Timeless Topics

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss exhaustion, burnout, and how end stage capitalism is ruining the soul of healthcare. Sounds like a delight, right? Don't worry, we come full circle like we always do and remind everyone there is still hope even when it feels impossible. Promoting engagement, community, and plain ol' caring about another person help turn this ship around!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on the legacy of the clinicians/individuals who helped shape you. How do you pay it forward for others?

• How do you manage engagement and work-life balance?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• The Trauma Stewardship Institute

• Nurse Workload and Missed Nursing Care in Neonatal Intensive Care Units | Nursing | JAMA Pediatrics

• Standards for Levels of Neonatal Care: II, III, and IV | Pediatrics

• What does ‘late-stage capitalism’ really mean? UC Berkeley professor chronicles an ‘apocalyptic’ history      

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we are joined by Dr. Nat Duffy! We discuss the importance of centering the humanity in neonatal care. Her work on the baby's lived experience is truly a must read! Dr. Duffy is a neonatologist working in neonatal intensive care and emergency infant retrieval medicine in Melbourne, Australia. She is the Medical Lead for the Infant and Family-Centered Neurodevelopmental Care Special Interest Group and has co-authored Victorian statewide guidelines in this field.

Nat is a Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) Trainer with NBO Australasia, teaching healthcare professionals across Oceania and internationally. She is also a co-author of the Newborn Traffic Light Tool©, an educational resource designed to help clinicians recognize and respond to infant communication during painful and stressful experiences. Nat has a particular interest in infant mental health and improving not only the physical health of hospitalized infants, but their developmental, emotional and social wellbeing. She completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne, using qualitative methodologies to explore the infant’s lived experience of neonatal intensive care. Her research has been published across neonatal, developmental and infant mental health literature, and she is an invited speaker at national and international conferences. We are so grateful you are here with us.

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• What are some ways you affirm humanity in the NICU?

• Reflect on the last time you communicated with one of your neonatal patients. What did you learn?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• The lived experiences of critically ill infants hospitalised in neonatal intensive care: A scoping review

• 360-degree phenomenology: A qualitative approach to exploring the infant experience of hospitalisation in neonatal intensive care - ScienceDirect

• A study of the infant's lived experience of neonatal intensive care

• Synactive Model of Developmental Care - NIDCAP

• Articles Effect of parental touch on relieving acute procedural pain in neonates and parental anxiety (Petal): a multicentre, randomised controlled trial in the UK

• Nurse Workload and Missed Nursing Care in Neonatal Intensive Care Units - PubMed    

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! This episode is a bit of a spicy one! We talk about the siloing in neonatology and the lack of camaraderie amongst neonatal organizations and clinicians. We're all in this together, y'all! We make our way to conference design, stepping out of your comfort zone, and of course ego and capitalism. We are so grateful you are here with us.

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• What are the ways in which you foster camaraderie amongst your neonatal peers?

• How are you managing the increased cost (in all the ways it can be measured) of being a person currently?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Premedication for Nonemergency Endotracheal Intubation in the Neonate | American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Report 

• Value-Based Care | CMS

• Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Justice

• Caring Science as Sacred Science - Teaching Series - Watson Caring Science Institute

• Nursing's global covenant with humanity - Unitary caring science as sacred activism - PubMed  

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! We are excited to have Lottie King join us for this episode. We discuss everything from neuroscience to the NICU experience for grandparents to respectful curiosity and remind everyone that we all have a nervous system in the end.

Lottie is both a NICU and a surviving twin mum, she founded Leo's in 2018 in memory of one of her twin boys who passed away. She's worked developing and building a unique lived experience led organization in the North East of England and has dedicated the last four years of her life to understanding the neuroscience behind trauma and the role of the autonomic nervous system. She now runs and delivers neuroscience and lived experience based training to healthcare professionals through @NICU_Neuroscience. We are so grateful you are here with us.

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• What micro deposits of safety have you left recently for your patients, their families, and your peers?

• Do you feel like you are able to show up as your full human self in your personal and professional lives?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Lottie King (@nicu_neuroscience) • Instagram photos and videos

• TIP 2.0 - 2026

• What is Polyvagal Theory?

• Minority Tax on Medical Students: A Review of the Literature and Mitigation Recommendations - PMC

• The Spoon Theory

• Standing at the Edge

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from how clinicians manage their emotions when they feel like a family does not trust them to using micro doses of safety to combat mistrust to the vibes of varying relationships in the NICU. We are so grateful you are here with us. 

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on a recent time where a patient or their family did not trust you or the system. How did you handle it?

• How do you manage receiving constructive feedback especially when it stings?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• https://publications.aap.org/journal-blogs/blog/31715/Medical-Mistrust-Distrust-and-Trauma-The-Impact-on 

• Medical Mistrust: A Concept Analysis - PMC 

• Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington: 9780767915472 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

• The Black Angels by Maria Smilios: 9780593544921 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

• The (intractable) medical ethics of Dr. J. Marion Sims: The historical record set against his ethics - PMC

• 5 Whys: Finding the Root Cause | Institute for Healthcare Improvement    

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

We’re excited to share our first guest episode of season three of Timeless Topics! Katrina Moline, Executive Director for Hand to Hold, joins us for some circle time. Her courageous vulnerability makes this episode a must listen! We discuss everything from posttraumatic growth to including parents in rounds to the relational ecosystem of the NICU. 

Katrina became Hand to Hold’s Executive Director in 2024 after joining as Operations Director in 2018. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Communications from Texas State University. Katrina first connected with Hand to Hold in 2009 as a peer mentee following the birth of her son at 24 weeks, later becoming a peer mentor herself. Before Hand to Hold, she spent 14 years as an Account Manager at Screen Solutions, Inc. Now, she focuses her talents on a mission close to her heart, advocating for NICU families and supporting better outcomes for babies and their families. 

We are so grateful you are here with us. We start the episode with Katrina sharing her son’s birth story and fuel for her NICU parent support work.

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• How have your family-centered and trauma-informed care practices evolved?

• Reflect on the rounds for one of your recent patients. Were the family present and encouraged to participate?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Hand to Hold   

• 2026 NICU Mental Health Conference - Hand to Hold   

• Virtual Family-Centered Rounds Promote Parent Attendance, Infant Outcomes | AAP Journal Blog | American Academy of Pediatrics

• Postpartum care in the neonatal intensive care unit, PeliCaN: a randomized controlled trial - ScienceDirect 

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

We’re excited to be back for season three of Timeless Topics! We have a lot in store for this season – more guests, more circle time chats, and more invitations to navigate discomfort. In today’s episode we discuss everything from trauma recovery to the patriarchy to the importance of building relational health skills to Star Wars. Yes, you heard me correctly, I said Star Wars. In true Timeless Topics fashion, we also discuss the foundational nature of systems of oppression. 

We are so grateful you are here with us. We jump right into a reflective conversation about the growth we’ve experienced since starting this journey together.

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• How do you navigate giving and receiving feedback?

• What are the ways you show up for your community?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Minority Tax on Medical Students: A Review of the Literature and Mitigation Recommendations - PMC  

• The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw | TED   

• IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging - Dr. Dan Siegel 

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss a little bit of everything it seems. We start with "we've always done it this way" and then go to innovation and then how to navigate turnover to supporting each other to contribute in meaningful ways while giving grace. Mary had to step away for some personal reasons, so Tracey and Jessi got together to round things out. We're grateful you're here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on a time where "because that's the way we've always done it" was the answer. How did you navigate that?
• How do you give grace to colleagues while still holding them accountable?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Laura van Dernoot Lipsky - The Trauma Stewardship Institute

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from trauma-informed, family-centered care to the work needed by clinicians to support relationships in the face of trauma. We are joined by Morgan Kowalski, BA from the Family-Centered Care Taskforce. Morgan is the NICU parent of Thomas who was born at 25 weeks gestation and Director of Operations for the Family-Centered Care Taskforce. She is the Family Liaison for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Hospital Care and a Parent Family Partner for New York State Perinatal Quality Collaborative. We even touch on a potential subject for a future episode towards the end of our discussion. Let us know your thoughts! We're grateful you're here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on a time where you may have extracted from someone's trauma or had your trauma extracted from. Would you do anything differently? 

• What are some ways that you help others to feel seen in your role?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Family-Centered Care Taskforce  

• Parental Presence Study Toolkit | Family-Centered Care Resources

• Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Justice   

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from advocacy to role modeling slow, intentional change to intubation and leadership. We wrap the episode up with a discussion about supporting the nursing workforce and growing intuition. We're grateful you're here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• What are some ways that you advocate for yourself, your peers, and your patients? 

• Reflect on times where your intuition played a large role in the outcome of a situation - clinical or not.

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• The 30-second rule: the effects of prolonged intubation attempts on oxygen saturation and heart rate in preterm infants in the delivery room - PubMed 

• Dr. Jean Watson  

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛