From Student to Mentor: Jessica Fordham Finds Her Calling in OFTC’s Sonography Program
OFTC –As a young mother and wife, Jessica Fordham knew a local education was the best way to further her career and still tend to her other responsibilities. Despite her draw to the medical field, Fordham enrolled in a business program at a local university. While she was successful in her courses, she quickly realized she was missing her calling.
“I was at work one day when someone mentioned Oconee Fall Line Technical College (OFTC) was starting a sonography program, so I started looking into it and asking questions,” Fordham shared.
“I’ve been interested in the sonography field since I was in high school,” she added. “When I heard about the program starting at OFTC, I knew it’s what I wanted to do.”
And as Fordham said, “the rest is history.”
Choosing OFTC
OFTC started its Diagnostic Medical Sonography (DMS) program in 2020, but the program alone isn’t what made Fordham decide to shift her focus to medical imaging. OFTC was a clear choice, and here’s why.
“When I started looking into OFTC, I realized I had most of my core classes done,” she said. “At universities, you have a lot of unnecessary classes that cost you time and money. That is not the case at OFTC and that was intriguing to me.”
Fordham was able to transfer her credits to OFTC, applied, and was accepted into the College’s first-ever DMS cohort.
The affordable tuition was also refreshing for Fordham after spending her first few semesters at a university.
“The cost of college is something that weighs on a lot of people,” she said, “and OFTC helps alleviate that burden by having affordable tuition. I was able to graduate from my program debt-free.”
The local campus and small class sizes also stood out to Fordham.
“Being able to obtain a degree like this so close to home was amazing,” she said. “I appreciated the smaller class sizes as well – it created a more personal experience than being in a university auditorium with more than 100 people.”
A Quality, Hands-on Education
Looking back at her time in OFTC’s DMS program, Fordham is confident she made the right decision. “I loved my experience at OFTC, and it will be a time in my life I will never forget,” she said. “It helped me start a career that I love.”
The hands-on aspect of the program really made a difference for Fordham’s confidence as she progressed through the program to eventually become a Registered Technologist in Sonography (RTS).
“Ultrasound is operator dependent,” Fordham shared. “You must know how to operate the machine, but also how to locate and properly image the organ of interest all at the same time… and the absolute best way to learn how to do all of that is with hands-on training.”
“You can learn about it from a textbook all day long, but until you get in the lab and actually start scanning you don’t fully understand it,” she added. “That is why the hands-on aspect of the program is so important. You get time to practice these protocols in lab and learn them before going to the clinic sites.”
A Future in Education
After graduating from the DMS program, Fordham sat for her American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) exam for sonography and immediately began her career working in-field at a local hospital.
“I love working as a sonographer,” Fordham shared. “I love meeting different patients and making a difference in their lives. I’ve always loved helping people and as a sonographer I can do just that.”
While working in-field, Fordham had an opportunity to come back to OFTC to work with students enrolled in the DMS program in the evenings. “I realized I wanted to be in the educational side of ultrasound, and this opportunity confirmed what I was feeling,” Fordham shared.
She started working part-time for Taylor and Karoly, P.C. and took advantage of an opportunity to become an adjunct faculty member and work with OFTC’s DMS students in August of 2023.
“I have enjoyed my time working with the students immensely and hope to one day become full-time with the program,” she said.
“It is truly rewarding to see their excitement for the program and to help them along their journey,” Fordham added. “My favorite thing is when my students have worked so hard on something that was giving them trouble and they suddenly understand it. You see the light come on in their eyes and it makes me feel like I’m actually making a difference. “
Fordham is excited about her future opportunities in sonography. She recently passed the ARDMS Physics board and is working toward taking and passing the ARDMS OB/GYN board next. This sequence of national boards will give her the credentials, RDMS (OB/GYN) from the American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography.
To learn more about OFTC’s DMS program, visit the College’s website, OFTC.edu.
###
OFTC is a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia.
