My Experience: Advanced Midwifery Practice at Anglia Ruskin University

I've officially got my final transcript through and I will be graduating from my Advanced Midwifery Practice Masters at Anglia Ruskin University. I've completed the degree part-time over 2 years, as a distance learner, whilst working almost full-time for the duration. I did a summary after the first year, but I also wanted to share my thoughts after the second year. 

I've absolutely loved being a distance learner again. I think working from home is defintely my preference and if I had a career that would allow me to work from home full time, that would be ideal. Of course, with my chosen profession, that's not really possible but maybe towards the end, nearing retirement! I love being able to flexibly work, in my own space, around my own time and scheduled plans. I love being able to do activities midday and then work later into the evenings when I feel the most awake. I also love being able to take my break and eat when needed, rather than relying on someone else to decide. 


The most frustrating part of this, was that I had specifically requested flexible working from my NHS contract and as the first 5 modules were taught on a Wednesday I requested to have Wednesday's off. This worked really well for the first few months, and then after that I seemed to get rostered on to work every Wednesday, either the day shift or night before or after. This was frustrating because whilst the taught content was always recorded, it was much more valuable to participate live and get involved in discussions. I had broached this with management multiple times but nothing ever seemed to changed. I think this really impacted upon my experience and likewise, the part-time student, full-time midwife made for difficult work-life balance at times. It defintely takes skill to balance the workload, and I don't know how people with more commitments than myself do it, especially those with children. 


All the staff at the university have been lovely to work with and communicate with. My personal tutor has had minimal contact, but when needed, she's also responded promptly and been really helpful. The module leads are knowledgeable and clearly very passionate about their topics. Going from my previous university experience, I was also incredibly impressed with the online content available, the advanced notices of the information and the availability of this. Nothing was last minute and it was all so well organised! 


I have written individual posts about each module in detail, which I collectively shared last week, but I thought I would summarise each module here as well, with what I remember from each, now I've had a longer time to reflect. 


The first module Promoting Normal Childbirth was a bit of a shock to the system. Of course, starting the Master's, I quickly realised it was going to be a very different experience to the undergraduate Midwifery teaching and much more independently led and student focussed, which is understandable given the unique experience options each student can select. The taught content itself though was wonderful and it was so nice to have interesting in depth discussions with like-minded individuals, hearing similar experiences across not only the country, but international perspectives as well. I was very disappointed with my first result of 58%. It is by far the lowest I have ever received and I thought I deserved higher, but quickly realised that the Level 7 writing required much more exploration. I also think that my mental health was at it's lowest here and so I was really struggling and disappointed in the work I submitted as well. 


Next was the Facilitating Complex Childbirth module. I absolutely loved this module and I think the content was actually my favourite from the degree. With midwifery ever-changing and caring for more and more complicated medical needs, I strongly feel undergraduate midwifery education needs to change to better prepare students for the reality of current practice. It covered so many topics that I'd never had formal teaching on and would have loved it before qualifying. The prepared content gave plenty of information to read, explore and develop knowledge on the topics, which were consolidated during the shorter session teachings. The assessment was a very strange experience but one that to me, was quite enjoyable. We had to prepare and present a pre-recorded presentation on a chosen complexity. I chose Obstetric Cholestasis and it was so interesting to learn more about a condition that I rarely experience, especially as my sister had had it just a couple of years before. I got 66% which felt like a big improvement. 


For my optional module, I did originally want to do a prescribing course but it would involve a lot of work attendance, without getting paid, so I ultimately decided on the Professional Midwifery Advocate (PMA) course which was something else I wanted to accomplish in the near future, which worked out well. I would say this was the one module I didn't love the module lead in. I felt like she very much biased herself to those colleagues who were already in roles which had the skills, such as lecturers or practice development midwives, so it made it hard to be involved in discussions, when I didn't have those experiences. The assessments were split into two parts, with the first being an essay. For that, I got 55% which was really disappointing. I felt like I deserved a lot higher, especially because the feedback seemed limited in what I could improve on. I requested the essay be remarked but apparently it was "too late" which was very confusing to me. I got an extension of 2 or 3 months for the second part of the assessment, a booklet, because I had to attend a lot of appointments, meetings and extra things in my own time, in order to evidence the skills that I achieved relating to the PMA competencies. I filled this in so thoroughly and had great support from one of the full-time PMAs at my trust in hopes to try and increase my grade, only to find that it was a "pass" or "fail" grading. 


The Research Methodology module was an interesting one. It was a good starting point before the Major Project following, however I found it quite repetitive and not very useful to me. Perhaps because I have done my undergraduate degree relatively recently, or because I've also had experience with research before, but I felt it was just recapping information that I already learnt and know. It was also a little difficult because I was really focussing on my PMA booklet during the teaching so that was a bit of a distraction. My mental health at this point really started to improve in leaps and bounds and when I got my result back, I was really happy with 68%! I think I definitely benefitted from the formative assessment, which we were then able to transfer into the summative and build upon the feedback received. 


Finally, the Major Project was the big module and worth double credits. The teaching was mainly advice and guidance based on expectations for the submission. There was a few scheduled classes but this was mostly a student-led project, with discussions during the later months to ask questions and see where everyone was up to. Honestly, the latter didn't always feel great because for the majority of them, I hadn't yet done anything, but nevertheless it was helpful to know where I should be...maybe... After working at every free moment I had for the last three months before submission, seeking support from my module lead and supervisor, I received my highest grade throughout the duration of the degree 71%


Overall, I think you can tell that I actually really enjoyed the postgraduate degree, and I have very little faults or complaints to raise with the university itself. My aim when starting was to finish with a distinction and unfortunately, I've just missed that goal (70%), which is a huge disappointment to me and of myself. However, given how low I've been at times during the last two years and the sacrifices I've made to get here, I'm so proud I finished and didn't quit. 

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