Bedpan Banter
Welcome to Bedpan Banter | The Human Side of Healthcare -- the podcast that feels like sitting at the nurses’ station swapping stories with your favorite coworkers. Hosted by the one and only Nurse Mike, this show goes beyond the textbooks and into the real, raw, and hilarious moments that make up nurse life.
Whether it’s unfiltered stories from the floor, emotional patient moments, or those laugh-until-you-cry shifts you’ll never forget... we’re talking about it all. Oh, and don’t worry, we’ll be sneaking in a few knowledge bombs you can actually use on the job.
If you're a nursing student, new grad, or seasoned pro who just needs to feel seen (and maybe laugh a little), you’re in the right place.
Bedpan Banter
What You Never Knew About Sonography with Natalie Avni
Natalie Avni shares her journey from failing anatomy class to becoming a department supervisor in sonography, revealing the diverse career paths and opportunities beyond just scanning babies.
• Failed her first anatomy course but persevered through sonography school with a newborn
• Balanced motherhood and education by studying until 2am while her husband handled bedtime
• Specialty certifications are required for different areas like OB-GYN, abdomen, and vascular
• Career options include clinical work, education, sales, and application specialists
• Sonography offers more regular hours than some healthcare careers, making it family-friendly
• Built a successful social media presence during COVID when patients were hesitant to visit offices
• Working relationships with nurses vary by department - labor and delivery nurses were most collaborative
• Toxic workplace environments should not deter you from the entire profession
• One supportive person can completely change your career trajectory
• Managing emotional situations when delivering difficult news is one of the most challenging aspects
Follow @NatalieAvni on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for more insights into the world of sonography.
To submit your stories & comments, visit: https://simplenursing.com/podcast/
Welcome to Bedpan Banter, the official podcast of Simple Nursing. We're talking about all things healthcare, really the human side of healthcare and nursing. I'm your host, Nurse Mike, and with me today is a very special guest, Natalie Avni.
Speaker 2:Yes, did I get it right? Yes, all right, welcome to Bed, pan Banter. Thank you, it's so nice to be here. I'm so excited yeah.
Speaker 1:So, if you guys didn't know, natalie has a huge following for everything sonography, or basically ultrasound, on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2:Yes, and YouTube, and YouTube as well yeah, dude, nice.
Speaker 1:And then you're a uh department supervisor. You're a wife and have little one. How many little ones three.
Speaker 2:Whoa, that's a little that. Really. How old? 15, 10 and 8? Yeah, yeah, man, when you man man, you get started when you're like five or ten years old.
Speaker 1:We didn't waste time, so we wanted to bring on natalie today to talk about her career in sonography, or basically ultrasound, and really how that correlates and how you work with nurses. Okay, natalie, let's talk about your journey into healthcare. Did you always know you wanted to be a sonographer? No, I definitely didn't.
Speaker 2:So when I was in high school I knew I wanted to do something in healthcare. But just, you know, watching shows and like back then the hospital and like you know, er shows weren't as accurate as today but, I loved watching them, even as like a high school student.
Speaker 2:And then I was like, okay, I'm not great at anatomy and physiology because I almost failed every single time, but I really wanted to be in healthcare. So for me it was just like nursing was the only thing that I knew of, because nobody spoke to me about anything else other than x-ray, maybe just from my experience of being, you know, in the hospital once and getting an x-ray. And then I did get many ultrasounds, because I did have a lot of ovarian cysts when I was growing up as a teenager, but I always thought it was the doctor who was doing it. I never connected that actually like a sonographer is doing this. So then my sister got pregnant and I was like, whoa, this is so cool, like what do you have to do to do this? And then she told me what I had to do and I was like, okay, I can try. And then I failed my first anatomy and physiology course when I did my prerequisite.
Speaker 1:I failed a big course too.
Speaker 2:It doesn't define us I always say follow my lead, because you can still be so good. It's just you know what the test taking part and the lab part.
Speaker 1:You're looking at a freaking skull and you're like yeah, and it's like, here's like a little, it's like a spaghetti soup, it's like what's this noodle called?
Speaker 2:oh, that's the latissimus oh my god, okay, you're giving me ptsd, just thinking about it. But yeah, I failed.
Speaker 1:I think that is like algebra. Sometimes it's like no one's really going to use this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:And no one's really good at math either. Like I feel like everyone's like do you have to be good at math to be a sonographer? No because I'm not Pythagorean's theorem. Yes, you have. How many?
Speaker 1:okay, so how many like sonographers? Same thing with nursing right. It's like you can do amazing book work, but then, when it comes time to like bedside manner, right, it's super awkward, right, right, you can't teach that. I always say that. Or just like really bad, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:But when I found out that that was basically possible like that I can be a sonographer I was like okay, but obviously I felt demotivated failing.
Speaker 1:But I then got pregnant and I was like yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was like okay, yeah, it was during thinking that I can't even do sonography Right, and I was like, okay, let me just go with it. And went through my pregnancy, took a couple more electives while I was pregnant and then with every ultrasound that I had, I was like man, I want to do this. So bad. And it's kind of like what people tell me when I scan them, like this job looks so cool, Like not knowing a lot, thinking that it's all about just the babies, which it's so much more. It's just you know, one specialty, one avenue. But yeah, then when I delivered my son, I was like I love you, had eight weeks with you, Put him down. I told my husband I'm going to school for sonography.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how was that Like having a child?
Speaker 2:that was not even three months old, not even three months old, and going to school again.
Speaker 1:getting back on the horse Whoa Cause. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2:It's wild and not being able to work when you're in the program. You know my husband had a good job but it's still. It's hard. People always ask me how do you manage not working Because you have to be full time. You go to clinicals. You basically work 40 hours without working right.
Speaker 1:And you're paying money for school? Yeah, yeah. And then are you paying for child care at the time? Yeah, oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:So I did do like a, just to you know, just to tell people that it is possible. I did take loans. I I did like, through the school, a personal loan back then, just to kind of supplement. So we can, you know we owned a house. It was something that I wasn't able to just like pause right Without help, and um, it was possible and they're all paid now, so who cares, right, Okay?
Speaker 1:So what? What are some tips of time management, being a mom and going to school?
Speaker 2:I think I say it so many times. So if someone listens to this, they're going to be like she says it all the time One support system, just one person to be like. Pick up my kid when I need pick up, you know, just help me while I study. My routine was I I had my husband drop off my son. I picked up my son after school. I spent my time with him for a couple hours until my husband came back from work and then I basically my husband did bedtime most of the time and I was studying until 2 am.
Speaker 1:Whoa.
Speaker 2:And waking up at six when I had my yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How many nights a week?
Speaker 2:All five nights. Whoa hard. But it became a routine and I had like tunnel vision. I was like I'm almost there. It's such a short-term like thing. It's like not something that's long-term, and just stick with it. And that's what I always say. It's possible. When you're a mom, it's possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, hey, happy Mother's Day.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Now word from our sponsors. Adderall is amazing. Maybe it's Maybelline.
Speaker 2:I'm like, is this what we're doing?
Speaker 1:maybe it's Adderall.
Speaker 2:I do have Maybelline on, so maybe we can make that work, you know okay.
Speaker 1:So at this access point of just having a child and then having failed out of your anatomy class for sonography, what really re-inspired you? Was there one person, or was it you just getting those ultrasounds?
Speaker 2:I think the ultrasound, like the technology itself, looking at it and knowing what ultrasound can do and figure out. And I had, like you know, minor bumps in my pregnancy. I did have like hypertension. Towards the end I did gain a lot of weight. I gained 80 pounds in my pregnancy.
Speaker 2:Yes. So just like being monitored so closely and along the way, and as many patients always tell me, there are some sonographers that are not as friendly, some that can't be as friendly, right, depending where they work. Sometimes, if you work at a hospital, you really can't give results, you can't even barely talk to the patient and we seem so cold when we work in that kind of environment. And then I had my sonographer at the OBGYN office, which was always so bubbly, so cute, always giving me extra pictures, and I was like that's who I want to be, like I. That's why I also knew ahead of time that it's I'm going to do OB when I grow up.
Speaker 2:Because, I did start at the hospital and I recommend everyone starting at a hospital, just because it gives you more experience, it teaches you like. You'll be surprised how many of my coworkers thought they would want to be in this specialty and basically changed because of the hospital. And I don't think a lot of people who are interested in being in healthcare understand how much you can do with sonography, that it's not just about babies, that it's not about scanning, also Like you can sell the machines.
Speaker 2:You can be a salesperson and make a lot of money selling machines and you can be an application specialist, so basically every machine that is purchased because now we're dealing with a new office opening. So I just met my application specialist. She comes in and she basically puts all the apps on your machine, what you like, how you scan, what to scan when Basically you're teaching a sonographer how to use this brand-new machine in reality. So it's just that and also a lot of money.
Speaker 1:So you onboard people for, like, the new machine? Yeah, wow, that's really neat.
Speaker 2:And then you can teach without an education degree.
Speaker 1:Wait, what Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of my professors in college and my university. They were all sonographers.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. And is there like a master's degree for sonography?
Speaker 2:There is but I barely know anybody who would do it, because there's there's no need I have an associate's degree. That's all I need and that's all I do, yeah I had my associate's degree. Yeah, yeah, and then and just took your special, your specialty exams and all that stuff, and that's it that makes sense and I am certified in ob-gyn, abdomen and vascular because I did all of that just in case, I would want to change my route, because I'm never going to school again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I hear a lot. Wait, so you have to get specialized in different areas. In every single thing yes, whoa Every organ, or what?
Speaker 2:So it's more like yeah, abdomen is more of a general. Usually when you get hired at a hospital they just want you to have your abdomen board and it's basic and general right. Which is the hardest for me, it was the hardest state exam um and then obgyn you have to have. Like when I hire all of my sonographers they have to have their obgyn, obgyn registry and um. Vascular is something that's all about veins, arteries. It was horrible but I did it just because and there's like prep courses for this so there are prep courses.
Speaker 2:Nowadays it's so much easier. There are so many creators out there that are kind of like you know, teaching you tips, and even like with heart and like, if someone just wants to do cardiology, there's so many creators that prep you for that and have courses, which is amazing, yeah, and yeah, it's really. The possibilities are really endless. So I always like to talk about that, because it's not just scanning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was like I had a friend who was in. I know the term ultrasound tech is not what you guys like.
Speaker 2:We like sonographer, but I was like yeah we should make like simple sonographycom.
Speaker 1:You know, oh yeah, this is like way back long ago. I'm down, I'm down.
Speaker 2:I love it. I feel like there's not a lot of resources. That's actually what got me into wanting to create. Do you know how many sonographers there are in the us? Not really, but with social media you definitely get to see more of a side of it in 2020. When I started, I feel like I was one of the only ones oh yeah, and I was like when I started creating, I've been doing this for 12 years and I was like you started in 2020 I started in 2012, but my with my uh social media career, yeah, 2020 covid 2020.
Speaker 1:COVID all thanks to COVID. Yeah, a lot of things happened during COVID.
Speaker 2:That's when.
Speaker 1:I had my rebirth from civil nursing. Yeah, that was a whole. We just talked about it in another episode.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's really awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell us more about starting your social media during COVID. It's probably a crazy time. What inspired you to start?
Speaker 2:I think first of all I just got excited about the app because we were all kind of bored doing that thing On TikTok, on TikTok.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was where I started. That's when TikTok slapped you.
Speaker 2:I loved scrolling. I loved you know. That was just. Obviously everyone did that right. There was nothing else to do and I still worked. But there was not a lot of business. People were afraid to get out of their houses, even for ultrasounds, and we sent a lot of patients to the hospital because it wasn't as you know. People just didn't want to come to the office.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you weren't working at the hospital at the time? No, oh, so it was really slow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was on call during COVID at the hospital and doing this at the office and then I quit completely a year after just because, yeah, after COVID hit, because I felt like it was too much and I felt like I wanted to put my time more into social media with my job?
Speaker 1:Wow, no way, and it was doing that well, so it was doing.
Speaker 2:I feel like I really. What inspired me really is that seeing all the nurses on TikTok during that time right. We were the only ones working. Everyone was working from home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like essential coming through. Yeah, literally All not essentials move aside.
Speaker 2:I felt so important and I was like, okay, I felt like that's why so many people were posting. You know also some stuff that I didn't love to see, where you know, talking about the bad sides, that I always think that there's a limit to how much bad you expose out there, because patients are watching and scrolling also.
Speaker 2:Right and I felt like, oh my God, like this is so, like the healthcare field is so awesome and it really is a matter of where you work. It's all about your environment. You can work in any career and be in a terrible environment that doesn't treat you well or that there's not a good working space, and it could be horrible. So I felt like, okay, but where are the sonographers? All I see is nurses on TikTok. I need to see more to enjoy as a scroller. And then, when I didn't, I was like what if?
Speaker 1:What if you became yes?
Speaker 2:Cause I love it. I love the entertainment part.
Speaker 1:So did you ever like think in your mind it's like you know it was going to be something really big? Or you were just, yeah, it's so funny Cause we were just talking about this. I was like I didn't. I thought YouTube was broken for me and I cause I failed at four other channels and. I'm like I'm never going to do this. This is the dumbest idea in the world, but, like, let me do five videos. It's how many videos did it start with?
Speaker 2:So my first viral video on TikTok was actually I don't know if you remember the Taylor Swift trend with the skateboard that you pushed. Remember that Romeo save me. And like I don't know. It was like you put your phone on a skateboard and you push it and then you kind of like, uh, do like a whatever. I didn't. I didn't have a skateboard.
Speaker 2:I had my husband record me acting like a skateboard right, he was low like he was low on the ground and then I pushed the camera and he was going back and my son was making fun of us and recorded us. Like I've been behind the scene and I was like that is so funny, let me post that. Well, my girls were swimming in the pool and apparently they're obviously swimmers. We obviously have no baby gate around because they're swimmers, right, because I had a baby gate for years and I was like people are commenting about my daughter drowning, like um, you're recording and your daughter's kind of drowning on the in the pool, and I'm like, oh, my God, people.
Speaker 2:So that's how it got viral for the wrong reasons. Okay, because of the comments of, like you know, everyone being terrified or just you know, judging me for creating while my daughter is drowning in the pool with her sister. Yeah, and uh, you know, obviously I love to bring awareness. Obviously, baby gates important, but if there is no baby gate, I want to hope that the babies are swimming and that's why Right, but they were older.
Speaker 1:So, that's why he got viral.
Speaker 2:So that's how I got viral. So then I was like, oh my God, this is so cool. And then I was like, what if I did this at my job and kind of like did?
Speaker 2:you get pushed back at the or scared at first um, I was worried, but I had a thing where I didn't know much like we know today. Right now we hear about all these people who are getting fired because they're creating. I was oblivious about that but I had like, obviously, hipa, common sense, right, no patient's information, nothing like that. My first I love friends. My first medical video was reenacting the whole like uh, rachel and ross, I see the baby right and and she's like I see it, and then when the doctor leaves, I can't see it.
Speaker 2:So I did that kind of like scene and that got viral whoa, no way yeah so then I was like people like medical humor, fine, let's go because I love it, and then but you never got told off by your boss or brought in to like really slap on the wrist I think, uh, eventually, when patients started recognizing me and asking for me and I think slowly it started getting there, the word starting to spread.
Speaker 2:I work with like 40 women, so it doesn't take a lot, but I'm so proud to say that I never had any negativity towards it. I hear so many people having problems with it, with co-workers, and I'm so happy and lucky to have that and I feel like, because I had a good relationship with my co-workers before I did this, it definitely helped. I feel like working there for so long kind of shaped me of who I am, regardless that eventually when it did get to the head, right Like the practice manager and all that. And one day she just said I heard your TikTok famous. I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 1:And I was like really I'm not fired. It's funny you say that Cause, like I thinking about it now, I have a friend who had this ultrasound center called um baby's first peak okay, but she wasn't even a sonographer. Okay and I was like whoa, so maybe that might be an avenue for you yeah.
Speaker 2:So I love, love, love the whole concept of you know having your own business, especially with 3d, 4d, um. I always encourage patients to not replace it, meaning so many patients just go there for their first ultrasound and I would love and I know the wait sometimes takes forever. Working in an OBGYN office for 12 years, I've seen patients wait sometimes because of insurance 10 weeks, which is like a lot when you want to see what's going on with your baby, right, but I always encourage not to replace it. Go for your extra ultrasounds because you know insurance doesn't cover so many. Go and have fun, but don't replace it with your care.
Speaker 1:So I didn't even think it was a difference.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, so this is like a little photo studio.
Speaker 2:If you want to call it that, right, but I love and I'm really close with a lot of business owners that have it that actually do so good with it, with combining, you know, the patient care with that that it's not just about taking pictures. A lot of them don't have to be fully registered, which is also why I love when people actually do the research and make sure that the sonographer is registered. Um, but it's so awesome you get to see. That's when technology really takes a whole thing. I mean you can see eyelashes.
Speaker 2:Whoa Like the fetuses' eyelashes, it's so yeah, there's like 8K right now. It's like insane stuff Okay what month or week do? For 3D, I definitely suggest 28 weeks to 31.
Speaker 1:Okay, that way it's not skeleton looking, but it's not super tight.
Speaker 2:You know where you can't see the baby anymore.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you said you work in the hospital setting for years, right? Yes, obviously you came into interaction with nurses.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:How was your interaction with nurses Like? Was it a good one, Was it?
Speaker 2:So I can. It's mixed and I think everybody can relate to it. Yeah, both sides right. I feel like in every environment there's people who are going to be supportive and people who are going to be friendly and not. My best relationships were with labor and delivery. Oh yeah, I feel like it's just something that I mean 99.9%. That's where all my friendships really grew from there and the ER kind of felt very cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like they dump you off. I've done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cut pace, Like I need, I can't help you, I need, don't, I can't figure it out. Like you know, it was very because it's a very fast pace, but at the end of the day and I speak about it often also we collaborate right nurses and sonographers or anything like. It's so important to spread the acknowledgement of, like it's not what my role is, what your role is, it's how can we make this work together, right? So sometimes I'll go to icu and there's all these you know, ivds and all that stuff and all the cables and the tubes and whatever.
Speaker 2:And I'm just like, no matter how many years you do this, I am scared to even like right.
Speaker 2:Like something to just like so. I always wanted the nurse's help, just because I wanted to feel confident. Also, don't forget, in the hospital I did, you know, just hospital solely for a couple of years I was a new, I was a baby tech. I was scared, you know. So it gave me like the confidence of knowing, and some took it with grace and some were like, can't you just do that? You know there, but again, it exists everywhere. Even in sonography. When I started, some sonographers weren't as friendly.
Speaker 1:It's just the reality of things, yeah, yeah, especially the ones that have been there for a long time.
Speaker 2:It's like oh man, you're slowing down my process.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I know, but in reality it was. It was overall good for me. I think it's also how you are as a person. If you nitpick on everything instead of like letting go on things and understanding and kind of reading the room, then you won't. You won't get to bad situations.
Speaker 1:Do you have any tips or any strategies of what makes a working relationship go well with a difficult person, so with a difficult person.
Speaker 2:first of all, there's a limit, and I want to say that I'm not one to encourage you taking in so much issues If it's a toxic environment and you're seeing that it's getting there. You got to leave because that's going to make you leave your career too, and I've seen that happen.
Speaker 1:No way, really. And this goes, you know, for anyone working in healthcare, right For nurses and anyone else.
Speaker 2:If you feel uncomfortable where you work and if it's an ongoing thing and you can't fix it, leave.
Speaker 1:Do they have like sign on bonuses at certain places?
Speaker 2:can't fix it leave. Do they have like sign-on bonuses at certain places?
Speaker 1:for not where I work.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, no, because that's what like yeah, yeah, that would be nice, but that was a big red flag of some nursing units right because like, oh, we can't retain because it's like so toxic.
Speaker 1:I agree so.
Speaker 2:I agree. So it just depends. I I don't like to generalize it I don't feel like a toxic work environment exists everywhere I'm uh, I had a rough start in my OBGYN where I work now with the lead tech at the time and you know it goes with nurses and sonographers, it goes with sonographer, sonographer, nurse to nurse. It takes you so much. It does take a lot of energy to talk bad about someone too.
Speaker 2:It does take a lot of energy to be like oh my God, look how this person scanned, she measured this and this and this so wrong, Right it?
Speaker 1:sounds so much like nursing Right.
Speaker 2:But what if you took that energy and been like hey, listen, if you measure that fibroid from here to here instead? Chef kiss, yeah, you'll be better, took you the same amount of time and you helped lift someone up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that's also what makes a great supervisor someone that is humble, someone who remembers where they were before, um, someone who just really cares about the growth and not about, like I am and I am and I am and what you've gone through.
Speaker 1:So yeah, a lot of people uh in in medical field, especially like a lot of physicians. Providers like to have that God complex, but we see it a lot with directors as well. Right, right, okay. So, speaking of directors, what makes a good director versus a bad one? How did you become a director?
Speaker 2:So when I became just like I was a per diem at that time when I told you about what happened with the other one, we had a lead tech position back then a lot of things happened with everybody with that person and I stuck through because I wanted to do OBGYN so bad and that was my only in, because it's really tough to find a job as soon as you graduate in a specialty office.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, you have to have a lot of experience and you know, at the end of the day with that person, just to kind of like wrap it up there, I ended up with good terms with her, even though I went through a lot with her because when she left and I don't know what made her leave at the time, but there was a lot of back and forth with the, the owners of the office at the time and I felt like I I could do this, right, I could, I could be the lead tech if I wanted to, but it took me time because I was like I don't feel like I deserve this yet, right, I'm still a baby tech.
Speaker 1:You're so new.
Speaker 2:I'm so new, but it was at the right place and at the right time that it just happened. Basically, the boss of the whole office was the person who found me at the hospital and hired me. I did a very bad case with him, a very sad case with him, and then he's like hey, would you like to work, you know, for my office? And that's how I started. So I feel like he had faith in me because of the thing I found with him at the hospital that he's like can you find two other sonographers? And I was like find two other sonographers? Is that? Yeah, interview them really quick. And I was like interview, interview them.
Speaker 1:How many years of experience you have at this point. At that point I probably had like a year and a half working there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like new grads training, yeah, and I was like you know, back to where I was saying leave a toxic environment, but if you have support from one person there, stay, hold on right. Because I was like, if it's really something you want to do, just hang on. And he had so much faith in me. Until today I still work with him and yeah, the support and the faith he had, and without me noticing, all of a sudden I am a supervisor and I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:And here we are, and there it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 12 years later.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the moral of the story here that I'm getting is it always takes one person to have a totally different life.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the same thing with vice versa, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you get into a new grad position where there's one toxic person, you don't have to reconsider your entire career.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's just that one person Right, or maybe that just one job right that one job yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I can tell you from just comments, from seeing on my videos, there are a lot of nurses who changed to sonography because something inspired them and vice versa, sonographers just a couple who wanted to do more of like the patient care, and a lot of times it was about the environment that they wanted to change because they didn't like the environment.
Speaker 2:But it's not necessarily the case. But if you change because you want to do something different, because you're inspired, I had a really good, tight back to like changing careers, a tight relationship with a couple of nurses who loved shadowing me. Like you know, they would be in the room taking care of the mom and then they would be like what is this and what is that, while I'm scanning, and eventually one of them did become a sonographer. Yes, and I feel like it's all at the same. It's all the same base right, patient care. But when you put sonography versus nursing, I feel like nurses have longer care with the same patient, uh, like sometimes, especially in the icu, it could be like days on days that you're with the same patient or you know, and on the floor with the same patient, like a week right right, and I feel like it's.
Speaker 2:It's a bond, or it could be the complete opposite, right? It could be like you're going into work with that same situation that makes you uncomfortable, or with the same situation that you'd rather not deal versus sonography, is it's? It can be like in the hospital, in and out, like you'll never see that patient again, or with, like me, ob-gyn for nine months, right. Or for years I scanned patients when they were teens for cysts, and now I'm on their third pregnancy with them because, I've known them for that long, being in the same office, so I like the journey of, like following their journey.
Speaker 1:I think it's so rewarding and it does come with like sad times, you know sad scenarios that we deal with, yeah, and health care in general but overall even that is rewarding, so yes, all right, so we had a few viewers that submitted questions specifically for you to review as a sonographer, so this question comes from alina, from san diego, california. Have you ever seen something so wild on a scan that you had to double check it to see if it was a glitch or something messed up?
Speaker 2:Many times, many times, I feel like even years after. You know you always learn in this career. You always see something and you're like what am I? And the beauty of it is that you know. Sometimes you always have a second set of eyes, right, so make sure you're not hallucinating. And then you also have a radiologist that can double check on you, right, so it's like you can always say this is funky in medical terms and say you know, and then they can go to mfm and double check that which is maternal female medicine, which we collaborate with all the time.
Speaker 2:I saw a live ectopic pregnancy which is so sad but it's so strange to see, especially when it's a little bit later on, because you're like how is this baby looking thing? And I see a uterus, right, and it was in the beginning of my career which freaked me out and I'm like I see a uterus, I see nothing in the uterus. And then I see an ectopic pregnancy, basically a pregnancy outside of the uterus which is not it was in the fallopian tube.
Speaker 2:So the location is usually the fallopian tube, but it could be really ectopic, could be anywhere Right, but uh, but yeah, and it was like I thought it was hallucinating and I'm seeing it and I'm like, oh, is this in the uterus, Not in the uterus? And of course I brought another tech. I was like, am I seeing what I'm seeing? Because usually ectopic pregnancies they don't really develop this far.
Speaker 1:How many weeks was it? It was like 10 weeks, which was very far. It had like a little heartbeat, probably, so sad. How did you first initially like as a new grad or as a new sonographer? How do you cope with that stuff? Did anyone show you at the office or was it just you had to learn it as you go?
Speaker 2:Nobody taught, nobody taught me that.
Speaker 1:Like literally.
Speaker 2:It's one thing that I wish there was, like a course, like an emotional course that was like this is how to deal with this and this, and that they tell you you're going to face some you know terrible things or you're going to see some terrible things. I thought also one of the reasons why I didn't choose nursing was because I don't want to deal with so much blood Like I just thought little did. I know that as a sonographer, I can definitely see a lot of blood right and in different scenarios depending on what specialty you do. Many times we guide procedures in the operating room and, yeah, people don't realize that sonography can be just like all around and things can be crazy Like. It's definitely something that you you don't know what to expect, and that's why I also love this job, because it's not a routine. Every day is different. Even though I work in OBGYN, it's typically the same things. No day is the same and I don't like routine, so that's perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yes, I know it's so funny because like death and dying or just really how we deal with stuff, even burnout and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:It's something that we did a good job. We actually just made like a new grad prep course and we just went in layers deep, like 30 videos.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that, I love that.
Speaker 1:Because no one really teaches you that in the hospital setting.
Speaker 2:Nobody, and you know what A lot of times we are taught to be so composed right, you've got to have composure.
Speaker 2:You've got to be strong for the patient and I really feel and I spoke about this many times you've got to read the patient Kind of like see right, every patient handles pain differently. Every patient handles bad news differently. Some are differently. Every patient handles bad news differently. Some are closed, some need the hug, some need to cry, some would love if you showed your emotion too, versus that stiffness. Right, and I think that with time you're going to get there and you're going to be able to know how to handle. In my office there's a big screen in front of my patient. If there is bad news, they see it.
Speaker 2:That is the worst part of my job because they're right, they're looking at the screen, they're like, okay, I'm supposed to see my baby, and then they don't see the heartbeat or they don't see the movements. And that is the hardest part that I wish more people like knew of before going into it, because you do need to know what you're about to go into. But every office is different. I've seen offices that they're not allowed to tell them anything, some offices that, even though they see I can't give you results, I'm going to bring the doctor. The poor woman, like literally two minutes can be the longest two minutes of your life, right. But in my office I love that we can tell them so we can prepare them, we can be there for them, right, when they know what's going on, and then I'll get the doctor so they can answer questions.
Speaker 1:And that's like really where the heart of what we do and why, you know, because, like patients like this, it's like the worst day of their life, probably, or one of them, Right, and if you're just like a crabby or you know crusty person or just you know uh yeah. Had a really bad day that that.
Speaker 2:That is exactly. You said it perfectly in the nicest way. But that's why, when I hire, I don't focus so much of how much experience do you have? I know I can train you how to be a great sonographer. I can train you to be nice. I can train you to be compassionate. I can train you to just be there for the patient versus like okay, we're done, be right back, bye, like, and I've seen that and I've heard of it.
Speaker 1:Really. Oh yeah, it's like yeah. So, your baby's not growing correctly Right, right Before you go into your this career.
Speaker 2:No, can I be compassionate. In every healthcare career, I feel Um. And then the lifestyle. What kind of lifestyle do you want? I wish I someone sat me down and said instead of, what do you want to be when you grow up, what lifestyle would you like?
Speaker 1:before you start to work.
Speaker 2:I want to be present for my kids. Perfect, be a no-but-you-an-acenographer.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, speaking of crazy things that you've seen on scans, have you ever seen that one condition like the Grape's hydratiform mole, or whatever it's called?
Speaker 2:you have Molar pregnancies?
Speaker 1:Whoa, yeah, it's wild, but you have Molar pregnancies Whoa yeah. It's wild but they can still test positive on HCG saying they're pregnant.
Speaker 2:The HCG is in the hundreds, millions, thousands.
Speaker 1:It could be so high, and that's actually one of the so it looks like they're super pregnant.
Speaker 2:It looks like. We know it's a wild pregnancy. If we just did a beta HCG we wouldn't know. But that's why clinical is so important, with ultrasound, right, but there's a complete mole. There's a partial molar pregnancy, where you kind of have some kind of pregnancy in there, but a lot of them can't conceive for another year. It takes that long for the beta to go all the way down to zero because they can't.
Speaker 1:So when you're like ultrasounding it. You see the cystic and the pectus, and do they find out with you, or do they already kind of know?
Speaker 2:Well, with that scenario, I say that I don't. I don't see a regular pregnancy. This pregnancy looks abnormal. But I'm going to get the doctor to answer all the questions because you know I don't want to.
Speaker 1:I want the doctor to also be there, having to have a bunch of questions, and it's also not our place right. Same thing with surgery, with nurses as well. All right, next question here, brandino, from Chicago Illinois. We have an image right here of something that looks like a cave. Can you tell me what we're looking at exactly on these?
Speaker 2:images. Well, this cave right here.
Speaker 1:It's all blurry to me.
Speaker 2:So this is actually a transvaginal approach, because we can do the ultrasound transabdominally on top which you usually have to have a full bladder at this gestational age or vaginally, which is not everyone's best friend, but we always ask for an okay before doing that because the patient has to be comfortable, even though it is medically necessary at times.
Speaker 1:This is crazy that you can read this. Yeah, yeah, is that a baby? Is that a peanut? It is a baby. Oh, so that?
Speaker 2:little bean in there that you're seeing is about seven to eight weeks. I can also eyeball it yeah what. Yeah, and usually we would see a yolk sac next to it which looks like a halo sitting next to the baby, but that's what basically feeds the baby until placenta comes.
Speaker 1:I didn't even hear about this.
Speaker 2:It's like a little circle, that's usually there.
Speaker 1:Maybe they did that at nursing, or maybe they did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's also a little bit of like placenta starting to grow there and that's that. Yeah, a little baby, okay.
Speaker 1:Anyways, that's amazing. You're like Notre Dame. You're like Rain man to me, Like I don't know how you can read these. Probably if Nostradamus, you're like Rain man to me, Like I don't know how you can read these. I probably, if I read an EKGD, you'd be like what the bleep?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no way. It's like earthquake paper. It's like what the heck? Totally, totally Anxiety Just looking at it.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. That wraps it up here with Natalie, our amazing sonographer, or ultrasound tech, which is not the correct term. One of the biggest key takeaways that I really appreciate is that you're always one person away from a totally different life, and that's good and bad, because you know you. As a new grad or as a new sonographer, you had a great experience. Some new grads nurses, you know you guys all have a bad experience on a toxic floor, let's say, but it doesn't define you.
Speaker 2:It can always go either way.
Speaker 1:So, natalie, where should our listeners follow you?
Speaker 2:Natalie Avni and all platforms TikTok, instagram, youtube.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Yeah, I found you on Instagram, but you have a huge TikTok following.
Speaker 2:That's really cool, I do, that was my, that was my. You know my home.
Speaker 1:So if you guys are interested in learning more about sonography, you can follow Natalie on her platforms. I'd probably recommend TikTok. It's really cool. All right, before I forget, be sure to submit your craziest story from nursing school, because we're gonna be going into them in the next episodes. Stay tuned for our next episode. Don't forget to follow and subscribe, and remember, don't let the bed pans bike.