IOWA CITY, Iowa — Students preparing to make the leap to college have always had plenty of options to choose from when deciding what they want to study, and a new program from the University of Iowa is offering a new path for aspiring health professionals.
The university welcomed its first class of students in their new Nurse-Midwifery Education Program (NMEP) in the fall 2023 semester. According to university officials, nearly 30% of babies born in rural hospitals in the U.S. are delivered by midwives, and the new program is intended to help address a lack of that sort of health care in Iowa.
"Muscatine's labor unit and Washington's labor unit closed in the past few years, and it's a good model, it's called a spoke-and-hub model where we can go to those communities and they can get their outpatient, prenatal care, gyno care," said Lastascia Coleman, a certified nurse-midwife who serves as an assistant professor in the new program.
Applications to join the program next year open on Dec. 15.
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