Submitted by: Carolyn Klair, RDMS, Director of Client Services
Recently in a nurse interview, we were discussing that being a nurse at PDHC is truly a calling. Not for money, not for status, but truly a calling into serving women who are making a decision with life-or-death consequences.
Our nurses are incredible in the skillset of nursing, compassionate care and in limited OB ultrasound. Limited OB ultrasound is a limited scan that allows a nurse and the reading physician to determine whether a pregnancy is viable or not. It focuses on whether the pregnancy is inside the uterus, if there is a heartbeat, and how many weeks the baby is based on biometric measurements.
You or your loved one may have experienced a nurse doing your ultrasound in a limited capacity in the past if you ever had an IV inserted and the nurse found your vein using ultrasound. During pregnancy, doctors may request an ultrasound to determine if there is too much or too little amniotic fluid around a preborn baby or to verify the direction that a baby is turned. This ultrasound may have been scanned by a nurse trained in limited OB ultrasound.
At PDHC, our nurses go through hundreds of observation hours with both nurses and sonographers doing limited OB ultrasounds. Our nurses participate in an intensive didactic training and a clinical program where the nurses practice 50 -100 limited OB ultrasounds under direct supervision before they are considered to be reviewed and signed-off by a Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer (RDMS) credentialed in OBGyn and then an OBGyn medical doctor.
Training for PDHC nurses does not stop when the OBGyn physician says they are ready to scan independently. Each year, our nurses receive ongoing didactic and clinical training. Practical scanning reviews are given each year by a RDMS, as well. Because of their training and practical application in ultrasound, PDHC nurses often recognize when what they are seeing on ultrasound is not what they expect to see. In these critical situations, immediate medical attention is necessary to rule out a serious and potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.
During our time of continuing education in ultrasound, a nurse shared a case study where she suspected a pregnancy outside of the uterus. The nurse explained that after she did the client’s ultrasound, she educated the client on both ectopic and miscarriage information and the importance for her to be evaluated immediately at the nearest emergency room. The PDHC nurse offered continuity of care with the healthcare professionals at the hospital and the client was evaluated. The client’s diagnosis at the hospital was ectopic pregnancy and it was surgically removed. After the surgery, the client was sharing her story with one of the hospital staff. Our client told the staff member that she was first evaluated by PDHC. Upon mentioning that she went to PDHC, a nurse in the background interrupted and said that PDHC was not a real healthcare facility. The client voiced her disagreement because she felt PDHC was the reason she was able to tell her story with a positive outcome and that her nurse at PDHC offered excellent care for which she was very thankful.
Stories about lives saved and changed are stories we at PDHC are blessed to hear every day. Our exceptional nurses and staff offer compassionate and skilled care that cannot be denied and you can feel confident in recommending and supporting. Thank you for making it possible through remembering us in your prayers today!