Friends think I'm selfish and self-centred?

Awww hun.

Unfortunately, when you become a student midwife, the old you becomes replaced with someone else. Midwifery does become your life, because the course itself is all-encompassing. You rarely have time for anything else, and it does take over every thought - you spend most days thinking about uni/placement.

During my training, I actually lost a friendship - This friend had a small child of her own, didn't work and her only interest in midwifery was to talk endlessly about her own experiences, which was fine up to a point.
It was only when I started training that I realised the friendship was really one-sided - I always travelled to her (even though time was tight), I'd always have to keep the conversation going (about her), and I began to resent this. In the end, when she'd call and ask me to come over, I'd invite her to me instead and although she'd agree, there would always be a last minute excuse.

In the end, I let the friendship fizzle out - and although I feel sad that this friendship died, being at uni made me realise that there are two people in every friendship and both have to work to keep it going. My head was full of midwifery and I'm sure I did talk about it a lot, but also, her head was full of her and I'm sure we were equally annoyed with each other!

I don't think that you're selfish at all - I think that midwifery is one of the most un-selfish professions anyone can do. It's one of the few jobs in the world where you give everything you've got, both physically and emotionally and you'll constantly put others before yourself.

As for the small-talk thing, I truly believe that's something you do develop during training (I used to be very quiet and shy, and now I'm a gobby gasbag), as you become less self-conscious, but it also works both ways - small talk only ever works if the other person is willing to chat nonsense too!

If your friend has an issue with you, she needs to be encouraged to discuss the problem and I think that by addressing it, you may be able to salvage the friendship. Or it may mean the end of the friendship, which is sad, but it's an inevitable part of most friendships. There are very few which will last a lifetime, because people and their interests change and if you've nothing left in common, sometimes it's easier for both of you to walk away and find new friends who share some common ground.

Funnily enough, my best friend is a very special person I met at uni, and my two other favourites are girls whom I work with. I don't regret the end of the previous friendship because it'd run it's course and was becoming hard work, and friendships shouldn't be hard work - they should be like putting on a warm, comfy pair of slippers; easy, warm, comfy and comforting.