Jill, Derick & the Kids: Moving On!!

[Cherrio]

Thank you so much Doodlebug for this post and all the others on this subject.

       I will say it again, I would not let Jill Dillard deliver a pizza let alone a baby. She is uneducated and ignorant. 

[floridamom]

Ok, I'll through in my two cents here about Jill....Sure, yeah, she's qualified to practice...like her siblings who have home made experience and credentials are professionals at doing anything. I remember reading from JILL HERSELF, that she was going to take a break from her "studies" and was shelfing the midwife thing. Anyone else remember that? So, with all that's been going on in her own life, marriage, pregnancy, baby born, missionary work, (and I use that term loosely), I highly doubt that she had the time in these few weeks to catch up on her already meager studies and experience to be qualified to be what she claims to be. Also, as a person who speaks two other languages besides English, I find it quite comical that she and Derick think they can speak Spanish to the local people in Central America. It takes a steady course of study, practice, reading and writing the language for some time; also I doubt even more that Jill can, has or will be able to learn medical terminology in English, let alone Spanish. Remember her uncomfortable use of the word "bat-chel-ors" degree? Certainly a combination of words that she had NEVER used before.

I ask Jill to show proof of her certification and to define exactly what she has done to earn this and what it really means that she can do; also where is it recognized and where is it NOT recognized and why. I'd also like to hear from the authorities that tested her and for them to justify how she got this certificate. Thanks, guys for letting me vent a bit here. You're all great.

[Julia]

Though, just because her first preceptor lost her license doesn't mean that the CPM exam crowd wouldn't let her attest to Jill's experience.  It was the state of Arkansas that took away her license, I suspect the CPM organization supported her and felt she'd been treated unfairly by the board of licensure, they're known for claiming conspiracy against CPM's whenever one gets censured. 

 

Woops. I'd been assuming that her former training midwife had retired (latecomer here). What happened?

Edited September 27, 2015 by Julia

[MonicaM]

I think they are really really going to regret signing any contract for more shows.  They still have their superfans, but a big part of the tide has turned and they are going to be so scrutinized by various media and former fans that they'll wish they really were in Tibet. 

I hope so!!!  They've fooled too much of the public for far too long. 

[Churchhoney]

I disagree that the clinical experience required to sit for the CPM exam is at all significant.

 

 

Well, notice that I said that, with it, I judge that she'd probably be competent to assist and learn from other non-medical midwives who have been working for many years. I completely agree that she wouldn't be qualified to do anything on her own or be the primary caregiver in any situation. Or to work around any kind of birth that can't be handled by a non-medical-trained midwife. I was arguing against the oft-made statement that what she has -- if she has this certificate -- is the exact same thing as a doula has. It's not. It's more than that. People keep saying that she could take the written test with no practical experience. And unless they lied or got others to lie for them -- and of course that's not out of the question -- she couldn't have.

 

THe other thing that I was trying to say is that, for Jill, it would have taken a significant amount of time to get that experience -- if she indeed has it.

[Sew Sumi]

Floridamom, I believe someone here said that the exam is taken online, so no examiners to be examined. 

 

Julia, IIRC, a baby was born with a known condition which escapes me. It was transferred to the hospital, but later died. I want to say that she apparently waited to long to pull the trigger on the transfer, or that there was something going on beforehand. I want to say it had to do with Strep B. FJ was on top of this, and I saw a couple of Vanessa's defensive FB posts after this came to light. I'm sure someone here can confirm and embellish with details that I lack. 

[jmt111]

Would be be required to carry any type of malpractice insurance.?

[Sew Sumi]

Do fundies sue, or do they believe that anything that goes wrong is God's will? I don't remember whether the mother of this baby sued Vanessa, but obviously the state didn't like the way she'd handled things. 

[Absolom]

Strep B, but the infant survived after she spent some weeks at Children's in Little Rock.  I think it was Children's, might have been UAMS.

 

Venessa made some comments about she was fighting for the mother's rights and standing up for her patient.  Seems to have had nearly disastrous consequences.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Absolom

[Sew Sumi]

I'm glad the baby survived! I'm not sure why I thought it didn't make it. 

 

Do lay midwives not test for this?

[CofCinci]

She's going to end up killing someone(s) because Jeebus.

She'll kill Brown babies "overseas".  They really don't care.

[Chicklet]

Maybe Jill will have twins with the next pregnancy and she can name them "Dunning" and "Kruger".

[Cherrio]

So, who would go to a "kinda" doctor?   A "kinda" nurse? 

 

I remember a poster a few days back when this new first surfaced saying, well maybe it will be good for her. She can practice on her missions.   Good for her !

 No, its not.   As Kay Corleone says to Michael......This all has to end!

                 Its not ok for Jill to have anything to do with delivering babies.   Why would anyone think its ok to sick her on the less fortunate in other countries?   Like they deserve less than?   They deserve the best just like everyone else.

                I agree, every move they make will be scrutinized and that is good because if its anything other than emptying a bedpan than she shouldn't be doing it.

     The days of The Duggar griftng and con are over.    ALL of you scumbags grab a toilet brush and be gone.

[duggarshow]

http://www.inquisitr.com/2451680/jill-duggar-midwife-certificate-called-a-counterfeit-by-doctor/

Busted.

 

The "doctor" who shares her personal opinion on Jill Dillard isn't even a doctor. "Dr. Amy Tuteur is no longer licensed as a physician.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine reports that her license expired in 2003."  and "Dr. Amy Tuteur seems to have some issues with homebirth and with women's activism about protecting their own bodies.  Have you read what she writes about episiotomy?  It almost sounds as if she thinks women should be grateful to have their perineums cut up!  Anyway, her information is full of inaccuracies and half-truths."

 

In addition to NOT having a license to practice medicine, she has lots of controversial opinions on a variety of medical issues. I'll take Jill's recent certification over this quack any day. You can read more about her here.

 

On a more personal note, only one of my four children was delivered by an MD and she very nearly cost him his life. My other three were healthy, happy, goofy, giddy babies delivered safely by a nurse midwife in a local hospital. She is actually godmother to one of my sons. 

Edited September 28, 2015 by duggarfan

[Absolom]

The state standard in Arkansas requires lay midwives also insure testing for Strep B and to refer positive patients to an appropriate physician for a prescription/treatment.  Perhaps the mother refused the IV?  The details on the patient wishes were very sketchy.  However, if the patient refused antibiotic, Venessa was supposed to refuse to deliver and insist the woman go to a hospital. or so it seems. 

[GeeGolly]

Birthing babies is serious. My first labor was looonngg! The pregnancy itself, under the care of a doctor, was normal and uneventful. The delivery was tough & traumatic. Forceps & suction was needed to get my son out. At that late stage in the delivery what would Jill do? Are midwives, lay or professional, trained to assist deliveries in that fashion? My son had also inhaled meconium & was jaundice. Jaundice doesn't show up right away, does the midwife do a follow up right away? My kids were also seen by their pediatrician in the hospital within a day of being born. Do midwives insist newborns be seen by an MD?

[Defrauder]

It occurred to me that Jill is like a mail order bride.  Derick seeks out JB as a prayer partner.?.   JB starts thinking - hmm Jill would make a nice wife for him, they both have missionary goals and it would be good material for the show.  It's a match!

[Defrauder]

Birthing babies is serious. My first labor was looonngg! The pregnancy itself, under the care of a doctor, was normal and uneventful. The delivery was tough & traumatic. Forceps & suction was needed to get my son out. At that late stage in the delivery what would Jill do? Are midwives, lay or professional, trained to assist deliveries in that fashion? My son had also inhaled meconium & was jaundice. Jaundice doesn't show up right away, does the midwife do a follow up right away? My kids were also seen by their pediatrician in the hospital within a day of being born. Do midwives insist newborns be seen by an MD?

Your labor sounds like mine!  Hours and hours and then they figure out my son's head was turned and they had to use the forceps.  I can't stand doctors but it could have been worse with a midwife who might not be able to get him out at all.  My son's APGAR was a 9, would have been a 10 but he was slightly blue from lack of oxygen.  Full term and everything else was fine.  I still hate doctors, I went through hell.

[doodlebug]

Would be be required to carry any type of malpractice insurance.?

Because CPM's don't work in hospitals, they're not required to carry any malpractice insurance and most wouldn't qualify for it anyway.  I don't know of any malpractice carriers who cover practitioners doing home births; not even docs or nurse midwives have coverage.  It's possible that some CPM's who work in licensed birthing centers could get coverage, but I'd be willing to bet that most do not.  The reason is this; if they don't have insurance, who is going to sue them?  Most CPM's are working part time and are not well to do.  They often barely make enough to cover expenses, ala Jill's preceptor, whose 'birthing center' was practically a shack.  If a patient wants to sue, she has to find a lawyer to take her case and most malpractice lawyers work on contingency.  That means they don't get paid unless they win the case and then, they get somewhere between a third and half of the proceeds.  So, suing a CPM with no insurance is never going to happen.  Look at Jill, she has an upper middle class lifestyle, but she doesn't own a home, they have a couple of cars, but nothing else of any value.  Maybe she's got some TLC money socked away someplace, but who knows for sure, and, if she does, it would probably take years and years to find it and get a cut if she lost a case.  No lawyer is going to take a case without knowing for certain that there is significant money available should they win.  Just because the parents didn't sue Vanessa doesn't mean they didn't have a case; it meant that, even if they wanted to sue, Vanessa had no way to pay if she lost so no lawyer would bother.

 

Do fundies sue, or do they believe that anything that goes wrong is God's will?

Well, fundie midwives certainly claim God's will when things go wrong, I've seen it happen multiple times.  I once had a patient who was very fundie and had her first child at home with a member of her church who was supposedly a CPM.  She labored at home for several difficult days.  It wasn't until the baby was ready to be born that the CPM realized that it was breech, she delivered it vaginally with a great deal of difficulty.  She left the parents and baby alone within an hour or so of the birth, even though neither had slept in days and had never cared for a newborn before.  The baby was very bruised and battered from the delivery.  A couple hours later, the parents felt the baby wasn't breathing properly and called the CPM who listened to the baby over the phone (!) and told them everything was fine.  They called 911 when the baby stopped breathing, he couldn't be revived.  The CPM told them repeatedly that his death was God's will and that it was unavoidable and probably due to a birth defect that was not treatable.  The autopsy said he had a skull fracture with intracranial hemorrhage, multiple rib fractures and a collapsed lung.  She still maintained it was God's will.  They never sued.

[Satchels of gold]

The "doctor" who shares her personal opinion on Jill Dillard isn't even a doctor. "Dr. Amy Tuteur is no longer licensed as a physician.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine reports that her license expired in 2003."  and "Dr. Amy Tuteur seems to have some issues with homebirth and with women's activism about protecting their own bodies.  Have you read what she writes about episiotomy?  It almost sounds as if she thinks women should be grateful to have their perineums cut up!  Anyway, her information is full of inaccuracies and half-truths."

 

In addition to NOT having a license to practice medicine, she has lots of controversial opinions on a variety of medical issues. I'll take Jill's recent certification over this quack any day. You can read more about her here.

 

On a more personal note, only one of my four children was delivered by an MD and she very nearly cost him his life. My other three were healthy, happy, goofy, giddy babies delivered safely by a nurse midwife in a local hospital. She is actually godmother to one of my sons.

She is still a doctor even if she currently does not hold a license. She left medicine to raise her children so she voluntarily let her license lapse. She wasn't censured and her license wasn't revoked.

[DangerousMinds]

I read the article;  What controversial opinions does Dr. Tuteur  hold about which issues? She believes in episiotomy - many doctors do. 

[Guest]

Well, fundie midwives certainly claim God's will when things go wrong, I've seen it happen multiple times.  I once had a patient who was very fundie and had her first child at home with a member of her church who was supposedly a CPM.  She labored at home for several difficult days.  It wasn't until the baby was ready to be born that the CPM realized that it was breech, she delivered it vaginally with a great deal of difficulty.  She left the parents and baby alone within an hour or so of the birth, even though neither had slept in days and had never cared for a newborn before.  The baby was very bruised and battered from the delivery.  A couple hours later, the parents felt the baby wasn't breathing properly and called the CPM who listened to the baby over the phone (!) and told them everything was fine.  They called 911 when the baby stopped breathing, he couldn't be revived.  The CPM told them repeatedly that his death was God's will and that it was unavoidable and probably due to a birth defect that was not treatable.  The autopsy said he had a skull fracture with intracranial hemorrhage, multiple rib fractures and a collapsed lung.  She still maintained it was God's will.  They never sued.

 

How horrifying! Can CPMs like Jill be criminally charged if something so egregious like above happens? Negligent homicide? Anything?

[CofCinci]

She is still a doctor even if she currently does not hold a license. She left medicine to raise her children so she voluntarily let her license lapse. She wasn't censured and her license wasn't revoked.

Seriously. The woman taught clinical skills at Harvard. I'm going to put more weight into her opinion than Jill's.

Let's not make this home birth vs hospital birth. The issue here is that Jill believes she is qualified to delivery babies and she's never even taken a college level anatomy and physiology course -- not even at a community college. Those pseudocredentials are misleading and dangerous.

[Churchhoney]

How horrifying! Can CPMs like Jill be criminally charged if something so egregious like above happens? Negligent homicide? Anything?

 

Yep.

 

Unfortunately, this kind of thing tends to happen in communities where there's a lot of fundie (or otherwise establishment-hating) influence. IN those places, non-medical midwives tend to be acting based on their "faith" and/or ideology, rather than common sense. So just as with people in such communities who refuse to get their kids medical care or call community prayer sessions while otherwise ignoring somebody in a diabetic coma or don't vaccinate, etc., etc, it tends to be hard to get get prosecutions to go anywhere. In a community like that, you've usually got lots and lots of people who reject common sense in favor of "faith," and they're not just parents and midwives but the people on the police department and in the courts and on the juries, too.

 

Basically, you've got two mindsets in health practitioners outside of medical institutions, I think. -- Some see their roles as dealing with basically normal and natural situations that don't actually require medical intervention, and people like that tend to be alert to signs that a situation is turning dangerous and are happy to turn it over to medically trained people who know what to do. These are people who see medical-institution workers and community-health workers as two sides of the same coin -- both involved in helping with people's health but appropriate for two very different kinds of situations. They don't hate healthcare workers or science. In rural areas of developing countries you really really need such people because it's hard to get enough medically trained people in there. But then you've got the other kind who are so steeped in their "faith" or some other ideology that they're -- consciously or unconsciously -- hostile to science and medically trained people. And their biases can pretty easily make them override their perceptions and try to ignore medicine altogether. I think this kind of non-medically-trained midwife is probably particularly prevalent in countries like the United States where you have such a strong conservative-faith presence ..

 

(I would note that, in my opinion, some medically trained people have biases of their own. Overtreatment for a lot of things is another major health problem in this country, and it can be as dangerous and unhealthy, not to mention expensive, as undertreatment and dumb stuff that some people embrace cause it's "natural" or godly. Common sense and an open mind would be good for everybody when it comes to health care, seems to me.)

[kokapetl]

Jill's certification as a midwife may be next to useless, but it's not a counterfeit one, hers is as valid and useful/useless as the next CPM's.

CPMs don't seem to be very prolific in Arkansas anyway.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Kokapetl

[doodlebug]

 

 

How horrifying! Can CPMs like Jill be criminally charged if something so egregious like above happens? Negligent homicide? Anything?

 

Yes they can, but only if there are witnesses willing to testify.  In the particular case I described, I was actually contacted by a police detective who was investigating the baby's death.  It seems that particular midwife had had several bad outcomes and the local authorities wanted to stop her from continuing to deliver babies at home (or anywhere else).  The problem is that a lot of very strict fundies don't trust the courts or the legal system anymore than they trust the traditional medical practice.  Although the patient told me what had happened, she refused to tell the police because she had promised the CPM, who told her the police were attempting to frame her because they were on a crusade against homebirth as well as against Christians (sound familiar?).  Persecution complex, much? She made her promise, even before she gave birth, that she would never out her to the police or any medical practitioner, no matter what.  Of course, she did speak to me, but it was hearsay, not admissable in court. I told the detective what I knew, but the woman and her husband wouldn't speak, so nothing could be done.  This particular woman was brought up in a strict fundie household and her church and its members were the center of her life; she couldn't bear the thought of being ostracized which is what would've happened if she'd told the police the truth and participated in a prosecution.  This is another reason why anyone planning a homebirth with a nontraditional provider needs to be very careful in choosing them.  There is no formal way to file a complaint and many of these folks answer to no one about anything they do.

[NewDigs]

The mind. It reels.

I will never understand the all or nothing approach. Especially medicine.

And some of "these people" do end up in true crime books.

[Lemur]

The issue here is that Jill believes she is qualified to delivery babies and she's never even taken a college level anatomy and physiology course -- not even at a community college. Those pseudocredentials are misleading and dangerous.

 

I wouldn't entrust Jill to oversee the delivery of a litter of kittens, even though the mama cat knows exactly what she's doing. 

 

Also, I love the website swift-boating the Harved-educated, BU-trained trained actual doctor by the midwife who can seemingly find the space and time to tell everyone that she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles and volunteering at the library but can't seem to expound on her education and qualification past the fact that she passed a California exam. 

[Satchels of gold]

I wouldn't entrust Jill to oversee the delivery of a litter of kittens, even though the mama cat knows exactly what she's doing. 

 

Also, I love the website swift-boating the Harved-educated, BU-trained trained actual doctor by the midwife who can seemingly find the space and time to tell everyone that she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles and volunteering at the library but can't seem to expound on her education and qualification past the fact that she passed a California exam.

I know talk about comparing apples to spaceships. This Dr has forgotten more than Jill will ever learn. But she's not a real doctor and Jill is competent to deliver babies.....insert eye roll here.

[farmgal4]

Well, hopefully, women will use their good judgment and not use the Johnny-come-lately gringa.

Their will be some who use her because of WHO she is, and those women won't care whether she knows what she's doing or not. IMO there are people that stupid.

[graefin]

Strep B, but the infant survived after she spent some weeks at Children's in Little Rock.  I think it was Children's, might have been UAMS.

 

Venessa made some comments about she was fighting for the mother's rights and standing up for her patient.  Seems to have had nearly disastrous consequences.

I seem to recall her saying she was fighting for *her* (Venessa's) "right to make the call," which given the context was deeply disturbing.

[Sew Sumi]

Their will be some who use her because of WHO she is, and those women won't care whether she knows what she's doing or not. IMO there are people that stupid.

And that's pathetic. We have seen (even with the edit) that Jill has poor decision and reasoning skills. Will these women remain leghumpers if something goes wrong? Will they be even more likely to call it God's Will to avoid the actual truth?

Time will tell, I suppose. Something *will* happen.

[PityFree]

Most CPMs may not have insurance or any assets, but Little Miss Reality Show CPM Missionary has assets to sue for.

[Cherrio]

The mind. It reels.

I will never understand the all or nothing approach. Especially medicine.

And some of "these people" do end up in true crime books.

      Your post had me thinking, I think Jill with her "valid" license is about the same as wanting Casey Anthony to babysit your children.  

[JoanArc]

 

Most CPMs may not have insurance or any assets, but Little Miss Reality Show CPM Missionary has assets to sue for.

Or, at least, a public persona to challenge.

[Wellfleet]

How horrifying! Can CPMs like Jill be criminally charged if something so egregious like above happens? Negligent homicide? Anything?

 

Yes they can, but only if there are witnesses willing to testify.  In the particular case I described, I was actually contacted by a police detective who was investigating the baby's death.  It seems that particular midwife had had several bad outcomes and the local authorities wanted to stop her from continuing to deliver babies at home (or anywhere else).  The problem is that a lot of very strict fundies don't trust the courts or the legal system anymore than they trust the traditional medical practice.  Although the patient told me what had happened, she refused to tell the police because she had promised the CPM, who told her the police were attempting to frame her because they were on a crusade against homebirth as well as against Christians (sound familiar?).  Persecution complex, much? She made her promise, even before she gave birth, that she would never out her to the police or any medical practitioner, no matter what.  Of course, she did speak to me, but it was hearsay, not admissable in court. I told the detective what I knew, but the woman and her husband wouldn't speak, so nothing could be done.  This particular woman was brought up in a strict fundie household and her church and its members were the center of her life; she couldn't bear the thought of being ostracized which is what would've happened if she'd told the police the truth and participated in a prosecution.  This is another reason why anyone planning a homebirth with a nontraditional provider needs to be very careful in choosing them.  There is no formal way to file a complaint and many of these folks answer to no one about anything they do.

 

OMG, I am getting SO tired of these people. Fundies can pour forth ad nauseam on how they don't trust the government or the courts, how they're being "persecuted" for being Christians by the secular government etc. They can say WHATEVER they want to say. IMO, if the US population was a family, fundies would be the spoiled, self-absorbed toddlers. They want everything their way, and they want it now. They don't want ANYONE telling them what they can and cannot do. They don't want to obey any secular laws, only God's. And His laws as THEY interpret them, by the way. Kim Davis, refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was simply the equivalent of a frustrated 3-year old stamping her foot and pitching a fit. Well, I might have a solution. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, they ARE being persecuted - just like the Pilgrims in 17th century England. The Pilgrims did not try to force England to adapt to them. They didn't deliberately have more children than they could support to build an army of God's soldiers. They risked everything - including in those days, their lives - and found a new land where they could live according to their own lights. For our poor, present-day, put-upon fundie Pilgrims, I'm thinking some nice little unoccupied tropical island out in the middle of the Pacific would be very suitable. First off, it would provide the isolation they claim to want so much. No worries about Internet access to the seamier side of life and bad influences. Except for the odd hurricane, year-round sunshine and fine weather, enabling them to grow much of their own food and textile plants for clothing. In fact they could probably make most of what they need to live strictly from island resources and trade with each other. No need for $$ or traditional jobs. They can pray and read Bible verses all day long without traditional jobs taking up so much time. No cold weather - one wardrobe usable throughout the year. And most importantly, they'd be free to create their own society as God wants it. Jill can assist or deliver all the fundie babies the mothers want to trust her with - there won't be any picky government standards or minimum requirements to be met. Just wanting to do something - and watching someone else do it for an hour or two - will be enough. Of course it will never happen, because fundies - the Duggars in particular - haven't the courage. Plus the Duggars would never do that much work, certainly not for anything that didn't directly supply them with cash. And bottom line, because they really DO know how good they have it here. But the Duggars and their fundie friends on a desert island somewhere - permanently. It is fun to think about, isn't it?

Edited September 28, 2015 by Wellfleet

[duggarshow]

She is still a doctor even if she currently does not hold a license. She left medicine to raise her children so she voluntarily let her license lapse. She wasn't censured and her license wasn't revoked.

 

Her children were well into school age when her license lapsed. Was she homeschooling them? No. She went right into blogging about the horrors of homebirths. Then she contradicts herself by saying, "the most important thing for children is the sense that their parents love them. The specific method of birth, infant nourishment, and how many hours they were held each day is irrelevant.” She has since left science-based medicine altogether according to her own blog. She's a quack. I'd still take Jill over her any day.

[duggarshow]

Seriously. The woman taught clinical skills at Harvard. I'm going to put more weight into her opinion than Jill's.

Let's not make this home birth vs hospital birth. The issue here is that Jill believes she is qualified to delivery babies and she's never even taken a college level anatomy and physiology course -- not even at a community college. Those pseudocredentials are misleading and dangerous.

 

Actually Crown College offers biology, chemistry and physiology - including human anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology. Whether you (in general, not you in particular) like it or not, Jill enrolled, studied, met all the state requirements and passed the state license/certification exam(s). She did everything required to fulfill a dream and goal she set for herself. Good for her!

[Sew Sumi]

Clown College has instructors who don't even have Master's Degrees. Unaccredited schools can get away with this stuff; don't be shocked when these schools are called out for substandard educational standards. 

 

Just because Jill passed doesn't make her a competent practitioner. A C grade is still passing. Let's not forget the old adage that certainly applies in this case: Someone has to finish last in his/her class. 

 

I hope the good women of Central America steer clear of this unproven commodity who can barely speak the language. I hope Jilly Muffin inspires as much confidence in these women as she does in me: zero. 

 

No way she applies for licensure in AR. That would require her to meet a (n admittedly loose) set of guidelines. We know from past experience that Duggars don't do/like/respect rules. 

[Bewitched]

Duggarfan wrote: 

 

Actually Crown College offers biology, chemistry and physiology - including human anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology. Whether you (in general, not you in particular) like it or not, Jill enrolled, studied, met all the state requirements and passed the state license/certification exam(s). She did everything required to fulfill a dream and goal she set for herself. Good for her!

 

Unless I've missed something, Jill never took classes at Crown College so that isn't relevant to this discussion. 

 

Whether or not this physician has an active license, she has had the education required by law to practice as a physician.  While her beliefs may not align with yours, you cannot question her education.  Also, I'll point out that like you, my youngest was delivered by a CNM.  I had a good experience with her (however I had a better experience in a teaching hospital with residents).  The experiences we had are not comparable to what Jill can offer her clients.  The skill set of CNM is very, very different than that of a lay midwife.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Bewitched

[BitterApple]

I'm going to need to see some documentation before I believe Jill Dillard passed any kind of state board/licensure exam. If she did, I'll give credit where credit is due. However I've been watching these people for far too long to take anything they say at face value.

[Wellfleet]

Well, fundie midwives certainly claim God's will when things go wrong, I've seen it happen multiple times.  I once had a patient who was very fundie and had her first child at home with a member of her church who was supposedly a CPM.  She labored at home for several difficult days.  It wasn't until the baby was ready to be born that the CPM realized that it was breech, she delivered it vaginally with a great deal of difficulty.  She left the parents and baby alone within an hour or so of the birth, even though neither had slept in days and had never cared for a newborn before.  The baby was very bruised and battered from the delivery.  A couple hours later, the parents felt the baby wasn't breathing properly and called the CPM who listened to the baby over the phone (!) and told them everything was fine.  They called 911 when the baby stopped breathing, he couldn't be revived.  The CPM told them repeatedly that his death was God's will and that it was unavoidable and probably due to a birth defect that was not treatable.  The autopsy said he had a skull fracture with intracranial hemorrhage, multiple rib fractures and a collapsed lung.  She still maintained it was God's will.  They never sued.

 

I'm not proud of this, but I hope that CPM is racked with guilt. I hope she sees that baby every night, in God-awful nightmares. I hope her entire life has fallen apart. And I really hope she is no longer delivering babies.

[Cherrio]

I'm going to need to see some documentation before I believe Jill Dillard passed any kind of state board/licensure exam. If she did, I'll give credit where credit is due. However I've been watching these people for far too long to take anything they say at face value.

Keep posting this on every page.

[Ilovemylabs]

Well, if she actually is a CPM, certified, then she has had a significant amount of practical experience. (This is why I've been in doubt about whether she actually has attained the certification -- over the past few years it's kind of hard to see how she could have assembled this much experience, in my opinion, but anyway ...)

 

According to the NARM website, she would not even have been able to register for the written exam until she had completed the following:

 

  "Document the fulfillment of these requirements on the appropriate NARM application forms.

        Phase 1: Births as an Observer

        10 births in any setting, in any capacity (observer, doula, family member, friend, beginning apprentice).

        Phase 2: Clinicals as Assistant Under Supervision

        20 births, 25 prenatals (including 3 initial exams), 20 newborn exams, 10 postpartum visits as an assistant under the supervision of a qualified preceptor.

        Phase 3: Clinicals as Primary Under Supervision

        20 births, 75 prenatals (including 20 initial prenatals), 20 newborn exams, and 40 postpartum exams as a primary midwife under supervision. Continuity of Care births are required in this phase."

 

Then:

"Upon fulfillment of the above requirements you will be sent a Letter of Completion of NARM’s Portfolio Evaluation Process, which will qualify you to sit for the NARM Written Exam."

   

Then, after you pass the exam, you do

    Five Additional Births as Primary Under Supervision

And then you get the certification. http://narm.org/entry-level-applicants/

 

When she would have done all this, given the stuff that's gone on, I don't know. But if she does indeed have the CPM certification then, yes, she has a reasonable amount of practical experience. I would think, in fact, that that much experience could qualify her fairly well to go to Central America and help out as an assistant and learn from the local non-medically-trained midwives, of whom there are many in rural areas, who'd have plenty to teach her from their much longer experience plus knowledge to impart about local conditions and health practices and so on. I can see her eventually being useful in some capacity if she went there as a trained learner with all the experience that a CPM certification apparently provides.

 

If not, though, then not. And, of course, provided she actually is pretty fluent in Spanish. Although I don't know when that really would have happened either.

 

Are they lying about the CPM certification or did they get somebody to fudge and attest to experience she doesn't have to get the certification? Well, they've lied and fudged before. On the other hand, she's been working toward this for years, so maybe she has done this stuff.

I cannot attest to Jill's qualifications, but I will say that as long as two years back she had been attending births with that other midwife.  In fact wasn't she given some kind of shower by the mothers of all those kids she either helped deliver or for whose birth she was in attendance?  If I remember, there were quite a few mothers and babies present.  My point is, she may indeed have at least met the qualifications for numbers of births attended and/or assisted in.  That being said, I'm not sure if she took any classes.  And who exactly issues this certification?

[Chicklet]

When did Jill go to Crown College? 

[Wellfleet]

Her children were well into school age when her license lapsed. Was she homeschooling them? No. She went right into blogging about the horrors of homebirths. Then she contradicts herself by saying, "the most important thing for children is the sense that their parents love them. The specific method of birth, infant nourishment, and how many hours they were held each day is irrelevant.” She has since left science-based medicine altogether according to her own blog. She's a quack. I'd still take Jill over her any day.

 

Well, something tells me Jill will only be involved with family births, so you shouldn't have trouble booking her...

[JoanArc]

 

Actually Crown College offers biology, chemistry and physiology - including human anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology.

Unaccredited schools can offer whatever classes they want. It's still a toilet paper degree. Plus, Jill never attended school there. She sutured up pink craft foam instead.

Edited September 29, 2015 by JoanArc

[Churchhoney]

I cannot attest to Jill's qualifications, but I will say that as long as two years back she had been attending births with that other midwife.  In fact wasn't she given some kind of shower by the mothers of all those kids she either helped deliver or for whose birth she was in attendance?  If I remember, there were quite a few mothers and babies present.  My point is, she may indeed have at least met the qualifications for numbers of births attended and/or assisted in.  That being said, I'm not sure if she took any classes.  And who exactly issues this certification?

 

It's NARM -- the CPM association. So, a standard-setting body made up of CPMs. .... You don't have to take any classes for their certification. You just have to read, basically. You get the information for the exams out of books, not classes. Plus, you do this practical stuff. ....

 

I do wonder about the numbers, though. Not about the assistant ones -- she clearly was doing that and would have been able to do that many certainly. ... But I don't recall anything being said about her being the primary caregiver for a bunch of births and exams, and she actually needed more of those than in the assistant category. Given that Venessa (or whatever her name was) got her license pulled sometime in there, so that Jill would probably have had to find a new mentor. Plus, she clearly did stop when her involvement with Derick began. So, given all that, it seems like a heck of a lot of primary-attendant stuff to have done, with the flux that was going on.

 

That's 135 exams and 20 births as primary attendant. That's a pretty big time commitment, in my opinion, considering that her mentor was kind of out of the business during that period, so she might have had to arrange a lot of the stuff herself -- make the appointments and everything. And if you're primary attendant at a birth, that's going to be a somewhat open-ended time commitment each time. AND, it seems that most likely would have been in her courting/engaged/wedding-planning period, too, when she was all in a whirl. And she stopped her practical work altogether once she was married, did she not?

 

I would think that those 20 babies in the photo were the 20 she delivered as primary -- except, as I recall it, they stated her role in their births in kind of modest terms. And if she had actually been the primary midwife for those 20 babies, why wouldn't they have put it that way? Plus, she's a Duggar, so I'm puzzled that I don't remember stuff being said about her actually doing a lot of work as the primary caregiver. Just seems to me like something they'd brag about. (heck, seems like something anybody who was doing this would brag about; I'd brag about it, I think.)

 

I'd just like to see a timeline that shows when she did all this stuff and how that schedule interlocks with her courting/wedding planning/now-I'm-married-so-I've-stopped-doing-anything period as well as with the Venessa-loses-her-Arkansas-license period. Because I can't make much sense of it. She may well have done all this stuff, but the main thing I remember from the most recent years is her NOT being involved with delivering babies.

[CofCinci]

She did everything required to fulfill a dream and goal she set for herself. Good for her!

Goals her father and husband *let* her follow.

Barf.

If it wasn't okay with her headships, the high-point of her day would be feeding Derick his lunch in the Walmart parking lot.

Edited September 29, 2015 by CofCinci

[Satchels of gold]

Her children were well into school age when her license lapsed. Was she homeschooling them? No. She went right into blogging about the horrors of homebirths. Then she contradicts herself by saying, "the most important thing for children is the sense that their parents love them. The specific method of birth, infant nourishment, and how many hours they were held each day is irrelevant.” She has since left science-based medicine altogether according to her own blog. She's a quack. I'd still take Jill over her any day.

She did not leave science based medicine she left as a contributor to an online magazine called Science Based Medicine.https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org

Edited September 29, 2015 by nc socialworker