Territoriality among health care workers, opinions of nurses and doctors toward midwives

grantor: University of TorontoThis study examines the opinions of doctors and nurses regarding the newly legalized profession of midwifery in Ontario. My study is based on conflict theory which examines the power differences in society. My thesis is that the move to legalize midwifery as an autonomous profession, independent of the two other professions of medicine and nursing has engendered and continues to engender resistance from doctors and nurses. The legalization of midwifery in Ontario in 1993 was the result of the concerted effort of many women over approximately 20 years to create an independent and autonomous profession for the management of childbirth. Although the practice of midwifery has existed throughout history and was initially the role of older experienced women, in recent centuries it has come under the control of the medical profession. Both gender and professional forces have together conspired to wrest control of the childbearing from women, and in so doing has medicalized it into an activity that must occur only in hospitals, and almost without exception, be interrupted by some form of medical intervention. Interviews with key individuals involved in the movement to legalize midwifery and a survey of doctors and nurses in Metro Toronto confirm the continued existence of ambivalence, resistance and even hostility to the 'new' profession. This continued opposition appears to be based on the 'disease theory' of the management of pregnancy and childbirth, loss of professional control, loss of territorial control and feared loss of income and job-security.Ed.D