IVF Nurse Accelerator

Course Outline

1 The Field of REI

1.1 Welcome to IVFU

1.2 REI: Mission / History / Key Acronyms / Clinic & Lab

1.3 Our Patients / Reasons for Seeking Care / Demographics & Stats

2 Speaking of Fertility

2.1 Jargon: Fertility, Infertility, and Sterility

2.2 Bio buzzwords

2.3 The Patient Journey Through the “Fertility Maze”

3 Reproduction Re-Imagined

3.1 28-days: A New Way of Understanding the Menstrual Cycle

3.2 Drilling Down on the Menstrual Cycle: Ovaries & Endometrium

3.3 Hormone Patterns Within Menstrual Cycle

3.4 Male Reproductive Tract

3.5 Pregnancy

4 Looking for the Cause(s) of Infertility

4.1 The “major players”: What we look for and when we test.

4.2 Female Patient Workup: Eggs, Ovulation, Tubes & Uterus

4.2 part II Routine General Health Screening Typically Included in Workup

4.2 part III Genetic Disease Carrier Screening

4.3 The Male Patient Workup: Semen Analysis and Sperm Factors

4.4 Common Diagnosis Buckets: What the Findings Usually Mean

5 Treatment Pathways

5.1 From Diagnosis to Treatment Plan: The Treatment Ladder

5.2 Morning Monitoring: The Basis for Cycle Decisions

5.3 In VIVO: IUI and Lower-Intervention Cycles

5.4 In Vitro Fertilization (“Traditional” IVF and ICSI)

5.5 Next-Level IVF: PGT and Third-Party Parenting

5.6 Understanding Success Rates

6 Medications, Protocols & Procedures

6.1 Medication Management and Logistics

6.2 Helping Patients with Needle Phobia

6.3 Medication Categories: What the Drugs Are Trying to Do

6.4 IVF Protocols: Stimulation, Suppression, Trigger, and Timing

6.5 Egg Retrieval: Where Clinic Meets Lab

6.6 Embryo Transfer: Protocols, Timing, and Procedure

7 Lab Literacy

7.1 Where the Magic Happens: The Different Labs and What They Do

7.2 Fertilization and Embryo Development

7.3 Embryo Grading: 1-2-3 A-B-C

7.4 Types of PGT: Preimplantation Genetic Testing

8 Clinic Operations

8.1 Daily Workflow

8.2 Financial Realities and Insurance Facts of Life

8.3 Who’s in Charge Here? Roles, Rules and Regulations

8.4 Why Things Take So Long

9 Vital Role of an REI Nurse

9.1 Calm, Competent and Communicative Interactions

9.2 Cycle Killers

9.3 Be Aware of Possible Complications

9.4 Counting Days

10 An Unusual Vantage Point

10.1 My IVF Story: nurse, patient, donor-recipient and embryo donor

10.2 Summary, Encouragement & Thanks