Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs. Today I'm going to talk about the third person that I worked with at the Behrend center that definitely impacted me in my life.
[00:00:17] First, I want to say a couple things about the influence of Wanda, Ed, and Jeannie.
[00:00:30] You. You work somewhere. Like, I worked there for four years at the Barron center. And during that time, I had a variety of different jobs while I was there. They didn't mind moving me around or upgrading me or, you know, whatever they thought was going to be good for both me and the residents and the facility.
[00:00:54] So there was no issue at all about me being moved into different positions. So that's one thing I was really grateful for, because I gained so much experience there, and I felt supported in every single role that I was in.
[00:01:14] I don't think I would have really realized how much of an impact the three of them made until after I really did retire, because that's the time when you get to reflect on what you have done in your life and what your career meant to you.
[00:01:35] So Wanda influenced me because she was just such a straight shooter. You know, I might start to get all wound up about something, which is kind of classic for me. I think it's that Italian personality. I run a little hot and cold, okay? So having her be my assistant director of nursing, and I would start to get wound up about something, and she'd be like, put a lid on it. Okay, this is fine. Everything's fine. You're doing a great job.
[00:02:12] Ed was, like, one of the best friends you could have ever had. I don't know how lucky I was to have him in my life. I adored him, even from afar. After we moved to Michigan, I still adored him so much. And part of the reason, when I look back on my relationship with Ed, is because I told you I would go down to his office and I would kind of recap the day. But I got to know him, too. I got to understand who he was as a person, and I understood who he was, and I loved him for the person that he was. Right? So he was really, really loyal. If he loved you, he was loyal to the death. Okay. But if you were something, someone that betrayed his trust or someone that he just did not like or had an opinion about, maybe that might be one or two of the physicians that he didn't really think were taking good care of the residents. He wasn't shy about telling you how he felt. There was no mystery with Ed. It was right. All out there for his friends that were loyal to him to see. I mean, that's a, that's a characteristic that not many people can pull off. I think people will switch their personalities depending on who they're with. But Ed wasn't like that. He was amazing. So he was just such a solid, solid friend.
[00:03:51] Today I'm going to talk to you about Jeannie.
[00:03:55] But what I would say to you about Jeannie right up front is she is a true leader.
[00:04:03] There's a lot of times, and believe me, we're talking me being in, starting my career in the military and then all the way through for 47 years in, in the health care profession. So I have been subject, subject. I have been subject and subjected to many different leaders in my career. And if I were to look back on my career, she would be the leader that stuck out to me. Now a lot of people would be like, you got to be kidding me. She was the director of a senior living center or a nursing home as some people would call it. What, how could she impact you in that kind of leadership role? Well, what I would say to you is that was a tough leadership role. Okay. I mean, I've been in director level positions, I've been a manager on a 44 bed in patient unit.
[00:05:15] So I definitely understand what leadership is. And I saw various forms of leadership when I was in the military.
[00:05:24] So I think the thing that I remember most about Jeannie is that she was wise, but she also knew her limitations. That's the key to a good leader right there. She was always interested in gaining more knowledge so that she was continuing to do the right thing.
[00:05:50] So one of the biggest things I want to say right up front about her is that she went to nursing school and she went to a diploma nursing school.
[00:06:02] So back in the day when nursing programs started out, first started out, we had what we call diploma graduates. That was a nursing school where most of the time the students were hired to work in the hospital and a lot of their education was based on experiential learning. So you're a staff member, basically you're working as a staff nurse. You don't even know, you know anything about maybe the, how patients would come up with a urinary tract infection. But you're the first person that would know how to put a Foley catheter into somebody's bladder. So they were very good with clinical skills. They, they surprised surpassed any other nursing. Okay. Because clinically there was nobody better than a diploma graduate. And it took nursing a period of time to really finally understand that you also needed textbook learning to go along with the, the clinical experience.
[00:07:27] So then of course they reversed the education and it, they came up with an associate degree program, which is really a two year program in nursing, but you have to have at least a year of general education. So it's still a three year program. And then bachelor's degree in nursing and of course there's a master's degree in nursing. And now a lot many nurses go for their PhD.
[00:07:55] So I would say, you know, I went from being a corpsman in the Navy, which was very similar to being a diploma grad because mine was all experiential nursing, from being thrown into the clinical realm and then going back to school and getting an associate's degree where I could at least connect the learning from book learning with what I was experiencing clinically.
[00:08:27] So she had come into nursing as a diploma nurse and they, it's so clear, if you knew her, you would know what I was talking about, that she just is a natural leader. Some people are just natural leaders. And that's what I would say about her. So it was not a stretch for her to become the director of nursing for the Baron Center. And I think the Baron center had like 235 residents. And then we had 50 residents in the standalone Alzheimer's unit. So that's 285 patients basically that she was in charge of, she had oversight of. And then she also was responsible for, you know, all the regulations, all the complaints. Of course it would go up through the chain of command there, but it would always end up on her desk because she had to know what was going on in the facility.
[00:09:33] So I would say that she had a pretty big job compared to the inpatient units where you don't really see leaders over large populations.
[00:09:50] They have directors, but most of the time they have the charge nurses which manage it on a local unit and then they have their directors and then it goes up the ladder and there's, you know, there's a lot of leadership in inpatient and here there really wasn't as much leadership.
[00:10:15] But even if there were was more leadership or it was comparable to inpatient, what I would say is that she inserted herself and was more involved in what was going on than in any of the other areas that I had worked in. So to me that was kind of refreshing. I, I appreciated it.
[00:10:42] One of the few incidents that sticks out in my mind though is that she, if I was upset about something, which was often, believe me, I'm a perfectionist. So if one little thing goes wrong, I'm like, already having a meltdown about it. But I could go to Jeannie to talk to her. So going up the chain of command, I could skip Wanda and that if I wanted to, and just go into her office and she would look at me and she would say things like, don, this too shall pass. In other words, you're getting all worked up about something you don't need to get worked up about.
[00:11:24] Or one of her other great phrases that she would say is, no good deed goes unpunished. So, you know, here you are, you're working your hardest, you're doing the best you can, and it doesn't matter sometimes how good of a job you're gonna do. The Pat family might be frustrated, and so they're going to take it out on you, even though you feel like you're doing the best you can. So she would offer those words of comfort. No good deed goes unpunished. We know you're doing a good job, but there's always going to be somebody that doesn't think you're doing a good job. Just chill. So those two phrases live with me, right? They, they go forward with me. And I remember her saying them to me. I can remember moments of why she was saying them to me. And she just was so impactful in the way I could approach her. She had a wonderful sense of humor. Everybody had a wonderful sense of humor if they were hanging out with her and Ed because Ed would say something funny and she would laugh just as loud as he did, both of them. And you, you just felt like you were in a good situation because everybody still had a good time. And how often do you get that nowadays? You feel just so stressed out about everything all the time. You don't get that much time to have a little laughter, a little light heartedness. I remember at the end of my career, I was like, oh, my God, I know I'm making a difference, but is this worth it? Because where is the happiness coming from? This, you know, I don't know. It was hard, of course, when you lived through Covid and everything, it didn't help. I think that really changed health care, in my personal opinion.
[00:13:17] But the one incident that I want to tell you about, well, actually there's a couple, but the one, the first one I'm going to tell you about is we always had to have inspections done by the state, so the state would come and make sure that you're following the rules and regulations of the state for a nursing home, which Included things like cleanliness. It included things like if a patient needed a safety belt because they were unsteady on their feet, were we releasing the safety belt and not keeping them tied up all the time? So there were things like that. If we were ambulating patients, were we using the appropriate tools, like a walker if they were to need it, where we making sure that the patients got their meals on time. If somebody had an infection, were they getting the proper care for an infection? You know, so they, they looked at every little thing when they came. They reviewed the patient charts, they would go and talk to the patients. They would come during meal time and they would observe you during meal time to make sure that the patients were not lying in bed eating. They wanted people out of bed in the dining room and eating. Okay, if they could get up to eat. Some of the patients couldn't get up because of their disability and so. Or they might be on a tube feeding, so you wouldn't necessarily have to get them up. But they knew what was going on and they would check out every venue. Well, this one particular time they came, I had a patient or resident there that I could get up into like a recliner and it had the tray table in front that would lock in, but I would also had put like a vest on them and had tied that to the back of the chair. Because the tray table sometimes was. You didn't want it to be too tight and if you were making it a little looser, you didn't want them to slide out of the chair.
[00:15:40] So I was feeding the patient and, and they were watching me. And then I got called to go to the desk for some reason. And so when I left the desk, I left the patient there thinking that everything was okay, you know, because I had the, the safety vest on the patient as well.
[00:16:05] Well, apparently I was gone a little bit longer than I should have been and I probably got distracted from the other call that I had been called out for. But there were nursing assistants in there and so they could also put their eyes on my patient to make sure my patient was doing okay. And I did say that when I left the room, make sure, blah, blah, blah, you know, so at the end of the. They were usually there 48 hours watching us. You know, I'm, and I'll talk about this process at the end, but right now just know it was so nerve wracking because of course you're going to make a mistake when somebody's watching you. That's, that's human nature, isn't it? Nobody is perfect if you've got someone standing over you, watching your every move. It's a miracle if you can get through an inspection without having some kind of problem. Well, sure enough, this patient that I had up feeding, they decided to ding us because no one was there to take the tray table down. And so they felt like the patient was being restrained, and we got dinged for it. I'm like, that is seems.
[00:17:26] That did not seem right to me. I was not happy about that. Of course I was involved. That's probably part of it. But of course, it made Jeannie upset, too. Why wouldn't she be upset? She's in charge of this whole entire building. I'm pretty sure she thought that my unit of all the units was going to be in good shape. It was a smaller unit. It was a skilled unit. So the patients were a little bit more care, but we had really good help there. And we. The patient load was a little more manageable than some of the other units.
[00:18:02] So we got dinged for that.
[00:18:05] And, you know, so she called me into the office to talk to me about it. I was unhappy, and she knew I was unhappy. She was unhappy. And I was trying not to cry because I was so upset. When I get mad, sometimes I cry. And. And she is like, who in the world was the nursing assistant that was in the lunchroom with you when you were feeding the patient? Because I explained how I got called out, but I had so and so in there. She says, well, who was it? So I told her the name of the nursing assistant. Well, the nursing assistant that was in there, she wasn't exactly a ball of fire, and she wasn't exactly, like, the smartest person in the room, but she was so kind and caring, and she didn't even know if she did something wrong. She just was unaffected like that.
[00:19:09] But when I told her who it was, of course she said, of course it was her. Right? Of course that would be the one person that would be in there that. Now we have to explain this whole thing away. I said, I'm going to help you on it. And she looked at me and she said, don, I just have one thing to say. And I said, okay, go ahead and say it. And she said, the nursing assistant's first name. She says, she is the pimple on the ass of my existence.
[00:19:47] Okay, let me just say at that moment, I never laughed so hard in my entire life. I mean, I've thought about it a million times after that, because what I mean, that pretty much summed up exactly how we were all feeling like we knew she was good and good in her heart, but we knew she didn't really get things. And it's so hard to punish someone who really, he doesn't know. You know what I mean? And really, I thought, when I look back on it now, I think to myself so many times, I think, you know what a punitive process that is. Like, if I was an inspector, I never would have called somebody out like that. I mean, it was obvious that we were taking very good care of the residents. You have to go a long way to pick up on something so minuscule as that.
[00:20:52] That is my opinion. And I think, why would we. We should be fostering an environment of learning and how to improve on things, not a punitive thing where you're going to be dinged and they have to come back maybe in six months to see if you've rectified the problem. I don't know where that system came from, but I never thought it was great. But I do know one thing. I mean, I think, you know, nursing has come a long way, and I think there were abuses in a lot of the nursing homes when they first came out. They weren't really regulated. And so you know how the pendulum is. It starts on one end and then it swings way far the other way. I hope if I were working today, the pendulum would be somewhere in the middle, and it would be more of a collaborative experience between state inspections and the workers of those facilities.
[00:22:00] But anyhow, she always had the right words to say when you were in the middle of a crisis. So she had the, you know, this too shall pass. No good deed goes unpunished. And so. And you are the pimple on the ass of my existence. Just what we needed, a little humor because we were so stressed out. And I remember I just. At first, I didn't know if I should laugh or not, but then I just couldn't help but laugh. And I've thought about that moment a million times over that, you know, and I don't blame her one bit, because her whole heart and soul was into making sure that the residents got great care.
[00:22:48] And here we were with something so simple, and we're going to get dinged for it. So we made it through the process, but I continued to work there with her. And one of the other things that I absolutely loved about her is she knew I was going back to graduate school and that I had applied. I was telling everybody up front, and so she said, I want to go back to graduate school, too. Well, she was 10 years older than me, and I went back when I was 40.
[00:23:27] So I was like, wow, she's going to go back. Even in her. When she's in her 50s. Wow. But guess what? She did. She did go back, okay. And she got the same exact degree that I did. She became a clinical nurse specialist in adult health, which was perfect for her because she was interested in delivering the right care to patients to meet their needs.
[00:23:56] And I respected her so much for going back to school. It was real. I thought it was hard in my 40s, so I can't even imagine going back in my 50s.
[00:24:07] But the fact that she was a continued learner in a leadership role, she did it because she wanted to, not because anybody told her, you really should go back to school. Didn't have anything to do with that. This was a personal goal that she set for herself.
[00:24:28] And then she made it happen.
[00:24:34] I. I respect her so much. I'm always still going to respect her. I talk to her periodically, not often, not as often as I should. And I hope that she'll listen to this podcast and know what a big influence she really was to me in my career. She made a big difference. She definitely did.
[00:25:01] Thank you for listening to my podcast today.
[00:25:05] I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:25:08] We are still working with our attorney right now to make sure that we have everything copyrighted. And then, like I've said before, and I'll continue to say, we're going to be putting a podcast out once a week, every Saturday morning. So it should be pretty good. We. We got a system in place finally. This has been a process for me too, and I appreciate all of you hanging in there with me. The other thing is, I did talk to you at one point about having a studio, which we do have a studio where we can actually conduct interviews. But some of the challenges with that is that I live away from people that I want to interview. So I'm coming up with a different process now, and I think I'm going to be able to interview right off from my cell ph, so it's not going to be such a problem.
[00:26:00] And the other thing is, though, I can tell your story. You could just tell the story to me and then, matter of fact, if you wanted to tape record yourself with a story and then just send it to my cell phone, that would be great. My number is 616-843-1392. I could get the story from you, and then I could follow up with you about any questions, and then I could actually tell your story on my podc. I don't. I might go on YouTube but I don't think I'm gonna do like live interviews. It'll be more like when I had my husband speaking. So it'll just be two. A two person conversation. But you won't really be seeing us, which I think is okay.
[00:26:48] There are so many podcasts out there. I'm sure that you can watch any podcast you want. Joe Rogan, Bill O'Reilly. I watch Bill O'Reilly so there's plenty of them out there and just listening to mine makes all the difference to me and I really appreciate having an audience like you. So thank you very much.
[00:27:13] In order to contact me you can just go to the end of the page and of our website and it's milkmon.com M I L K M-O-N.com all one word. You can leave a comment there or like I said, you can call my cell phone directly and I will definitely get back to you until the next time.
