How to Find a Preceptor

Finding a preceptor can be nearly impossible

Depending on where you live it could be really easy to find a preceptor or really hard to find one. You might even have to relocate to begin your apprenticeship.

Here, in DFW there is an abundance of midwives ready to take on students but that doesn’t mean it is always easy to land an apprenticeship. Students come from all over the US to apprentice here so preceptors can have a list of 5 or 6 students in waiting when you contact them. This also means that some preceptors will not have an open spot for a new student for 6 months to 4 years!

Many students will tell you that it can be difficult to find a preceptor to train you.

It took me 6 months to find a preceptor with an opening but only a couple of weeks for a friend of mine who asked at the right time and a year for another friend. Do not let that freak you out or give up on your dream of becoming a midwife. It just means that you will have to put in the time and effort to finding the preceptor for you. Much of midwifery is time and effort so it will be good practice.

Ways to find a preceptor:

1. Ask your school for their list of approved preceptors. You can email or call the preceptors on the list to let them know you are a student looking for a preceptor.
2. Find your state midwife association such as The Association of Texas Midwives and ask if they have a list of midwives in your area if they do not have a list provided on their website.
3. Find your local midwives association such as North Texas Midwives Association and ask if they have a list of midwives in your area if they do not have a list provided on their website.
4. Join your state and local midwives association. If they have local meetings attend them even before you enter an apprenticeship. The best thing you can do is go to these meetings and meet midwives so they know who you are. Even if they do not have an open apprentice spot their partner or midwife friend might!
5. Find out if there is a local student midwives meeting and attend them. I’ve seen students get apprenticeships fast from a student recommending their friend to their preceptor.
6. Google! Use your ability to research what midwives are in your area and contact them.
7. If you are considered a PEP student, you can also ask NARM if your prospective midwife is an approved preceptor.

I found a few prospective preceptors, what now?

Now you call and email them. When I was first looking for a preceptor I looked at the approved preceptors for my school in my local area and drafted up an email to send out to the ones closet to me. All of those midwives ended up being full. So then I sent out the same email to midwives a little bit further and found one that would sit down with me.

With my first round of emails I just said that I was a new student looking for a preceptor and that I would like to meet with them. Looking back, that was horrible! They knew nothing of me so it was easy to shrug me off. With my email that landed me a preceptor I followed my prompt below.

What do I say in my email or phone call?

Start with who you are. I prefer to email first because I feel like I can give more information about myself. If they do not respond immediately I call 3 days to a week later so they can get a feel for my personality over the phone.

This is basically giving the midwife a resume on you. If you have a real resume, attach that too!

Tell them what experience you have. Were you a nurse for 10 years? Have you done doula work? Maybe you’re a childbirth educator or a lactation consultant. Even if you have no experience in the birth community give them applicable traits that you do have. If you work as a receptionist tell them that you are organized and good with people. If you work at McDonald’s tell them that you are great with clients and know how to follow instruction.

Let them know what you’re good at. If you’re a good writer, have good communication skills, etc.

Tell them why you want to be a midwife and why you want to work with that midwife specifically. If I knew who they were (because I was a doula and worked with a few of these midwives before going through midwifery school) I gave them a personalized answer. If I did not know them already I said that I would love to learn from them and that their knowledge in midwifery was valuable to me.

I ended the email with any other important information I thought it needed and my availability to meet with them for an in person interview.

Then I signed it with my first and last name and my phone number.

That’s it. Do not include your whole life story, you will get to that at the interview and you do not want your email so long that they do not read it.

Be confident in yourself and be persistent until you have an interview or you are told no.

Midwives get busy and interviewing a student can get shoved very far back on their to-do list.

Once you have a time set for your in person, skype or phone interview you need a list of questions to ask your prospective preceptor. Just because a preceptor said yes to interviewing with you does not mean that you have to like them or enter an apprenticeship with them. You might have to go through a couple interviews before you find our fit, and that’s okay! You’ve got this!

What if a midwife I really like is not a preceptor?

If she likes you too and you both agree you should be her student she can apply to be a NARM preceptor here or different schools like mine require that they apply with the school before they can sign off on any of your forms. A few of the midwives I’ve apprenticed under were not preceptors for my school until they applied specifically for me to study under them. It will take time to be approved, usually a week to a month. Just be aware that any clinical and birth work you do with that midwife will not count towards your graduating numbers until they are approved. Once you know that, it is easy to get everything in line.

What else would you include in your email to a prospective preceptor? Let me know in the comments below.