Student Placements at Countryside Midwives
Many of our midwives are preceptors with the MEP (Midwifery Education Program), and the IMPP (International Midwifery Pre-Registration Program).
Countryside Midwifery Services is a teaching practice affiliated with Toronto Metropolitan and McMaster universities. We are located in Southwest Ontario. We welcome students from the MEP, and inter-professional programs and really enjoy having students join our practice! In the past, we have also been able to support community placement opportunities for nursing students, nurse practitioners, obstetrical students, and those seeking international placements. If you are interested in learning more about a placement at Countryside, please feel free to contact us! We'd love to meet you and see if we are able to give you a unique learning experience.
Here are a few quick facts that you may wish to know about our practice if you are considering requesting a placement in our region:
Our Milverton clinic is located at 50 William St. W, Milverton ON and our Harriston clinic is located at 16 John St. N, Harriston ON, and our Mount Forest Clinic is located in the Claire Stewart Medical Center by appointment only.
Our catchment area is quite large and spans from Ayton in the North, to Stratford in the South, and Wingham in the West, to rural Elmira in the East. The midwives from each clinic usually take clients in the North/South half of the catchment area that is closest to their clinic site. We prefer students to live within the catchment area, in the half associated with the clinic they work out of. This is important due to the many fast home births we attend, in order to get your birth numbers!
We hold privileges at Groves Memorial Hospital, Listowel Memorial Hospital, and Stratford General Hospital
Students at Countryside can anticipate a fairly high homebirth rate, as we regularly have over 50% of our births at home or in our clinic sites. The other 50% is divided by our hospital sites depending on level of care required.
Our scope of practice does not include primary care for induction or augmentation, but we do manage epidurals without a transfer of care. We use a variety of alternative methods to help clients avoid unwanted interventions and have quite a few waterbirths as well. Your full bag of tricks for physiologic births is appreciated here!
We normally have at least one New Registrant at any time, and there is often a student at each clinic.
Some midwives practice in a shared call model, and some in primary call. Students may be placed with a team of 1, 2 or 3 midwives.
We are a large rural community and many of our clients are involved with farming or agriculture. We care for Amish and Mennonite horse and buggy populations, as well as those who drive; Old Colony Mennonite clients, farming communities, a growing community of families who are new to Canada and/or hold refugee status, and many multiparous clients. We use translators occasionally, and do a lot of home visits. We enjoy snowy winters, roadside produce options in the warm weather, lots of free parking and access to larger cities within a 20-30 min drive.
We are a teaching practice because we have a strong commitment to the growth of midwifery in Ontario and Canada. We pride ourselves on including, supporting and mentoring students and work closely with the MEP to offer quality placements with active learning opportunities, while honoring student workload, time off and study time in accord with MEP policies as well as student needs. We believe clinical learning is an exciting aspect of midwifery education and hope to introduce you to a strong model of informed choice, continuity of care, and choice of birthplace.
We want to note that while students are not required or expected to disclose a disability, we do have midwives on staff with disabilities and we are proud of the work we have been able to do to ensure an increase in equitable accommodations as needed. Students with disabilities at Countryside could expect accommodations as needed to ensure your placement is successful! We would encourage you to look at our clinic accessibility page for more information on our physical space.
We hope to welcome students to Countryside who are keen to learn, bring creativity to problem solving, and work closely with clients for personalized decision making throughout their care.
If you have a confirmed MEP or IMPP placement at Countryside, you will be in contact with your preceptor soon. To access the student learning section of our Drive, including community information and maps, orientation package, and clinical resources, please contact our administrators for login info.