Date Approved

8-3-2026

Graduate Degree Type

Project

Degree Name

Education (M.Ed.)

Degree Program

College of Education

First Advisor

Paul Bylsma

Academic Year

2025/2026

Abstract

With congenital heart disease (CHD) being the most common birth defect, there is a growing demand for utilization of fetal echocardiography (FE). In clinical practice FE requires an interdisciplinary approach to performance and patient care, and integration of techniques from both the obstetric and pediatric cardiac areas of medicine. While practitioners align on the need for an interdisciplinary approach to practice and the specific methods of performance, there is little consensus on how to comprehensively educate the sonography workforce. Literature has identified gaps in both the obstetric and pediatric cardiac sonographer education bases, predominantly focusing on the lack of specific FE curriculum with different nuanced needs for obstetric versus pediatric cardiac sonographers. Through literature exploration, this project identifies specific areas of standard of practice consensus, areas of deficit, and existing methods of sonographer education, all of which were leveraged to create a recommended integrative curriculum to dually address the needs of sonographers training within obstetric or cardiac sonography. Addressing the growing deficits in FE sonographer education ensures that sonographers in both specialties are adequately prepared to recognize and define CHD, leading to a decrease in CHD patient mortality and morbidity.

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