Profile

Mag. Irmgard Waldner BSc

The heart and mind are particularly important in Irmgard Waldner’s work.

 

Key data

Job description: Midwife, sociologist
Company: Freelance and FH JOANNEUM
I work in: Graz, Austria
I’ve worked here since: freelance since 2012, FH JOANNEUM since 2014

What I do:

  • Supporting/accompanying/treating families during pregnancy and after birth
  • Scientific work
  • Courses based around pregnancy/birth at the Graz Midwifery Centre

Why I love my job:

  • The intensive contact with people
  • The feeling of being able to have a significant and very individual influence on a small scale
  • The wide variety, choice and further development opportunities for actively pursuing your career

Important skills in my job:

  • Heart
  • Mind (these properties don’t do any harm in most jobs :) )
  • Spontaneity, flexibility in terms of taking on more ‘unconventional’ hours and assignments

My biggest accomplishment so far:

All of the families I get to know during the care process, some of which I even see again, are a little highlight in my career!

How I found my current job:

Networking is essential for self-employment. But for FH JOANNEUM, I submitted an official application.

What I learned for this job during my studies:

During my course at FH JOANNEUM, I acquired specific expertise, hands-on ‘empirical knowledge’ from the numerous internships and significant knowledge in the field of scientific work – even more than during my previous university studies.

Job prospects in my field:

Job prospects in my field are good with a varied range of positions thanks to the limited number of training places/number of midwives overall and academisation of midwifery training. A certain degree of flexibility is also beneficial in our field of work, as in many other fields nowadays.

I am:

  • open
  • balanced
  • genuine, in tune with nature, empathetic, persistent, optimistic, accurate…
  • ...and sometimes different ;-)

About my job:

I enjoy my work and am looking forward to the future challenges. In particular, I would like to continually develop my knowledge in my current field and combine additional, and often unexpected, tasks with my family and my leisure time…