery degree will create clearer, shorter and more direct career paths to both professions.
The dual nursing qualification and the midwifery course are expected to prove immensely popular, according to the Irish Nurses Organisation and the respective universities and colleges.
High demand, however, will have the accompanying effect of increasing the points necessary for entry to the courses.
This year is the first time that a qualification as a children's nurse and midwife can be obtained by direct entry and through a university.
The children's and general nursing degree, which enables the graduate to perform as both a registered children's nurse (RCN) and registered general nurse (RGN), is being offered in Dublin City University (DCU), University College Cork (UCC), University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College this year.
On this year's CAO application form, DCU's school of nursing is offering the degree, pending accreditation in association with Temple Street Hospital and the Mater Hospital.
Thirty places are available in DCU alone, with more than 110 places on offer across the four colleges. The degree takes four-and-a-half years to complete.
Some 120 students are expected to enrol in the course in DCU between 2006 and 2010, according to Rufina Morgan, director of undergraduate studies in the school of nursing.
Previously, general nurses hoping to work as a children's nurse had to first undertake a nursing diploma, gain work experience and then undertake a higher diploma.
In most instances, this took a minimum of five-and-a-half years, so graduates of the new programme will be saving at least one year's study, according to Carol Barron, who is overseeing the curriculum content for the course.
Also new to the university nursing sector is the introduction of an undergraduate midwifery degree programme, which comes as a result of the Report of the Commission on Nursing in 1998.
The four-year registered midwifery course leading to a BSc is being offered in UCC, Dundalk Institute of Technology, UCD, NUI Galway, University of Limerick and Trinity College.
Already, there are an estimated 23 applications for each of the 140 places available nationwide.
Margaret Carroll, director of the midwifery programme in Trinity College, has welcomed the new degree as a deserved recognition of midwifery as a profession different and distinct to that of nursing.
"Up to this, you had to train as a general registered nurse and then undertake a two-year programme to become a midwife through the hospitals," says Carroll.
"It was always preferred that you would have at least a year's experience as a nurse before applying, but it has become a little bit more difficult to recruit people to the programme in recent years," she adds.
Subsequently, nurses with three or six months' experience were being accepted onto the two-year full-time midwifery course recognised by a university and operated through a maternity hospital.
Effectively, it took over six years to qualify as a midwife.
"This new degree is important for the profession. It is important to develop a philosophy of midwifery from the beginning as opposed to someone coming from a nursing philosophy and having to shift their thinking," Carroll says.
She summarises that while nursing is based on a philosophy of caring for the sick, midwifery is based solely on a "life event".
For nurses and healthcare professionals with at least two years of practice experience, a new graduate diploma/MSc in nursing practice/healthcare practice is also available in DCU.
The new programme boasts two exit points, in which a student can graduate after 18 months with a graduate diploma or after two years with an MSc.
Dr Jean Clarke, director of postgraduate studies, contends that this programme is completely work-based.
"It will ensure that all learning is deeply rooted in the reality of the day to-day - what has been called as the 'messiness of the situation'.
"This is important to make sure that working solutions to problems can be found," says Dr Clarke.
Students applying to the Central Application Office (CAO) can change their applications up and until July 1st.