Sunday, October 26, 2008

Reflection, philosophy, midwifery and Wordle

I love Wordle but have been racking my brain to think how I could use it. Rodd Lucifer has kindly produced some suggestions on his blog "The Clever Sheep".

Wordle and comments
Rodd's second suggestion was to paste an online discussion into Wordle to see what the themes are. So, here are the themes from a couple of online discussions I have been having with midwives about reflection and philosophy of practice.


The words that stand out to me are believe, feel, time, work, women, professional, care and think. The biggest surprise to me is there is no mention of 'partnership'. Yet, that is seen to be the core tenant of midwifery practice in New Zealand.

What words would you have expected to have seen there, if you are a midwife? What about your philosophy of living or working if you're not a midwife - what are key words for you?

7 comments:

Joy Johnston said...

What an amazing tool the Wordle toy is for reflecting on what we write. I copied the url of my blog into the wordle page, and now need to look at it carefully to see what words are there, and which are not. Thanks Sarah for the link.
Joy Johnston http://villagemidwife.blogspot.com/

Joy Johnston said...

What an amazing tool the Wordle toy is for reflecting on what we write. I copied the url of my blog into the wordle page, and now need to look at it carefully to see what words are there, and which are not. Thanks Sarah for the link.
Joy Johnston http://villagemidwife.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Absolutely gorgeous. I love that believe is prominent. Or is it just my eyes that are drawn to it?
Anyway VERY interesting. Very nice. I want to print it out and put it on the front of my doula binder... as I'm typing this, I see wish, support sure role want wonderful...
ahhhhh nice.

Sarah Stewart said...

Thanks hbacmam & Joy for your comments. Wordle is a great toy to play with.

The other word that stands out to me, although it is not the largest one, is health. That is quite a theme for me personally as a midwife - physical, emotional and spiritual health. A huge issue for us as midwives as we cope with a number of stresses and strains on our physical and mental health. And I wonder how much attention we pay to the implications of menopause and aging on our midwifery work force. It is very important that we start discussing these issues as our average age is between 45 and 50.

Anonymous said...

I find your comment quite interesting about the health of the midwives. Right now in our Province, we are at a critical point. NOT ENOUGH midwives and the stress is unbelievable. Hopefully now that the PLEA's are well under way... or done? we will have ten new shining faces join the ranks! begs and pleads that they all made it thought okay!
Just another thought to 'no.. this midwifery thing isn't a good idea'. I wouldn't get to practice until I was in my mid forties IF I were lucky enough to even get in to a training program!

starpath said...

Thankyou for this wordle. "Care" and "women" are clearly very important but I was looking for the word 'trust'. Women's trust in themselves and their ability to birth, their trust in the midwife, their trust in the supporting systems. "Believe" might go some way but it does not have all of the implications that "trust" does. The discussion word source you used did not include this word but perhaps there are other important words that could be added?

Sarah Stewart said...

Interesting point, Starpath. In view of the fact that these words came from midwives, I wonder if we take it for granted that women will trust us because of who and what we are - maybe that is why it wasn't included in the midiwves' discussions. Having said that, as a midwife I have met many women who do not truly trust themselves or their bodies to do what has to be done. Thanks for the comment.