Making the Rounds with UK Midwife Clinic Director Dee Polito

For this week’s Making the Rounds, we interviewed Dee Polito, APRN, CNM, director of the UK Midwife Clinic. 

The UK Midwife Clinic offers superior midwifery (obstetrics), gynecology and primary healthcare to women across the lifespan in an environment that emphasizes kindness and personal service. 

Tell us about the care you provide

Midwives focus on the normalcy of women's health. We take care of women through the life span: from adolescence through menopause. We do prenatal care, and we focus on wellness and normalcy – and midwives will often spend more time with a patient.

Midwives consider that when it's time for the baby to be born, the woman actually delivers the baby, and we just ‘catch’ the baby – so we often refer to ourselves as ‘baby catchers.’ 

We pride ourselves on being available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

What’s unique about being a midwife here at UK? 

It's really an honor to be involved in an academic institution where midwives are included in the team. We can work with the high-risk physicians. We work with the OB/GYNs. We work with other nurse practitioners. 

We work with the residents, and the interns and the medical students. And we're involved in educating physicians about what normal looks like in women's health, in pregnancy, and in birth.

What do you like most about your job?

The most satisfying thing for me is when a woman says, ‘I feel healed, I've come full circle, and I had the birth that I really wanted.’

Watch our full interview with Polito.