The PSUOG started as a standing committee of the Philippine Obstetrical & Gynecological Society (POGS) to answer the need for a body that would oversee the beginnings of a new subspecialty. More specifically, it was created as a Subcommittee on Obstetrical & Gynecological Ultrasound under the committee on Internal Affairs headed by the vice president of the POGS.
This was in 1993, when a handful of obstetrician/gynecologists had come back from fellowship and preceptorship training abroad, Japan, the United States, The United Kingdom, and Spain, and were beginning to make the community aware that OB-GYN ultrasound was a field which is practicing OB-GYNs could get into, a subspecialty science that they could incorporate in their practices, and an advanced technological tool that they could excel in.
The first chairman of this committee was Dr. Trinidad Vera, and the members were Dr. Virgilio Castro, Dr. Lyra Ruth Clemente (then Teodoro), and Dr. Gilda G. Martinez. One of the first tasks of this committee was the holding of information campaigns regarding the subspecialty and this was effectively done through lectures on the subject given in the various postgraduate courses throughout the country and in the annual and midyear conventions of the POGS.
Over the few years that the sub-committee was in existence, the need was seen to establish a society that would incorporate all of the practitioners in the subspecialty into an organization that would work for the good of the society, its members, and ultimately the patients for whom the practice exists. The need was urgent: there was a need to consolidate against growing opposition from radiologic/ultrasound practitioners; there was a need to effectively police OB-GYN ultrasound practitioners who were increasing in numbers; there was a need to formulate and enforce policies to ensure a high standard of practice for the members; there was a need to keep up with worldwide trends that indicated the incorporation of OB-GYN ultrasound into OB-GYN practice.
The gestational period took more than nine months, with countless meetings and brainstorming sessions, consultations with experts in constitutional matters, trips to the Securities & Exchange commission, identification of qualified founding members, and finally election of those who thought would lead to the society effectively and well.
The actual labor pains took at least three months during which the first general meeting and induction of officers was planned and held on Dec. 3, 1994, at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City with the following officers: