The Fetal Frontline

EP1: The History of FTNN

In 2015, one nurse saw a gap no one else was filling — and decided to do something about it. Ten years later, the Fetal Therapy Nurse Network has grown from 25 founding members to nearly 440 across the United States and Canada. In this inaugural episode of The Fetal Frontline, founder Katie Francis sits with host Kris Rimbos to trace the network's origin story: how a young coordinator at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon found herself building a fetal program from scratch, why she finally asked "why are we all reinventing the wheel?", and the conversations with pioneers — Jody Farrell at UCSF, Lori Howell at CHOP, and Dr. Bill Polzin of NAFNet — that turned an idea into a meeting of twenty-five nurses. Katie talks candidly about the moment she felt judged for sharing a hard delivery, and how that single experience shaped the network's most important unwritten rule: we do not judge each other, ever. She reflects on what FTNN taught her about leadership — checking your ego at the door, advocating openly instead of covertly, and making peace with the fact that what you start is never really yours to keep. Plus: the inaugural Lori J. Howell Excellence in Fetal Nursing Award, the rise of precision medicine in fetal care, and where the network goes from here. In this episode: – Why fetal therapy nursing is a "specialty of a specialty" – The "coordinator of coordinators" role – How peer endorsement built FTNN's credibility before any marketing did – What vulnerability — said out loud, by the founder, first — actually does for a network – The founder's loop: ego vs. what's good for the network The Fetal Frontline is the official podcast of the Fetal Therapy Nurse Network. Learn more at https://www.fetaltherapynursenetwork.org [https://www.fetaltherapynursenetwork.org].