R.J.
To get your RN... in most places... is 5 years of those 8 years.
2 years of prereqs.
1 lag year (usually filled with phelbotomy, or emt, or labwork, or volunteering, or internships -paid or unpaid-, or unit secretary, or, or, or... insert med field work while you wait to pick up into nursing school)
2 years of nursing school.
Yes. It's a long time. Because you have people's lives in your hands. Where mistakes COST lives. And in prenatal/perinatal/etc... TWO lives (mom and baby's).
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I can't speak for your area, or your experiences... What I can say is that here:
In our area:
- CNMs often partner up with OBs. The office I went through had 4 or 5 CNMs and 4 or 5 OBs. (Heck. I was super high risk and still had the CNM team as my primary.)
- Midwives, doulas, and coaches (good ones) are ALWAYS linked with emergency medical support and have privileges through local hospitals (for when home births go wrong... births go wrong... period. No matter where they're at. Most are fine. For the ones that aren't, rapid medical response saves lives)
- In school, people are taught about and trained in different options (from everything from surgical intervention to perineal massage)... and in offices patients are presented with those options. ((In all cases? Of course not. In good places? Absolutely. I don't know a single mother, locally, who was not educated by the OB's office as to different options available to them.))
- VBACs are super common
- Natural births, CNM or OB are super common
Maybe it's because I live right next to a med school... but the vast majority of things you 'want' are TAUGHT in the medschool and nursing schools. ALONG with all the stuff you don't like.
Willful ignorance is a very dangerous thing.
Just because you don't like or want something doesn't mean that you just ignore it. Or worse, rail against it.
Csections can be optional, or they can save lives.
Prenatal care can be frosting (easy pregnancy, normal fetus, normal gestation, healthy mom)... or can be life saving.
You've already had some up close and personal experience with willful ignorance. Yes. It is a LONG educational path before a person is ready to be responsible for the lives of other people. For good reason. Yes. You'll be 40. With 25+ years in which to practice afterwards. And you won't be a danger to every new mom around you, because you won't be ignorantly putting their and their baby's lives at risk, because you don't know what you're talking about... because you don't want to learn about it.
I don't like a lot of stuff. Abreidment of burns on children has to be about one of the lowest on my list. And yet... without scraping off their burned flesh... they die. We OFTEN have to both learn and do things we don't like... for good outcomes. If you think you're capable of learning and doing things you don't like... then take a deep breath... and get started.