Outpatient OB Nursing

klone, MSN, RN · Oct 2, 2013

I work in outpatient. I do all the initial OB intake appointments. I take their history, order all the prenatal labs, do a TON of patient teaching. I will schedule early ultrasound appointments if necessary. I also handle any abnormal UAs, contact patients to coordinate making sure they get scrips to treat any STI's or UTIs. I do a lot of family-planning appointments, such as Depo shots as well as other birth-control coordination, as we are a Title X clinic. Since I am also the only RN, I also work in a supervisory capacity. The nurse manager is only in our clinic a small percentage of the time, so when she is not there I work in the capacity of the nurse manager in her absence.

As far as procedures, I don't do ultrasounds. I can do an NST if necessary but generally don't. I will run the Doppler if the mother is far enough along at the intake appointment to listen to heart tones. I dip urine at the first appointment and run lots of pregnancy tests.

Other procedures like paps, IUD insertions, Implanon insertions, that type of thing, the MAs help the midwives with. I have my own patient load so I'm doing my own thing while the MAs help out the midwives with procedures.

Ckayowen · Oct 3, 2013

Thank you this helps!

klone, MSN, RN · Oct 3, 2013

Oh, I also do phone triage in between my patient appointments. All calls get routed to voicemail, so I return phone calls, rather than answer phones. I usually have 30-minute chunks of time between patients, and then between 4-5pm, where I spend doing phone triage. And then there are usually between 2-5 walk-ins per day that I deal with, either people wanting to discuss test results, or walk-in pregnancy tests that want to get fitted in between patients.

cayenne06, MSN, CNM · Oct 16, 2013

Oh man, I worked as an outpatient OBGYN nurse for about a year (still technically work there, but per diem- I am in CNM school now!). I LOVED it. Great job. I did new OB intakes, high risk patient coordination, prenatal education, phone triage, administering vaccines and meds, scheduling surgeries and inductions, and coordinating care with the inpatient RNs. Very satisfying job- intellectually engaging, good work load, and plenty of time to get to know your patients and learn from the midwives I work with. Pay is obviously not as good as inpatient, but the hours are awesome.

ETA- I also work as an inpatient LDRP nurse, so I get to see both sides of the picture. Both positions have good and bad parts. I love intrapartum, and the pay is amazing (especially for me, a relatively new grad), but the hours, stress and workload can be rough.

Oedgar · Oct 17, 2013

I have only just begun in an OB/Gyn office, after being home many years with my children. I was very up front in the interview about my lack of OB or recent experience. This office was looking for someone with some maturity, willing to be trained, and stay on long-term.

So far, I really like it. We have two docs; my doc is a newly-trained OB/Gyn. I work with one other nurse, also an LVN, and three front office people.

I do a lot of intake/vital signs, urine dips, and getting a history. Also Depo and Gardasil shots, and Nexplanon insertions. The other doc does lots of IUD's, though I have not helped with one yet. Also common are colpo/biopsies and the occasional LEEP.

Another big part of my day is filling out lab forms for cultures, paps, etc. That is probably the most confusing part of the job, because each insurance company has a preferred lab... and each lab has their own specimen requirements or tests available for things like lady partsl infections. And just when you have it figured out, they change the numbers or change what vial you put the specimen in... argh!

I also discuss lab results on the phone with pt's and schedule follow-up to abnormal mammograms.

So far the docs do the u/s and doppler. We send to the L&D for NST's.