Just thought I'd pop my 2c worth in.

I have just completed my Graduate Diploma and will register as a midwife shortly. I went the RN route.

If you go the BMid route, you are limited in where you will be able to work. Most rural and regional hospitals will not employ a midwife who is not an RN. Many larger hospitals also prefer RN/RMs as maternity wards often cater for gynaecology and surgical patients as well. It's a sad fact of our health system. BMid also carries a high entrace rank, in NSW it is well over 90, as the courses are VERY popular. Nursing can be entered for as low as 60. Grad Dips are also done via distance education, while you work in a maternity unit. You gain far more practical experience in a Grad Dip - you need 1500 hours, while a BMid need only 700 hours over the entire 3 years! I don't understand this at all, but that's what the Board states. Beware though, as of 2014, postgraduate training for RN's goes out to 18 months rather than the 12 months it is at present. Gotta love our new board. If I had the choice, I'd do the double degree - more places are starting to offer this, and I'd keep an eye on Charles Sturt as they are excellent at distance ed and are bringing this out shortly. UNE also do RN by correspondence which you could follow with CSU grad dip.

The other thing I don't like about the BMid, is that the students do very little with sick babies. I needed to do 200 hours in a special care nursery or NICU, whereas the BMids in the same place do only 32 hours. That's it. I'm not sure if it's the same at all unis, but that's pretty poor! They also pretty much ignore the fact that women have co-morbidities these days. It's a wonderful ideal to train midwives for "normal" but it is just that - an ideal. With today's obstetric led care, intervention and complexity become commonplace.

Oh dear, ranting again! Ha ha I tend to do that. LOL.