Well Beyond Medicine: The Nemours Children's Health Podcast

When dealing with kids in a clinical setting, much of the best advice boils down to putting yourself in their shoes. Empathy is a great asset to communication with anyone. Our guests today provide examples of how to communicate successfully with kids in the clinic or hospital setting. One fellow associate even goes so far as to share a personal example of less than stellar communications he experienced in his teen years that informs his on-the-job communication style today. 

SEGMENT 1: Martin King is a nurse who manages the Emergency Services Department for the Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, providing oversight of its day-to-day operations. Yet his perspective on healthcare - and particularly the patient experience  - comes from his personal trials as a teen fighting for his life in a hospital designed for adults. 

SEGMENT 2: Like so many doctors, Patrick Hanley who knew when he was fairly young that he wanted to go into medicine. What’s unusual about Dr. Hanley is that he even knew the speciality he wanted to pursue - endocrinology. Yet for a very specific - and personal - reason.

SEGMENT 3: Kerry Collins Mooney is former teacher who now serves as a value stream specialist at Nemours. Based at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children, Kerry comes to Nemours by way of volunteering here along with her therapy dog, a 10-year-old shepherd mix named Dudley.

What is the "Nemours way?" It is a concept that can be difficult to define - but you know it when you experience it. Some of the words associated with the "Nemours way" include kind, open, caring, loving, generous. It's doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason: our patients and their families. The associates highlighted in this podcast try to define the "Nemours way." 

SEGMENT 1: Dr. Sarah Gibson is an orthopedist specializing in pediatric sports medicine with the Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando. She worked for a general orthopedic group in Fort Lauderdale for two years before - as she put it - happily refocusing on kids here at Nemours over six years ago.  With all that in mind, she finds it easy to relate to the Nemours mission of “Your Child, Our Promise.”

SEGMENT 2: Mark Milner is a nurse by undergraduate training with over 25 years in healthcare. About a year ago, he joined Nemours as the Director of Quality, Safety and Operational Optimization for Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando. He shares what his job entails. 

SEGMENT 3: Medical Assistant Dashia Wooley has been with Nemours for six years. Her module at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children General Surgery Clinic - the Raspberry module - can see upwards of 150 patients each day over a multitude of specialties and departments - and it is Dashia who provides an example and definition of the "Nemours Way." 

There are many moving parts in a quality healthcare system. Some can be measured and used as benchmarks for improve. Hospital re-admittance rates are one well-known example. Yet there is a very human element to healthcare. It is an intangible and nearly unquantifiable part of our work without which cannot be successful, as our guests on this episode can attest.

SEGMENT #1: At the A.I.Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, the Public Safety Unit is a tight-knit group. Many have worked together before as either security officers, constables or police officers with employers and police forces throughout the Delaware Valley. This engenders a camaraderie unlike any other. And it is the support and care of his fellow associates that helped support Dispatcher Michael Zenorini as he faced a personal crisis.

SEGMENT #2: From the time she was a young child, Dr. Adela Casas-Melley knew she wanted to be a doctor. But the path to achieving that dream was fraught with uncertainty. Yet that didn't deter Dr. Casas-Melley, who is now an in-demand pediatric surgeon with the Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando.

SEGMENT #3: In 2002, Peter Adebi interviewed for a human resources position with Nemours. It was during that very first interview that he knew that Nemours would become his professional home. Today, Peter is the Nemours Chief Human Resources Officer, based in Wilmington, Delaware. 

We begin this episode with a heartfelt and simple thank you to all Nemours associates for being on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. 

SEGMENT 1:  Music therapist Nicole Kirby from the Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando grabbed her ukulele on the way to an impromptu interview so she could offer up a song along with a story about how the human heartbeat can mean so much to parents as they face the illness - or even death - of a child.

SEGMENT 2: Telemedicine has taken on a new and much larger role given the situation surrounding the coronoavirus - and Nemours has been at it for quite some time, according to Alfred Atanda, MD, surgical director of sports medicine at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington.

SEGMENT 3: Peter Phelan is a research scientist and Research Laboratory Manager for the Nemours Children’s Hospital. His labs are located at the University of Central Florida Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences. It is here where he and his fellow associates do basic science research - the very beginning stages of research that can lead to clinical trials in humans and, ultimately, a new treatment for cancer, asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes and musculoskeletal diseases. 

 

This episode is a re-release, originally available on October 14, 2019 

The paths we take to find ourselves at Nemours are as individual as each associate. The school to career path is the most direct - but not everyone follows that formula.

The associates in this episode of the Champions for Children podcast arrived at their roles here by taking paths less traveled, including a childhood spent largely in a Bosnian hospital, and a career in opera and the theme park industry.

There will be singing, including the Macarena like you've never heard it before. 

Featuring:

MaryAnn Douglas, Respiratory Therapist, Nemours Children's Hospital, Orlando, Florida

Dora Jeffers, Medicaid Claims Specialist, Jacksonville, Florida

Dragona Pillug, Talent Acquisition Partner, Jacksonville, Florida

 

 

 

Gloria Mendez, Shalese Bennett and Dana Smith each represent pieces in the vast and complicated puzzle that is Nemours. While no single piece on its own creates the whole of a patient's Nemours experience, the pieces fitted together provide the full depth and breadth healthcare provided in a manner that is state-of-the-art, caring, and kind. 

SEGMENT 1: MRI are noisy - and noise can only serve to ramp up the nervousness of an already anxious child undergoing a scan.

Nemours certified child life specialist Gloria Mendez (right), based at the Nemours Children's Hospital (NCH) in Orlando, realized that there was a better way to help explain and "normalize" the MRI experience for kids - and set about finding a way to make her idea a reality so as to improve the kids' experience, and make the job of her radiology colleagues a little bit easier. 

SEGMENT 2: When NCH opened its doors for the first time in 2012, it did so with just two certified child life specialists on board. Shalese Bennett (left) is one of those foundational child life specialists who seized the opportunity to build a new team and create innovative  child-life programming. 

SEGMENT 3: Dana Smith is a registration specialist with the Jacksonville Speciality Clinic. As we talked, she offered up that she is a millennial, a generation known for being social aware.

In fact according to Forbes Magazine, 79% of millennial employees are loyal to companies that care about their effect on society. They believe that corporate social responsibility is key to improving life outcomes, which is exactly the reason Dana wanted to be an associate here at Nemours.

SEGMENT 1: Administrative Assistant Monica Hicks works as part of the Department of Anesthesiology team at Nemours Children’s Speciality Care in Jacksonville, Florida.  Her position, as she points out, is that of clearing the way for clinicians to be able to do the direct clinical work that is vital to our mission. It's teamwork that permeates the work of all, with much of the credit going to department chair, Dr. Carolyn Bannister, who, in Monica's eyes, is a mentor to all. 

SEGMENT 2: Registered nurse Nicole Lassik (left) see many patients with complicated diagnoses and care plans. That's because she is on the 2-West intermediate unit at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington. The range of patients on this unit is vast in terms of both age (birth to 21) and diagnosis. Yet there is one young man whose extended stay on the unit proved to be a learning experience for her and her fellow associates.

SEGMENT 3: Robert Rosenbaum is a satellite registration specialist at the Nemours Jacksonville South Outpatient Clinic. He is part of a small, tight-knit team where cross-training provides peace of mind that each child will be well served from the start to conclusion of each visit. 

There is good that happens within the walls of each and every office and hospital within Nemours. Our associates are a key to bringing that to our patients - and have been for generations. 

SEGMENT 1: Long before Julie Rahaim became the Director of Corporate Contracts Administration for the Nemours Enterprise, in Wilmington, she admired the buildings, the grounds and the work being done  at the AI Dupont Hospital for Children. She knew what was happening inside here impacts patients and their families  for generations and from a very personal perspective.

SEGMENT 2: The backbone of any well-organized department is made up of people like Leah Williams. She’s the person who, when all other avenues have been explored, knows what to do, or a least who to go to in order to complete any task. Over her decade and a half at Nemours, Leah has served seniors as well as kids, having spent time working within the Nemours Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders before landing where she is today: administrative coordinator for the ED at the AI Dupont hospital for Children in Wilmington.  And though she isn’t in a clinical role, she knows and understands the positive impact of her day-to-day work

SEGMENT 3: As a medical assistant at the Nemours Jacksonville clinic, Nicole Ring sees upwards of fifty patients each day - yet it is a role she loves! 

Whenever there are kids around, adventure is sure to follow. At Nemours, adventure comes in all shapes and sizes, but always with the goal of providing top-notch health care for kids, even if it means creating a safari adventure to divert their attention from the anxiety they often experience when going to the doctor. 

SEGMENT 1: Preventing the spread of infection within the hospital is the focus for Meg Gilman, Infection Prevention and Control Manager at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington. But her involvement and experience with Nemours is so much deeper due to the personal connection she and her family made with Nemours clinicians 3-and-a-half years ago. 

SEGMENT 2: Nemours’ pediatric allergists and immunologists are trained and experienced in diagnosing and treating asthma and allergies in children - anything from food allergies to hay fever. They also see kids with issues of the immune system. The goal? To help kids feel better and give parents the tools to manage their child’s condition at home. Getting poked and literally needled is an unfortunate yet necessary part of the process. Understandably, not a part of the process kids enjoy - by any stretch of the imagination.  Yet efforts are underway in the Jacksonville Allergy Clinic to make the experience a bit less daunting - and it starts with a safari map. 

SEGMENT 3: Tara Spruill is a nurse manager based in Jacksonville working with a team of teams of nearly 40 people. Yet she looks at her role as being in service to them so that they can do what they do best: taking care of kids. 

 

The term "no margin, no mission" comes from Sister Irene Kraus, a 20th century healthcare leader. Sister Irene keenly understood the importance of fiscal responsibility within healthcare. Her ethos was that a fiscally sound healthcare system has the ability to provide not only the standard day-to-day health services, but has additional capacity to support other mission-driven priorities, such as research.

For its part, Nemours conducts research in a number of clinical areas: cystic fibrosis, pulmonary and sleep medicine, neuromuscular disease, oncology, surgery, just to name a few, with countless peer-reviewed journal publications and poster presentations across the world, improving the health and extending the lifespan of kids everywhere.

It’s research made possible - in some way or another -  by every single Nemours associate.

SEGMENT 1:

Dr. Floyd Livingston is the Division Chief for Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep medicine at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando. He is also co-medical director for Nemours Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Center, where he leads a team that not only treats kids with CF, but researches ways to improve the treatment of the disease. He explains the disease itself, and the tremendous strides that have been made in extending the lifespan of CF patients - in no small part due to research done here at Nemours. 

SEGMENT 2: 

Working alongside Dr. Livingston in CF, pulmonary, sleep medicine and asthma research efforts here at Nemours are clinical research coordinators Amanda Darling and Mariella Dixon. They work directly with patients and their families, providing information, answering questions, and scheduling visits, which could involve blood work, physical exams, CAT Scans, MRIs, X-Rays or the administration of medications, and collecting data to examine the efficacy of a therapy. It’s precise work that can dramatically improve the lives of children for generations to come. In fact, they have seen first-hand the way that their research has made a difference.

SEGMENT 3: 

Matthew Leonard is a facilities manager. He and his team maintain 45 Nemours sites in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It’s a job that requires the coordination of staff and contractors so as to keep the Nemours physical plants not just up and running - but in tiptop shape as befitting a high quality healthcare provider like Nemours. From day care centers to urgent care facilities to the AI Dupont Hospital for Children itself, it’s demanding work for Matthew and his team - yet they find ways to make it happen without missing a beat.