**1. Introduction**

Midwives have a wide ranging and uniquely skilled place in caring for women not only throughout pregnancy and childbirth, but also in antenatal and postnatal care; neonatal care; sexual health and fertility services in partnership with women and their families [1]. The esteem of midwives and their educational trajectories are matters which are both important and contested places. It is for this reason, that Clarke's [2] Place Model, which combines the sociological sense of place as status and the geographical sense of place as a position on a career long learning journey, can provide a useful combined set of lenses with which to view this unique profession.

Midwives are often the lead professional but also work in collaboration and partnership with women, their families and a diverse multidisciplinary team including Obstetricians, Allied Health Professionals and Social Care colleagues. Globally, there is growing recognition that in order to optimize outcomes, *all pregnant women need a midwife and some need a doctor* [3] (p. 323) and that there are improved outcomes for mothers and babies when care is provided by midwives who are *educated, trained, licensed, and regulated* [4] (p. 1). A position statement by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) (an accredited non-governmental organization) highlights that while midwifery is recognized as an autonomous profession in many countries that it is not ye<sup>t</sup> a fforded this status globally [5]. The ICM identified five key elements of an autonomous profession as: a unique body of knowledge; a code of ethics; self-governance; processes for decision-making by its members and recognition from society through regulation. Others have previously ascribed similar professional attributes such as: an expert esoteric body of knowledge which is profession specific; autonomy that helps to set the parameters for a discrete area of practice, thereby assigning social power to the profession and ethical considerations [6]. However, more recently, Mivšek et al. [7] have highlighted

three additional characteristics of professions: interprofessional collaboration, partnership with user and reflective practice. The ICM advocates for all countries to support midwives to promote midwifery as an autonomous profession, in order to optimize the care that they can provide for women and their families.

Midwifery often receives attention within the media not only about the outcomes of real-life maternity care but also portrayals of midwives in television dramas such as *Call the Midwife* which reflect, through somewhat rose-tinted glasses, on midwifery in the 1960s in an area of relative socioeconomic deprivation. More up to date documentaries such as *One Born every Minute*, while also based on reality, tend to focus on the 'best bits' of childbirth. This may have had the impact of attracting more applications to midwifery courses [8] but has done little to reflect the reality of a twenty first century midwife's role. This paper aims to use the Place Model to provide a more realistic and complex map of the profession. Clarke provides a usefully candid appraisal of the Model in relation to her maps of the teaching profession,

*Whist undeniably reductionist in nature (like many models), the Place Model presents a usefully uncluttered landscape which is mapped in a way that is intentionally schematic rather than mathematical in nature (although it does look like a graph), a heuristic rather than a positivist equation. Like all maps, it is subjective, like all models it is wrong. Nevertheless, the Place Model is a map with a purpose. It is pro*ff*ered as an interdisciplinary thinking tool for two key user groups: student professionals and their tutors. In preparing their students for their professional futures, tutors may invite them to consider critically their future learning journeys and status, across its terrain.* Clarke [9] (p. 73)

There are many, conceptualizations, many models, of professionalism. The Place Model focuses on a unique interdisciplinary combination of two senses of place (place as esteem) and place as location (i.e., akin to Massey's notion of Geographical imagination [10]), in this case, location along a career long learning journey. As students begin on this journey, it is useful for them to consider these two key aspects of professionalism-trustworthiness and expertise, especially at a time when trust in professionals is under attack in the public sphere. The model affords an opportunity to examine a range of dystopian aspects (and examples of these—which are not intended to be exhaustive) as well as pointing towards ideals.

It would appear that Midwives are recognized for the key role that they play in the health and well-being not only of childbearing women and their babies but also future generations. They seem to be valued and invaluable exemplars of trustworthy experts. However, all may not be as it seems. This paper will examine not only the place of the midwife from the perspective of their expertise and professional learning but also that of the place within public esteem, focusing mostly on the UK but also drawing on some key contrasting and comparable international examples.
