On this episode of Humans of Healthcare, Dr. Mohak Davé, Chief of Emergency Medicine, and Leah Wallace, Clinical Simulation Educator, discuss the highs, the lows and the unpredictability of working in healthcare and emergency medicine.
Humans of Healthcare goes beyond the medical jargon to reveal what it means to care for others and unveil the extraordinary human connections that form within hospital walls. Each episode is a reminder that in healthcare, true healing stems from not just medical expertise but from the people behind healthcare.
Thank you for listening to our podcast! If you have a topic you would like us to discuss, please visit nghs.com/podcast.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook!
On this episode of Humans of Healthcare, Dr. Mohak Davé, Chief of Emergency Medicine, and Leah Wallace, Clinical Simulation Educator, discuss the highs, the lows and the unpredictability of working in healthcare and emergency medicine.
Humans of Healthcare goes beyond the medical jargon to reveal what it means to care for others and unveil the extraordinary human connections that form within hospital walls. Each episode is a reminder that in healthcare, true healing stems from not just medical expertise but from the people behind healthcare.
Thank you for listening to our podcast! If you have a topic you would like us to discuss, please visit nghs.com/podcast.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook!
Transcript
00:00:06 Marie Krueger
Well, hey, everybody.
00:00:07 Marie Krueger
Welcome to the Health Perspectives Podcast brought to you by Northeast Georgia Health System and beautiful Gainesville, GA.
00:00:12 Marie Krueger
I'm your host, Marie Kruger, and today we're trying something a little bit different.
00:00:17 Marie Krueger
We have some wonderful guests here today with us and we're going to talk about.
00:00:21 Marie Krueger
Humans in healthcare and really try to get to understand the frontline workers and what makes them tick.
00:00:27 Marie Krueger
So let's get started today we have Doctor, Mohawk, Davey, welcome and you are the medical director of emergency medicine at Northeast Georgia Health System.
00:00:31 Dr. Dave
Thank you.
00:00:35 Marie Krueger
Among other things, of course, we'll talk about that.
00:00:38 Marie Krueger
Welcome.
00:00:38 Marie Krueger
And Leah, how are you?
00:00:40 Marie Krueger
And you are the clinical simulation educator.
00:00:43 Marie Krueger
Let me get this straight.
00:00:44 Marie Krueger
The Center for Simulation and Innovation.
00:00:46 Marie Krueger
That's correct.
00:00:47 Marie Krueger
All right, awesome.
00:00:48 Marie Krueger
Welcome.
00:00:48 Marie Krueger
Let's start with telling us a little bit about yourself.
00:00:52 Marie Krueger
Do you guys have families?
00:00:53 Marie Krueger
Do you live around here?
00:00:54 Marie Krueger
What's going on, where you from?
00:00:55 Leah Wallace
You start.
00:00:56 Dr. Dave
I'll start. Well I I.
00:00:57 Dr. Dave
Live here in Gainesville.
00:00:58 Marie Krueger
OK.
00:00:58 Dr. Dave
I live on Lake Lanier.
00:01:00 Dr. Dave
My wife works at the Good news clinic, which is a free medical clinic in town.
00:01:04 Dr. Dave
Yeah, and she's not a physician.
00:01:05 Marie Krueger
Is she a physician as well?
00:01:07 Dr. Dave
She does office work there on the support staff and project coordinator and then I have a 19 year old daughter who's at Auburn and and Rory Eagle.
00:01:14 Marie Krueger
War Eagle.
00:01:15 Dr. Dave
That's right.
00:01:16 Dr. Dave
And a 17 year old son who's graduated from.
00:01:17 Marie Krueger
High school. Ohh, that's wonderful.
00:01:20 Marie Krueger
Tell me about yourself.
00:01:21 Marie Krueger
Yeah, so?
00:01:21 Leah Wallace
I grew up in Georgia.
00:01:22 Leah Wallace
I went to nursing school in Dahlonega at University of North Georgia, and then I started my clinicals at Northeast Georgia and on a Med surge unit.
00:01:31 Leah Wallace
And lately went down to the emergency department.
00:01:33 Leah Wallace
So I've lived in Gainesville for about four years.
00:01:35 Leah Wallace
I moved to Swanee recently, but Gainesville kind of home for.
00:01:39 Marie Krueger
Oh, that's great.
00:01:40 Marie Krueger
So I'll be very honest with you guys.
00:01:42 Marie Krueger
Emergency medicine terrifies me.
00:01:44 Marie Krueger
It is just one of these specialties that I would not thrive in.
00:01:48 Marie Krueger
What excites you about that specialty?
00:01:51 Marie Krueger
And what keeps you motivated?
00:01:52 Marie Krueger
As you have gone through, we're going to talk a lot about, you know, the pandemic.
00:01:56 Marie Krueger
We had a chicken plant explosion not long ago.
00:01:59 Marie Krueger
What do you love about emergency medicine?
00:02:01 Marie Krueger
Let's start there.
00:02:03 Leah Wallace
I would say that it's always changing.
00:02:05 Leah Wallace
It's fun going into work and not knowing what's coming in used to in emergency medicine, have to know just a little bit about all the specialties, but now an emergency medicine, you have to know everything about everything.
00:02:17 Leah Wallace
So it's very challenging.
00:02:18 Leah Wallace
It's very exciting and you're always learning.
00:02:23 Dr. Dave
Yeah, it's it's a challenge I think is is a big one.
00:02:25 Dr. Dave
But you know what?
00:02:25 Dr. Dave
What we enjoy is that we're really helping people, oftentimes in one of the hardest moments of their lives.
00:02:30 Dr. Dave
And so you're there every day being available for people when they have emergencies.
00:02:36 Dr. Dave
And so that's really, really important.
00:02:39 Dr. Dave
And the unpredictability actually is is also an appeal.
00:02:41 Dr. Dave
You know, we don't have a patient list that we know what's coming in the next hour, next minute even.
00:02:47 Dr. Dave
And so just being prepared, we realize how important that is.
00:02:50 Dr. Dave
So it's not just a matter of just the adrenaline, but you also have to be, you know, objective and perspective and be ready for what the next challenge may be, right.
00:03:00 Marie Krueger
Master problem solvers.
00:03:03 Marie Krueger
So, Leah, you went from working by the bedside, and you've transitioned pretty significantly.
00:03:09 Marie Krueger
Now you're in simulation.
00:03:11 Marie Krueger
Tell me a little bit about.
00:03:11 Leah Wallace
That journey.
00:03:12 Leah Wallace
So when I came down to the emergency department, I started on night shift.
00:03:15 Leah Wallace
Like most new nurse.
00:03:16 Leah Wallace
Just do did that for a couple of years and then an opportunity became available to become the clinical educator.
00:03:22 Leah Wallace
So I did that for a little bit of time, then assistant manager and then I became the nurse manager.
00:03:26 Leah Wallace
So with the help of many mentors and many of my physician and colleagues, I was I was able to move up quickly in my career.
00:03:33 Leah Wallace
I got my masters in Health Administration while working full time.
00:03:37 Leah Wallace
And then the pandemic hit.
00:03:38 Leah Wallace
So through all of that, I took a little break, did a little travel nursing.
00:03:44 Leah Wallace
It was local travel, but had a good.
00:03:46 Leah Wallace
Them and, you know, got to see a different health system.
00:03:49 Leah Wallace
Got to learn a lot about what they do differently, what they do.
00:03:52 Leah Wallace
Well, what they don't do well and coming back home like I say, when I came back to Northeast Georgia and my new role, I'm kind of able to take what I've learned through all of my different roles and emergency medicine and teach others.
00:04:05 Marie Krueger
So it sounds like you can do a lot with nursing.
00:04:08 Marie Krueger
And have you had many mentors in your career?
00:04:11 Leah Wallace
Have I have?
00:04:12 Leah Wallace
I was thinking about it all the way here.
00:04:14 Leah Wallace
So I remember when I got the first call that I was going to get a job in nurse.
00:04:17 Leah Wallace
And it was from a recruiter in HR, Melissa Thompson, who I have known for 12 years now, and I still frequently talk to and just the impact that just a a recruiter had on me and then getting the chance to work as the educator and emergency medicine, you know, Kay Hall is has been such a mentor through that.
00:04:35 Leah Wallace
And then my physician partners, I've worked for Doctor Devay.
00:04:38
I was.
00:04:39 Leah Wallace
Counting up 11 years now, knowing him and how much you know, working with him has made me who I am today as a clinician, as well as a leader.
00:04:41 Marie Krueger
Oh wow.
00:04:48 Marie Krueger
OK.
00:04:49 Marie Krueger
That's that's pretty incredible.
00:04:50 Marie Krueger
So 11 years you've worked together, so let's talk a little bit about the pandemic, because it's been such a you will never forget it and there's collateral damage now afterwards.
00:05:01 Marie Krueger
And maybe that's still going on.
00:05:02 Marie Krueger
Maybe afterwards isn't the right word, but Doctor Devay, how how has that experience changed you and and how are you doing today?
00:05:10 Dr. Dave
It's it's been a a challenge.
00:05:11 Dr. Dave
I mean it's in healthcare and just any human being that has lived through this has obviously been this has been a challenge.
00:05:17 Dr. Dave
I think that from an emergency standpoint, you know it's solidified our commitment as to what we're here for, but it's also made it harder because you know, we are now seeing sicker patients than we've ever had.
00:05:30 Dr. Dave
We have seen access issues that we've never had before.
00:05:33 Dr. Dave
I mean, it's harder to get in to see a doctor.
00:05:36 Dr. Dave
Your primary care physician or any any specialty because there's labor shortages, whether it's nursing or.
00:05:40 Dr. Dave
Others you know, there's a lot of mental illness collateral from from the pandemic.
00:05:48 Dr. Dave
But you know, when I when I take a step back and reflect where we were even three years ago.
00:05:52 Dr. Dave
You know, after we had already three years ago, right now it was, you know, just about become March.
00:05:58 Dr. Dave
We were hearing about what was happening in other countries and hearing about.
00:06:01 Dr. Dave
Cases that were just starting in New York and, you know, places that we thought we probably may not.
00:06:06 Dr. Dave
Come here. You know, we're hopeful, right? And we know, you know, I think that we have realized that this is not something's going to ever go away.
00:06:13 Dr. Dave
And it's something that we have to deal with just like any other condition that we had to deal with in the past.
00:06:18 Dr. Dave
So we take a step back.
00:06:20 Dr. Dave
I think it's it's we have to reflect is that you know patients are still going to get sick.
00:06:25 Dr. Dave
Whether they have COVID or not.
00:06:27 Dr. Dave
And we have to always be there for them and recognize that, you know, I think that there's so much more to focus on than just whether or not somebody has a positive COVID test.
00:06:37 Dr. Dave
And we we didn't do a great job with that across the world, candidly, early on.
00:06:43 Dr. Dave
And I think fortunately we've seen quickly that how important that is is that we have to go back to the center of the patient, right, regardless of whatever condition they have.
00:06:52 Marie Krueger
Right.
00:06:53 Marie Krueger
And that's probably the motivation, because I think from the outside looking in, folks might say you came back to work after seriously after after seeing.
00:07:01 Marie Krueger
Patients dying one after the other.
00:07:04 Marie Krueger
I mean that weighs on you mentally, physically.
00:07:06 Marie Krueger
Your families probably had a lot of concerns when you were going into work every day.
00:07:11 Marie Krueger
You mentioned something about the shortages with physicians and also nurses.
00:07:15 Marie Krueger
So let's talk a little bit about that.
00:07:18 Marie Krueger
There's a lot of factors that go into folks leaving this.
00:07:21 Marie Krueger
This profession you kind of left a little bit and you're taking a little bit of a turn.
00:07:26 Marie Krueger
Maybe you can tell us.
00:07:27 Marie Krueger
A little bit about how that worked for you.
00:07:29 Leah Wallace
So I think with nursing, you don't just have to be a bedside nurse.
00:07:32 Leah Wallace
You can do a lot of different things as my career has.
00:07:35 Leah Wallace
Shown you, but I think the nursing shortage is twofold.
00:07:39 Leah Wallace
I think it's the, you know, generation that is retiring that maybe is retiring earlier because of the pandemic.
00:07:46 Leah Wallace
That said, OK, I'm done.
00:07:47 Leah Wallace
I can't do this anymore.
00:07:48 Leah Wallace
And so they're they're kind of taking their step away.
00:07:50 Leah Wallace
So I think that with that and the ability to do so many different things in nursing.
00:07:55 Leah Wallace
That people are just taking a step away from the bedside.
00:07:58 Leah Wallace
It's hard to be a bedside nurse right now.
00:08:00 Leah Wallace
It's it's difficult.
00:08:01 Leah Wallace
The patients, like he said, are sick.
00:08:03 Leah Wallace
They're sicker than ever because they haven't had access to care.
00:08:07 Leah Wallace
You know they they when we said please stay home.
00:08:10 Leah Wallace
They did.
00:08:10 Leah Wallace
You know they didn't.
00:08:11 Leah Wallace
They didn't go to the doctor.
00:08:12 Leah Wallace
So it's hard to be a nurse now.
00:08:16 Leah Wallace
You always have to be on your toes.
00:08:17 Leah Wallace
You have to think critically all the time.
00:08:19 Leah Wallace
And it's.
00:08:19 Leah Wallace
It's a challenge.
00:08:20 Marie Krueger
Right, right.
00:08:21 Marie Krueger
And certainly for our new doctors that are coming up when we train our new nurses and our new doctors, what are some of the pieces of advice that you would give them as they navigate this journey?
00:08:32 Dr. Dave
Well, speaking for emergency medicine, I'll go back to what I said earlier is that you know, we as physicians, we get trained so much on, you know, metabolic cycles and pharmacology and Histology and and anatomy, right.
00:08:45 Dr. Dave
But we don't get enough training on how to hold someone's hand, how to talk to a a patient or a family member when they're dealing with a loss of a loved one.
00:08:53 Dr. Dave
And so we remind our physicians that you are treating patients at their often most vulnerable or our hardest time and it may just be another day or another shift for us.
00:09:04 Dr. Dave
But for for the patient, it's terrifying.
00:09:06 Marie Krueger
Right.
00:09:06 Dr. Dave
And, you know, even though it's this condition that we may often see, we see on a regular basis.
00:09:11 Dr. Dave
It's terrifying for them and so.
00:09:13 Dr. Dave
And so we, you know, we all I think that the key is putting yourself in that patients perspective and why are they what are they worried about?
00:09:19 Dr. Dave
Why are they upset?
00:09:20 Dr. Dave
What can we do to help them?
00:09:21 Dr. Dave
That empathy really helps to connect us to why you come to work every day and put that badge on, you know?
00:09:28 Dr. Dave
And I think as long as we stay focused on that is what's.
00:09:30 Dr. Dave
Purpose it it it really helps and that's I've learned that, you know, my mentors have been the nurses I work with because they have taught me that and I wish I could say that every physician, when they come out of medical school, gets that training.
00:09:43 Dr. Dave
But unfortunately it's not the case.
00:09:45 Dr. Dave
I don't know it is nowadays.
00:09:46
Right.
00:09:47 Dr. Dave
It's been a minute but but.
00:09:50 Dr. Dave
You know, I've learned so much from the nurses that I work with about taking a step back and reminding why we're here to do what we do.
00:09:57 Marie Krueger
Right.
00:09:57 Marie Krueger
Well, let's take a journey back in time a little bit.
00:09:59 Marie Krueger
I want to talk about something that happened here in Gainesville.
00:10:03 Marie Krueger
There was an explosion in a chicken plant.
00:10:06 Marie Krueger
Devastating on so many levels.
00:10:08 Marie Krueger
You both worked that case or that scenario.
00:10:11 Marie Krueger
What was that like for you guys dealing with that especially right in our backyard?
00:10:16 Leah Wallace
Yeah, I remember getting the first phone call from our Emergency Management Management Preparedness director at the time called because I was the manager of the emergency department and he said that there was an explosion at chicken.
00:10:26 Leah Wallace
Aunt and I won't lie.
00:10:27 Leah Wallace
I thought it was a.
00:10:28 Leah Wallace
You know, because we've we've drilled it, we've practiced it.
00:10:31 Leah Wallace
So I honestly at first thought it was a drill and I heard it was a plastics plant.
00:10:35 Leah Wallace
So I'm thinking, OK, you know, shrapnel injuries, you know, penetrating injuries, thinking about all those things and then to find out it was a nitrogen leak.
00:10:43 Leah Wallace
I had to Google.
00:10:44 Leah Wallace
What does that mean?
00:10:45 Leah Wallace
What does that mean for the staff?
00:10:46 Leah Wallace
What does it mean for the patient?
00:10:48 Leah Wallace
You know, these are things that you.
00:10:49 Leah Wallace
Kind of maybe.
00:10:50 Leah Wallace
Get a chapter of training in nursing school about, but really until you live it, you don't really know what you're you're preparing for so.
00:10:57 Leah Wallace
I think that luckily we were in the middle of the pandemic, so we had our PPE available.
00:11:02 Leah Wallace
We had our gowns and our gloves and all the, you know, protective equipment for our staff available, which was, you know, I don't know if that would have been available if we hadn't been in a pandemic pandemic, but that was a scary day, you know, because we we didn't know what to expect.
00:11:16 Leah Wallace
We didn't know how many patients.
00:11:17 Leah Wallace
You never know what's going to be coming through, but when you get that initial call of a chicken point, you know it's the middle of the day.
00:11:22 Leah Wallace
There's hundreds of people working.
00:11:24 Leah Wallace
Most of them were Hispanic, so we don't have, you know, the translators available.
00:11:29 Leah Wallace
We learned so much from that event, but I think what we did as a healthcare system was come together.
00:11:34 Leah Wallace
You know, I remember reaching out to physicians and everyone that lived, you know, in Gainesville showed up that day and and did whatever they could to help well.
00:11:44 Marie Krueger
I think a common theme in our community is that they are always here to help.
00:11:47 Marie Krueger
We've got so much support in our community as well.
00:11:51 Marie Krueger
Do you still feel like a healthcare hero?
00:11:55 Marie Krueger
That's a tough one.
00:11:56 Dr. Dave
I've I've never felt that term really should be applied.
00:12:00 Dr. Dave
You know, we're doing a job.
00:12:02
OK. Yeah.
00:12:02 Dr. Dave
We were we we've been doing this.
00:12:03 Dr. Dave
You know what I mean?
00:12:04 Dr. Dave
Our nurses, I mean, the nurses, I.
00:12:06 Dr. Dave
Work with some of them are.
00:12:06 Dr. Dave
Doing it for 40 plus years.
00:12:08 Dr. Dave
Right. You know, they they were. They're heroes to me. Then they were heroes. Now it didn't change just because it came to work. In March of 2020.
00:12:16 Dr. Dave
But I do think that there's a recognition of the of the casualties that physicians and nurses and any healthcare worker is endearing.
00:12:25 Dr. Dave
I don't like the term hero because to me, I mean there's people that serve our country and do so many other things that are true heroes in my mind.
00:12:31 Dr. Dave
And I don't, I don't think it's fair to put us on that stage.
00:12:35 Dr. Dave
But I also think it's important to.
00:12:36 Dr. Dave
Highlight the the the impact that daily healthcare how, how it affects individual healthcare workers.
00:12:46 Dr. Dave
You know the the mental impact, the post traumatic stress and those types of things which I think have come to light because of the pandemic.
00:12:52 Dr. Dave
But these were there long before that right and and so they became worse of course, but.
00:12:58 Dr. Dave
So you know, is it a hero or not?
00:13:00 Dr. Dave
You know, we're committed to taking care of patients, right?
00:13:03 Dr. Dave
I mean, that's our job.
00:13:04 Dr. Dave
You know that title?
00:13:06 Dr. Dave
It certainly is, is uplifting at times, but I don't think anyone feels that they did anything more or.
00:13:12 Dr. Dave
Yes, pre pandemic or not, or even what they're doing now, it's still what they wanted to do, which is take care of patients.
00:13:17 Marie Krueger
Understood. Yeah. How about you?
00:13:20 Leah Wallace
Yeah, I agree.
00:13:21 Leah Wallace
I think that it was nice to be recognized throughout the pandemic for the work that we do.
00:13:26 Leah Wallace
You know, it was nice to have that national recognition of look at these nurses on the frontline.
00:13:29 Leah Wallace
Look at these doctors on the frontline, the lab techs, respiratory, everyone that was really struggling through that.
00:13:34 Leah Wallace
It was nice to have that recognition finally because like you said, we've been doing it.
00:13:38 Leah Wallace
Before and we're doing it now.
00:13:41 Leah Wallace
This wasn't the first time we were seeing death on a daily basis.
00:13:44 Leah Wallace
We were seeing death on a daily basis.
00:13:45 Leah Wallace
Every day. So nothing really changed to us. You know, the patients were sicker and more complex, and we learned a lot about COVID, which, you know, who knew what that was in March of 2020.
00:13:56 Leah Wallace
But it was nice to have that national recognition.
00:14:00 Leah Wallace
I think the Community did a really nice job of supporting the nursing staff, supporting the physicians and the hospital.
00:14:06 Leah Wallace
Itself, right.
00:14:06 Leah Wallace
So I do thank them for that.
00:14:08 Leah Wallace
But we're still in it.
00:14:10 Leah Wallace
We're still.
00:14:10 Leah Wallace
Still, you know in our own.
00:14:13 Marie Krueger
No, that's a great point.
00:14:15 Marie Krueger
There's a lot of challenges going on in healthcare, certainly, but there's also some wins, right?
00:14:19 Marie Krueger
You guys hopefully have had left work one day and said, gosh, I did it.
00:14:23 Marie Krueger
That was, that was fantastic.
00:14:24 Marie Krueger
I got someone home to their loved ones.
00:14:26 Marie Krueger
Can you recall a specific story that you want to share where things went really well?
00:14:31 Marie Krueger
Things worked good.
00:14:32 Dr. Dave
You know, one of the things that I've I've always enjoyed is our our, our recognition of of of survivors, of heart attacks.
00:14:39 Dr. Dave
Trauma and stroke.
00:14:41 Dr. Dave
You know, because those are truly, I mean, they are the manifestation that we can clearly see of a team coming together.
00:14:49 Dr. Dave
There's no individual person that can be recognized.
00:14:52 Dr. Dave
For the outcome of of returning a patient back after they've had a heart attack or a stroke or trauma, or are a.
00:14:58 Dr. Dave
Lot of other things.
00:14:58 Dr. Dave
But those conditions in particular truly show the importance of a team and without any, any one part of that could fail, and the outcome could be very.
00:15:09 Dr. Dave
Very different.
00:15:10 Dr. Dave
And so I think when we look at our, our heart attack survivors, our stroke survivors and they come to the emergency department or we have a recognition event for them in an auditorium with their families and and they get up and speak and they see these trauma survivors that are graduating from University of Georgia it to this day if.
00:15:28 Dr. Dave
That doesn't affect you.
00:15:29 Dr. Dave
Then you're.
00:15:30 Dr. Dave
There's no reason you should be coming to work every day, right?
00:15:32 Dr. Dave
You know it is.
00:15:32 Dr. Dave
Those are the kinds of stories that.
00:15:34 Dr. Dave
On a daily basis, we do see, you know and we see a lot of things that are psychologically traumatic for us.
00:15:41 Dr. Dave
But seeing those is the reason that keeps us coming.
00:15:43 Dr. Dave
To work.
00:15:44 Leah Wallace
Yeah, I completely agree.
00:15:45 Leah Wallace
Just yesterday, me and Davey were at a driving summit to teach about safe driving for teenagers.
00:15:52 Leah Wallace
And, you know, just looking around, we were talking a lot of our colleagues that we used to work with all kind of came together to do this education.
00:15:58 Leah Wallace
And it was.
00:15:59 Leah Wallace
It was like we were working on a case that day.
00:16:00 Leah Wallace
I mean, it was really something to look around and just kind of see where we've all come and where we are now.
00:16:06 Leah Wallace
And being able to, you know, do that teaching out to the the community that we that we live in.
00:16:10 Leah Wallace
And we love.
00:16:11 Marie Krueger
That's awesome.
00:16:12 Marie Krueger
Do you ever miss being in the Ed being in?
00:16:14 Marie Krueger
The thick of it loaded question.
00:16:16 Marie Krueger
Yeah, well.
00:16:16 Dr. Dave
I guess they're being.
00:16:17 Dr. Dave
In the can I answer that?
00:16:17 Marie Krueger
I bet, yeah.
00:16:18 Marie Krueger
Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:19 Leah Wallace
No, I miss.
00:16:20 Leah Wallace
I do.
00:16:21 Leah Wallace
I do.
00:16:23 Leah Wallace
Yesterday was kind of a little glimpse where I got to be a trauma.
00:16:26 Leah Wallace
But you know, I was in leadership for the the last half of my career in emergency medicine and I still try to take care of patients every day.
00:16:33 Leah Wallace
If I could I miss the patient interactions.
00:16:36 Leah Wallace
I miss the teamwork, the environment and the people.
00:16:39 Leah Wallace
More than anything.
00:16:40 Leah Wallace
You know, I have some of the most, you know, incredible relationships because of the emergency department and the people that I met through nursing school and have grown up with, you know.
00:16:48 Leah Wallace
Been to weddings and baby showers and you know, now I'm going to their kids soccer games and stuff like that.
00:16:54 Leah Wallace
So it's really.
00:16:57 Leah Wallace
I do I do miss it, but I'm really enjoying what?
00:16:59 Marie Krueger
I'm doing now.
00:16:59 Marie Krueger
That's great.
00:17:00 Marie Krueger
That's great.
00:17:01 Marie Krueger
So we're level 1 now.
00:17:02 Marie Krueger
How exciting is that?
00:17:03 Marie Krueger
What does that mean for our community?
00:17:05 Marie Krueger
Can talk through that.
00:17:06 Marie Krueger
A little bit.
00:17:06 Dr. Dave
Sure. So I mean.
00:17:07 Dr. Dave
Our community has really benefited from us having a trauma designation for, I think 2013 or 2014 as when we first became as a.
00:17:16 Dr. Dave
It designated Level 2 trauma.
00:17:18 Dr. Dave
Center, which again going back to organized systems of care, has shown the community are as well as our EMS or any anyone around that that touches our healthcare system that we are committed to building this type of system of care.
00:17:32 Dr. Dave
So going to level one really just fortifies that commitment.
00:17:35 Dr. Dave
Is that OK, we you know one of our core values is a passion for excellence, so.
00:17:39 Dr. Dave
You know, whether we were level 2 or level one, it really doesn't know how.
00:17:42 Dr. Dave
We had no designation, right?
00:17:43 Dr. Dave
We are still have to do things that can make our care better for our patients.
00:17:46 Dr. Dave
So level one certainly means that we're, you know, have are doing things that are more involved and are highly scrutinized compared to level 2.
00:17:55 Dr. Dave
But the what the Community should know is that regardless of designation, it makes this Community, you know, our commitment makes this Community better because we are prepared.
00:18:05 Dr. Dave
And but it also makes other parts of healthcare better because because we are level 1 trauma focus, that actually helps other services, whether it's improving.
00:18:15 Dr. Dave
Our sepsis pathways or heart attack care or radiology or stroke, we all it's we all kind of just follow the same type of of mindset is that OK this is a patient with a time sensitive condition.
00:18:24 Marie Krueger
Right.
00:18:27 Dr. Dave
And how do we manage it and?
00:18:29 Dr. Dave
Come together.
00:18:30 Marie Krueger
This is kind of an interesting question that I want to know if you guys can answer what do you wish.
00:18:35 Marie Krueger
Patients knew about.
00:18:38 Marie Krueger
Healthcare providers, doctors, nurses.
00:18:40 Marie Krueger
What do you wish they knew that maybe.
00:18:41 Marie Krueger
We don't know kind of what you.
00:18:42 Leah Wallace
Said when we started this.
00:18:43 Leah Wallace
We're humans, you know, we we feel the same way they do.
00:18:47 Leah Wallace
We get sick like they do.
00:18:49 Leah Wallace
So, you know, coming into the emergency department specifically.
00:18:52 Leah Wallace
So they come in with a terrible headache.
00:18:54 Leah Wallace
Well, one of us might have woken up with a headache that day, and we're not feeling as well, so.
00:18:58 Leah Wallace
I think what's?
00:19:00 Leah Wallace
It's hard for them to look at.
00:19:02 Leah Wallace
Us as if we're not human.
00:19:04 Leah Wallace
Sometimes we feel what they do.
00:19:06 Leah Wallace
We go home with their pain.
00:19:08 Leah Wallace
You know, it's not easy telling a family member that they've lost their loved one.
00:19:12 Leah Wallace
You know, we go home and we have to digest that every single day.
00:19:16 Leah Wallace
And it's difficult.
00:19:17 Leah Wallace
So I think just the aspect of that, we're human.
00:19:20 Leah Wallace
We make mistakes, you know, we we are there for them.
00:19:23 Leah Wallace
We we chose this career for a.
00:19:24 Leah Wallace
And I love that we're.
00:19:26 Marie Krueger
Trying our best.
00:19:27 Marie Krueger
And get me choked up.
00:19:29 Dr. Dave
I mean, one of the hardest things, especially over the last several years has been, you know, with masking.
00:19:34 Dr. Dave
I mean when when you ask, what do patients which we know it's like you know we we've kind of masked our own feelings and emotions.
00:19:41 Dr. Dave
You know, we don't.
00:19:42 Dr. Dave
Patients don't get to see our faces or smiles.
00:19:44 Dr. Dave
We don't get to see theirs as much and unfortunately, we're getting, you know, we're moving away from that.
00:19:49 Dr. Dave
But you know that human touch became even harder.
00:19:52 Dr. Dave
You know, when you had to put on gloves and gowns and face.
00:19:56 Dr. Dave
And so I think that that if I wish patients knew the impact that had on on, we know it had tremendous impact on them.
00:20:03 Dr. Dave
But the impact that had on us too was, is, you know, something, I hope I never have to deal with again because you know that that really again going back to why do we get up and put on our our badges and go to work.
00:20:14 Dr. Dave
It's it's to take care of people.
00:20:15 Dr. Dave
And help them.
00:20:16 Marie Krueger
Right.
00:20:16 Dr. Dave
And it's harder to do when you can't see their face or see their smile or their fear, you know.
00:20:22
Right.
00:20:22 Dr. Dave
And so I'm glad that we're moving in the direction to get away from that, but I think I wish that's something that is portrayed to patients as they know about us.
00:20:31 Dr. Dave
Is that, like Leah said, we are human.
00:20:34 Dr. Dave
We have our, you know, our our need to touch one another and hug one another and and and help each other.
00:20:41 Dr. Dave
And that's been harder.
00:20:42 Marie Krueger
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:43 Marie Krueger
I mean, you guys are a family.
00:20:45 Leah Wallace
Yeah, absolutely.
00:20:45 Marie Krueger
Essentially, especially since going through the the traumatic events that we've all been going through.
00:20:50 Marie Krueger
Lastly, before we close up, have you always been this resilient?
00:20:53 Marie Krueger
Is it ingrained in you?
00:20:55 Marie Krueger
Because I feel like that's something that comes with age.
00:20:58 Marie Krueger
Certainly an experience, but golly you y'all are resilient.
00:21:02 Marie Krueger
You got some high intelligence of of emotions and.
00:21:06 Marie Krueger
It's not easy.
00:21:07 Dr. Dave
Yeah, I mean the resilience again comes from the focus on the why on the why.
00:21:10 Marie Krueger
On the Y, yeah.
00:21:12 Dr. Dave
It's harder.
00:21:13 Dr. Dave
It's it's sometimes I mean practicing and Healthcare is is it can be very, very frustrating, especially when you're dealing with nursing shortages or medication shortages or supply shortages or there's not enough people to keep certain aspects of healthcare running.
00:21:26 Dr. Dave
That have nothing to do with.
00:21:27 Dr. Dave
With nursing, I mean whether it's.
00:21:28 Marie Krueger
So when patients are frustrated, you're you're equally as frustrated.
00:21:31 Dr. Dave
I mean, we're all patients too, right?
00:21:31 Marie Krueger
Certain things.
00:21:33 Dr. Dave
I mean we we we touch we have touch points in the healthcare system.
00:21:36 Dr. Dave
So you know I think that that's the the resilience is often tested it's been.
00:21:40 Dr. Dave
Tested a lot.
00:21:42 Dr. Dave
Recently, it's even now when you see the COVID numbers, everything else falling.
00:21:46 Dr. Dave
That doesn't mean that the resource problems and and the issues that we're having have changed if in fact they've probably gotten.
00:21:53 Dr. Dave
And so I think that that's the story that is not being told.
00:21:56 Dr. Dave
Is that practicing now actually was a lot harder than was even three years ago, because three years ago we had a lot of fear.
00:22:02 Dr. Dave
Because of the pandemic.
00:22:04 Dr. Dave
But then we had scare patients from coming.
00:22:06 Dr. Dave
To get care right.
00:22:07 Dr. Dave
So we didn't have a lot of.
00:22:08 Dr. Dave
Where to give?
00:22:08 Dr. Dave
And now we have tremendous.
00:22:10 Dr. Dave
We're overwhelmed with the amount of care that's needed and we have people that have gone to other industries or retired from the profession and and we still have supply constraints, etcetera.
00:22:22 Dr. Dave
So what's your?
00:22:23 Leah Wallace
I agree.
00:22:24 Leah Wallace
I think that it, like he said, it's harder now, you know, we don't have the highlight.
00:22:29 Leah Wallace
You know, the patients are sicker, the resources are less and it's kind of like kind of spot on the rug almost in in the nation.
00:22:36 Leah Wallace
But I think that in the end, nurse seems still fun.
00:22:40 Leah Wallace
It's still a great career.
00:22:41 Leah Wallace
I would never change my career.
00:22:46 Leah Wallace
You know, I'm so glad I went into nursing and I think everyone has a different story of why they went into medicine.
00:22:51 Leah Wallace
Right.
00:22:51 Leah Wallace
But looking back, I would never change my career and I think that every day it's easy to put on the scrubs.
00:22:57 Leah Wallace
It's easy to put on my badge and and say that I work at a hospital with amazing people every day.
00:23:04 Marie Krueger
I know I feel like that might.
00:23:04 Dr. Dave
The job.
00:23:06 Marie Krueger
Happen in moonlight, you know, work on the weekends. No, thank you. And I think sharing your your story is going to help bring light to to some of the things that you've been dealing with ever since 2020 and prior to 2020. But I just really appreciate your time, you guys, and and sharing your your stories. So.
00:23:22 Marie Krueger
Thank you everybody for watching.
00:23:24 Marie Krueger
And if you haven't already, please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast and we'll see you next time.
00:23:28 Marie Krueger
Take care.