I have not responded to this thread til now, because of thinking over the very same issues lately...from the point of view of a midwife who is also a member of a midwifery community. And the confidentiality issue is so important, and can be tricky to navigate.
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Still, "not that I can remember" is a very strange response to your important question! Lame, very lame...and just strange.
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Yes, we can expect that any experienced mw will have seen some transfers of care and some difficult births--perhaps a stillbirth even (of the sort occurring without reason or 'fault'). We can expect that midwives will sit in peer review, as a subject of review and as a reviewer of births with other midwives. And we can expect realistically that it will not be easy for a midwife to discuss difficult experiences and so forth--partly for reasons of confindentiality, and partly for emotional, personal reasons. There is no doubt that these things can be tricky for a midwife to navigate!
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And yet. If a mw has seen 1500 births, then it is safe to assume that she HAS, indeed, seen some difficult/complicated births. Birth is still a mystery, and she is merely human dealing in an imperfect world, no matter how skilled she is.  It is safe to assume that from time to time she has exercised less sound judgement than she does, most of the time--whether that resolved well for mom/baby or not.  I would almost expect, just from odds of such things as the occurence of placental abruption or completely unexplained stillbirth, for instance-- that there may have been a birth where the root cause of issues/damage cannot clearly be determined. It is also safe to assume that she will have been blamed entirely for some things that were either clearly beyond her control, or was cleared entirely of responsibility even if that was not so clear (because birth is still a mystery!). If she is saying 'not that I remember', then she is just dodging--she may good have reasons for this (confidentiality or litigation) but she is still dodging and this is not ok. Mws must be honest with their clients, it is important to find some way to give an honest accounting while still respecting confidentiality and the rules of litigation.
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Midwives carry a heavy load, especially in today's world where people expect miracles from care-providers and everyone is quick to blame someone for anything (parents may not blame a mw, but a doctor might--or another mw, even). It is indeed very hard to speak of difficult births and what can follow. Yet in the interests of their own honesty and integrity, mws need to figure out how to speak of the difficult situations. Also, I believe that mws must learn how to speak of these things partly so new clients know the whole truth about a mw, but also to show hb families that birth is still a mystery that we do not control. It can be done, without blowing confidentiality.
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Here is a link to a post I made yesterday. Our community has not learned how to deal with important ethical matters as you name, and in the case of at least 2 mws here it has meant needless tragedy for some families and a general atmosphere of dodging by families and midwives both.Â
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http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1283794/homebirth-safety-under-threat-in-mo-and-womynwise-office-closing
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Bottom line for me, is this: if a mw so experienced is not able to tell you about some hairy-scary births, but acts like such things never happened for her, then she is not being honest. If a less-experienced mw (having primary'd for less than 200 births, say) says she hasn't seen anything really bad at birth, you could perhaps believe it but then you know that she's never been really tested as a mw.
