Laura Mercer

Topic

Narrative Inquiry into Experiences of Professional Identity-Making in Canadian Registered Midwives Who Have Also Worked as Maternal-Child Nurses

School of Nursing

Date & location

• Thursday, September 4, 2025
• 9:00 A.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Vera Caine, School of Nursing, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Evelyn Asamoah Ampofo, Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of Ghana (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Danielle Macdonald, School of Nursing, Queen’s University

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Tuna Onur, Department of Civil Engineering, UVic

Abstract

Maternal-child nurses and midwives play essential roles in Canadian maternity care. They work within distinct yet overlapping professions, providing care from conception through the postpartum period in community and institutional settings. While they are university-educated through separate direct-entry programs and licenced via independent national processes, some Canadian midwifery education programs have an advanced placement option for nurse applicants. To my knowledge, no studies have inquired into the experiences of practitioners with both Canadian nursing and midwifery education and practice. I conducted a narrative inquiry into the experiences of Canadian perinatal practitioners with dual backgrounds in nursing and midwifery as they contend professional identity-making shaped by multiple temporal, social, and geographic contexts. I engaged with four participants in three to four 40-90-minute-long conversations over three to four months. Conversations were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim to which I added field notes and personal reflections. I drew on the transcriptions and observations to create a personalized narrative account for each participant to represent their experiences and my related wonderings. I met with each participant twice more to negotiate the narrative account. With guidance from my supervisors, I analyzed the accounts for resonant threads. Two threads were prominent: professional identity as a fluid, continually negotiated experience, and identity-making is shaped by historical and social tensions. Rather than aiming to generalize, this inquiry draws on the depth and detail of personal stories unfolding in a relational space of inquiry to illuminate the richness of lived experiences. Findings invite new ways of understanding the identity-making of dual practitioners and have the potential to inform nursing and midwifery education and practice-based supports. The study raises new questions for further research on contextual identity-making and the influences of power across perinatal education and care domains.