Course Description

This course was developed to provide advanced practice nurses with the knowledge and skills needed to perform limited first and third trimester obstetric transvaginal and transabdominal ultrasound examinations. It will include didactic presentations and hands-on orientation to equipment used during ultrasound examinations. Topics will include indications for first and third trimester ultrasound, a review of the literature on ultrasound safety and outcomes of antenatal testing, and the use of ultrasound to assess location, gestation, and viability of early pregnancy, fetal presentation and lie, and the biophysical profile.

Ultrasound Course Faculty biographies:

Jenna Shaw-Battista, CNM, PhD

Jenna Shaw-Battista, RN, NP, CNM, PhD is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Dept of Family Health Care Nursing at the UCSF School of Nursing and the Assistant Program Director for the UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital Interdepartmental Nurse-Midwifery Education Program. In addition to teaching, she cares for patients at San Francisco General Hospital and Sutter Davis Hospital in Davis, CA. Her primary research interests are the physiology of childbirth, perinatal optimality, intrapartum hydrotherapy, integrative medicine, clinical decision-making, informed consent, and perinatal research methodology.

Dr. Shaw-Battista earned a Masters degree and Doctorate of Philosophy in Nursing from UCSF, after studying medical sociology and midwifery at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. She was trained in limited obstetric ultrasound in 2003.

Juan Vargas, MD

Juan E. Vargas, MD, is Assistant Professor in the Dept of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine and has a joint appointment in the department of Radiology. Dr. Vargas is the Medical Director of Obstetrics at San Francisco General Hospital, and a senior medical staff at the Prenatal Diagnosis Center at UCSF Medical Center and the Fetal Treatment Center. He is also an obstetrician and geneticist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, specializing in prenatal diagnosis, reproductive genetics, obstetric ultrasound, high-risk pregnancies, drugs in pregnancy, and intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy. Dr. Vargas cares for patients in San Francisco as well as at ValleyCare Medical Center in Pleasanton, CA. Dr. Vargas earned a medical degree from the Universidad de Chile, and completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at UCSF and a fellowship in medical genetics at Children's Hospital, Boston. He is board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology and has served on the medical faculties at Universidad Catolica de Chile and UCSF. Dr. Vargas has received numerous awards for his contributions in medical student and residency education. He currently directs the medical student clerkship at San Francisco General Hospital where he is an attending physician.