Amy G. MacDonald Oral History Interview, 2022

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Summary

Creator:
MacDonald, Amy G.
Abstract:
Amy G. MacDonald, CNM, MSN, founded the Duke Midwifery Service in 1999. As the first nurse midwife at Duke to provide full-scope care for obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) patients, she grew the Service in the following years to include ten midwifery providers. In this role and throughout her career at Duke, MacDonald provided care for patients, while also mentoring and providing didactic content for Duke medical, nurse practitioner, (NP) and physician assistant (PA) students, as well as residents from Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, and OB/GYN in Duke's large teaching hospital setting. MacDonald was the Director of Duke Midwifery Service until 2013, and remained at Duke as a Certified Nurse Midwife until 2021 while also serving in roles including Medical Instructor for Duke School of Medicine and Director of Duke Centering Practice Programs. This collection contains 1 oral history interview conducted on September 27, 2022 by Josephine McRobbie as part of the Duke Midwifery Service and Durham Maternal Health Oral History Project, which was funded by The Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund. In the interview, MacDonald discusses the Duke Midwifery Service, hospital-based midwifery practices and nurse-led education, and then Centering Pregnancy program facilitated by Duke midwives. The themes of this interview include midwifery, pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal education, and medical training.
Extent:
1 Interview (1 transcript) and 1.18 GB
Collection ID:
OH.MACDONALDA

Background

Scope and content:

Includes 1 oral history interview with Amy MacDonald conducted on September 27, 2022 by Josephine McRobbie as part of the Duke Midwifery Service and Durham Maternal Health Oral History Project, which was funded by The Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund.

In the September 27, 2022 interview, MacDonald discusses the Duke Midwifery Service, hospital-based midwifery practices and nurse-led education, and then Centering Pregnancy program facilitated by Duke midwives. The themes of this interview include midwifery, pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal education, and medical training.

Biographical / historical:

Amy G. MacDonald, CNM, MSN, born in New York City and raised in South Carolina, was initially drawn to veterinary science as a child, but she found her calling during a college internship at the Feminist Women's Health Center in Oakland, California. MacDonald took the position of Medical Director at the Feminist Women's Health Center at the age of 22 upon graduating from Antioch College, succeeding the legendary Black lesbian feminist poet and activist Pat Parker in that role. In this position, MacDonald learned how to operate the administrative side of a health center learning how to hire, fire, schedule, and write protocols. She also spent many nights at the center sleeping on the couch because of the anti-abortion protesters outside. MacDonald completed her Master of Science in Nursing from Yale University in 1991 and spent the following years establishing New River Birth Center, the first freestanding birth center in rural southern West Virginia.

In 1999, MacDonald founded the Duke Midwifery Service. As the first nurse midwife at Duke to provide full-scope care for obstetrics and gynecology patients, she grew the Service in the following years to include ten midwifery providers. In this role and throughout her career at Duke, MacDonald provided care for patients, while also mentoring and providing didactic content for Duke medical, nurse practitioner, (NP) and physician assistant (PA) students, as well as residents from Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, and OB/GYN in Duke's large teaching hospital setting. MacDonald was the Director of Duke Midwifery Service until 2013, and remained at Duke as a Certified Nurse Midwife until 2021 while also serving in roles including Medical Instructor for Duke School of Medicine and Director of Duke Centering Practice Programs. After leaving Duke, MacDonald joined Group Care Global, a non-profit dedicated to promoting a group care model based on the Centering Pregnancy model.

Interested in providing continuity of care for both providers and clients, MacDonald brought the Centering Pregnancy curriculum to Duke and the larger Triangle community in 2004. Centering Pregnancy, a midwifery-facilitated group care program for pregnant patients, allowed Duke Midwifery Service to provide culturally-competent care to both English and Spanish-speaking families in Durham. "I could be a skilled and caring midwife, but it was really about the cross-pollination that happened in the group," she says, reflecting on how clients experiencing systemic oppression or socioeconomic barriers could support one another in finding resources through Centering's group discussion model. The presence of Duke midwives at locations such as El Centro Hispano and Lincoln Community Health Center for Centering groups meant that patients arriving at Duke for delivery would come with high-quality education to help achieve positive birth outcomes, and would be more likely to know their providers. MacDonald was critical in ensuring the presence of Duke CNMs in multiple additional clinical settings including Southern and Hillside high schools, Franklin County Health Department, Person County Health Department, and Vance and Warren County Health Departments.

Throughout her career, MacDonald has had the opportunity to work with a diverse set of clients. "I've had the amazing privilege of caring for people with tremendous wealth and tremendous resource, and [also] prisoners, and immigrants who have survived unspeakable trauma," she says about midwifery. "There's this unifying thread through all of it. When we're feeling vulnerable, having another human being who sees you and who can touch you in a way that says, 'I know you're here, I know you're suffering, I know you're important, and I'm going to walk you through this,' that's really therapeutic and invaluable."

Acquisition information:
Accession A2022.073 (transferred by Josephine McRobbie, November 2022)
Processing information:

Processed by Lucy Waldrop: November 2022

Arrangement:
Organized into the following series: Interview, September 27, 2022.
Rules or conventions:
DACS

Contents

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Terms of access:

Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Amy G. MacDonald Oral History Interview, Duke University Medical Center Archives.