VPRS 17588 Midwifery Student Clinical Experience Record Book

Administrative History on Nursing Education:In circa 1859, Melbourne-Lying-In Hospital and Infirmary for Diseases of Women and Children (now The Royal Women's Hospital) commenced training in midwifery nursing. The Hospital established a formal three months certificate course in 1862 and a Gynaecology course in 1888. Up until 1993, these two training schemes were the platform of the nursing education programme; throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, midwifery and gynaecology training was extended, shortened, and re-shaped, to cope with the hospital's exigencies and changing government regulations.The Women's became a centre for general nursing training during the 1940s and 1950s. This course had an emphasis in gynaecological nursing, but also included an external placement with another hospital, for the students to extend their training and experience in other areas of nursing.A range of other training courses were conducted or facilitated by the hospital, responding to advancements in medical technology. These included: Neonatal Paediatrics; Cytotoxic Drug Therapy; Family Planning etc.The Kathleen Syme Education Centre at The Royal Women's Hospital school closed in 1993 when the nursing courses in Midwifery, Gynaecology and Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing became university postgraduate qualifications rather than hospital based courses.Series Description:This series comprises the Midwifery Student Clinical Experience Record Books, 1912 to 1975. These volumes recorded the number of weeks each pupil midwife worked in the different hospital wards, with a stroke or number. The volumes which used the system of strokes (1940s onwards) were colloquially known as the Stroke Books. The weeks each student midwife spent on night duty were marked in red strokes as distinct from the blue or black ones for day shifts.The Clinical Experience Record Books only relate to postgraduate nurses who had already completed their General Training. The books do not record patient information; their primary purpose was to ensure the pupil midwives achieved the required quota of days for the on ward experience component of their course.The student information is compiled in a double page column format. As only one of the Midwifery Clinical Experience Record Books is a commercially produced register, the column headings and contents differ between each book. In all the volumes the columns detail: student name; date of entry; ward number / acronym and number of weeks worked; previous training school.Other information recorded in the books includes: date of course completion; hospital training number; date passed state and the hospital's internal exams; remarks on sick leave taken, contact details, withdrawal from course etc.The Midwifery Student Clinical Experience Record Books provide the researcher with evidentiary information on the changing midwifery course, its clinical and academic components (at one stage included cooking), and the types of wards to which students were deployed for their training.