From Page to Practice: Three Tips for Translating Coursework to Consults

At Lactation Education Resources, we know how important didactic learning is. After all, it’s a big part of what we do! The studying you’re doing in your lactation courses provides a rich, deep reservoir of essential, specific knowledge.

And that’s really important.

But when you eventually find yourself face to face with a family whose infant is having trouble feeding, how will you translate that knowledge into an effective consult?

When you’re a new lactation care provider, drawing from that deep reservoir to pull apart the problem and craft a concrete treatment plan can sometimes feel pretty hard.

Angela Love-Zaranka, BS, IBCLC, RLC, has been supporting lactating parents for 30 years. She has also been a clinical mentor for 15 years, coaching countless new lactation professionals through the transition from student to provider. We asked her for tips on making the leap.

In today’s world of sophisticated online education, it’s quite possible to engage in hands-on learning remotely – and it even has one big advantage. While working side by side with one experienced lactation consultant can be a great way to learn clinical skills, online courses can offer you access to a wide range of mentors, each with different expertise to offer.

For example, our Clinical Skills Online Workshop brings you five richly experienced mentors, each guiding you through clinical areas where they have deep specialties.

You’ll join an IBCLC with incredible counseling skills who has helped families for 30 years for a guided walk through the essential elements of an effective consult, for example … and then spend time soaking up the advice of an IBCLC who’s developed an expert in virtual consults!

In total, the workshop combines four courses, six case studies, and a video series, all aimed at helping you gain comfort with the job’s hands-on skills.

Included in the Clinical Skills Online Workshop is our interactive case studies course, Deeper Look: Deconstructing Real Case Studies.

Also available as a stand-alone course, this one presents you with six clinical cases–which you work to resolve. You’ll make observations, offer advice, make recommendations, and create your own care plans. Then, you’ll see the outcome of your advice, explore alternatives, and adjust accordingly.

Grand Rounds courses are another great way to make connections between theory and practice. These courses allow you to watch a lactation situation unfold over time, just as you would if you were caring for the dyad, while offering facts and information alongside chances to consider how you would apply those facts to advise the client.

Making sure your preparation includes a mix of specific factual knowledge and courses that focus on applying that knowledge allows you to rehearse for your first consult situations. “It gives you practice ahead of time, so you don’t get the flop sweats the first time you walk in,” Love-Zaranka says.

You know those moments in most classes where the instructor asks you to pause the video and jot down your thoughts? Or the ones where they put an image on the screen and ask what you notice? It’s easy to let these slip by and just wait for the answer, but if you do, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

Hands-on learning is built into almost every LER course. Take advantage of the chances to flex your critical thinking muscles–this is your moment to practice thinking like a lactation consultant.

“There is a very specific process involved in going from novice to expert,” Love-Zaranks says. “The only way you do it is by repetition. But going through the process of thinking critically in your courses allows you to put in some of those reps in a safe environment, so that by the time you’re in a consult situation, you’re saying, ‘This is familiar. I know how to do this.’”

So pause the video, get out your pen, and write–or spend the time to think deeply about how you’d answer a knowledge check question if there was a client in front of you asking! Before you know it, there will be.

It’s easy to imagine that as a lactation consultant, you will walk into a room, be presented with a case, and from your storehouse of carefully accumulated knowledge, provide the answer.

In truth, consults almost never go this way.

Experienced IBCLCs gather information, make observations, think critically, and often hold several possibilities in mind while deciding on the best immediate recommendation. Then based on the result, they continue on the same course, add, subtract, or change direction–possibly more than once!

This is the work of a lactation consultant, and it takes time and practice to develop these skills.

But even while you’re still learning, you can begin to consciously refine your system for approaching a helping situation by bringing awareness not just to what you know, but to how you’re thinking. What steps do you take when you approach a lactation challenge, and why?

Taking opportunities now–within case studies courses, grand rounds, clinical skills offerings–to acquire the skills of a lactation consultant in a safe environment will pay dividends, when you move confidently, systematically, and compassionately through your very first consults as an IBCLC!

Have you worked with an interesting lactation situation you think others would benefit from hearing about? We are always on the lookout for new case studies to add to our courses. Send a description to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , with “Possible Case Study” in the subject line.