Let's DISH about Pediatrics

Transcription:

Host: Welcome to the Iowa Specialty Hospitals and Clinics ISH DISH Podcast, practical health advice from Iowa Specialty Experts. We want to connect the members of our communities with the latest healthcare information that's understandable, relatable, and useful to your daily life. With us today in the studio we have Cassie Wagner, and Cassie is a Registered Nurse Practitioner who specializes in Pediatrics.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Correct.

Host: Welcome to the show. Very nice to have you here today, and I'm super excited to hear about the things that you do, your education and all the things Cassie Wagner. So let's start off a little bit first of all, for those of you listening who don't know, Cassie works full-time in our Garner clinic and you work strictly with peds, which is ages one to 18?

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Yep. Zero to 18.

Host: Zero to 18. Yeah. I can't forget, so got the little babies too. Perfect. You are a mom

and you have some kids?

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: I have two boys. Um, 11 and almost six.

Host: Wow, that keeps you busy. And I have show notes that you love to play, so, and that, that does help you with the kids. Just having that mom experience and you're adventurous. So I think that lends itself very well to relating with kids.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Yes, I think I use the medical piece in talking with the parents, getting the history, learning about their diagnosis and things, but to achieve cooperation with the child and having a positive appointment experience and a happy return, engaging the kids is probably the most fun part of the visit for me. So, playing with them and interacting with them and getting to know them a little bit has been great.

Host: Perfect. Let's review your education and experience a little bit. How did you start off in this profession? How did it get you to where you are today?

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: I became a nurse in 2004 after I graduated from the Coe College nursing program, out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My older sister is a nurse, so I emulated her and some other healthcare members in my family. And I moved out to Chicago where I accepted a job as a nurse in a pediatric intensive care unit. At the time, I knew I wanted ICU, I wanted the high drama, the intense environment.

I didn't necessarily know that I wanted to work with children at the time, but that was where I found a job and I fell in love in the first week. It became my life school as a younger person to work in critical care for kids. After I left that role, I returned to Iowa to be closer to family because Chicago was a little bit abrasive, for me.

So, I went to the University of Iowa and took a job in the pediatric ICU there where I stayed for almost 10 years. For about seven years of that experience, I was a neonatal pediatric flight nurse with Air Care and with ambulance transports. And so that was a very educational experience for me.

That was probably the highlight of my life, honestly. And so I was successful in that role. So I decided to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I graduated from the Rush University Pediatric Acute Care Program, which was more ICU driven because that was still my goal at the time and accepted a job in pediatric infectious disease in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I found another new wealth of knowledge and learning experience that was very enjoyable for me. In the mix, during that time, I had my children and very much wanted to be closer to home to be with their grandparents and our family. And North Iowa is where my husband and I were both raised. So we moved back and I accepted this position at Iowa specialty about three years ago. So I also did a second postmaster certificate in Ped's primary care so that I could be certified in both.

I definitely enjoyed the ICU because that was my passion at one point in time. Everybody always told me that it would be very difficult to work there once I had children, and that did not make sense to me until I actually had them.

Host: So that was true.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Yes, that's very true. I didn't think so. I was offended when people would say that to me.

Host: Sure.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: They would say that in the ICU it takes a very special person to take care of those patients, and I didn't think there was anything special about it at all. I just thought that even though I don't have kids, like I care about them too, but when I did have children, then the whole world completely changed. And I'll never forget the first child that I took care of after my son was born.

Host: You know, I was going to give you a huge shout out. I just feel like somebody like myself, I can't even imagine.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: mm-hmm.

Host: And working in an ICU specific to children, seeing all the pain and the difficulties that they must go through and having to keep your chin up, and try to make their day every day and what a difference you must make in that role. It's just huge and I think that's so cool. But yeah, I can see where it would be difficult once you had your own children.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: It was, yeah. Yeah. It definitely changed who I was as a person. But I looked forward to the positive moments and the miracles that we did see, and the progress and watching the children get better and things. In the instances where kids did not get better. That was very hard. But then our role was really supporting the family.

Host: Mm-hmm.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: And helping to ease any of the pain that we possibly could. PICU nurses and transport nurses are some of the most special people that there are on the planet, and they work very hard in that way. So, I get a little emotional talking about it. I can't, yeah, I can, I still work in the cardiac ICU in Iowa City as needed, but emotionally, it takes a toll after a while and my focus has now become a little bit more on taking care of and preventing critical illness in kids.

So mentioning things I have several things that I always make sure to mention to families during certain physical appointments because of some of that experience. But it's been great. Like I get to play with kids and watch them get better and help educate their parents and nurses in general, love to do that kind of thing.

Patient education is another part of the job that's really fun. So I use a lot, I use some of the medical knowledge that I have when I take care of kids in primary care, but I use a lot of momming, a lot more than I really thought I would. And that's fun to do.

Host: What a great marriage that just makes you invaluable, in my eyes.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Thank you.

Host: And thank you, thank goodness for people like you, Cassie. That's wonderful. You did mention that you flew in the helicopter for several years and, you know, those of us sitting here on the ground watching those helicopters come in and land at the hospital it's kind of a glorified position or experience it seems like. What is it like?

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Well, I had a huge problem with nausea while I did that job. So

Host: Oh, no.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: My first thought is that it's very nauseating, but I think part of it too was because I was very nervous. I would, want to be prepared in any sort of situation. So on my way to every call, I would think in my mind, what is the worst that could possibly happen in this scenario and how I would be prepared for that.

And so I think that backfired a little bit and I would think of, I would stress myself out and make myself a little bit too nervous. But I did figure out what to do in the moment sometimes because I was prepared and I had thought about it ahead of time. But I took care of a lot of kids. It was predominantly neonatal transport, so a lot of preemies. And so that was really fun. And to see them through the NICU, they would stay for a long time sometimes and then be discharged. Well, that was very rewarding. It was a high drama kind of profession, but I enjoyed that a lot. That's why I was there.

Host: Yeah.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: I There were kids that needed help and I wanted to be one of the people to help them. So that was a great time in my life.

Host: to, So how does your experience then with the infectious disease, how does that all wrap into, or what does that mean, I guess.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Yeah, so I worked as a nurse practitioner with some different physicians that specialized in peds infectious disease. So we would get referrals from all over South Dakota at the time for unusual infections and some more difficult cases like immune deficiencies and things. We would take care of patients that were hospitalized with infections. The primary teams would consult us in the ICUs and we were all over the hospital, which was fun. Infection was very interesting to learn about. And so I had the benefit of working with Dr. Archana Chatterjee, who is absolutely amazing and probably one of the smartest people on the planet.

She taught me a lot of very complicated stuff that she made it for me to understand and I was able to use that knowledge and share it with other providers and things. So that was fun. I very much enjoyed in that way taking care of children, but they were sick and they had an infection and that we, could figure out what it was, figure out the treatment and make them better.

So it was a transition from the ICU where it's someti most of the time great or okay. And other times really sad, but in infectious disease, like a lot of the time, it was really good outcomes, that was fun to have some of that kind of nerdy knowledge. I was fascinated to learn about all different kinds of germs and we worked with the Pediatric residency program there.

Dr. Chatterjee had me do some things with the residents and things that was fun. A little bit of teaching and stuff. She did research too, so I got to help with some of that. So it was great. But ultimately my two boys were born and they were needing more family and my youngest was sick and so I needed to get closer to home. So that's what we did.

Host: You are insanely well-rounded.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Mm-hmm.

Host: And I think that obviously really helps in your position and your qualifications and I'm sitting here thinking to myself, why wouldn't you take your children to go see Cassie? Yeah. Seems like obvious to me right.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Honestly like the transition to primary care has been much harder than I thought it was going to be. Mm-hmm. I can pull from some of my knowledge, but a lot of it really doesn't apply. Hmm. A lot of it is more just momming and just general knowledge and health for kids. Like, talk to me about how you get them to eat their vegetables. And that's not necessarily a medical thing, but it's super important.

Host: Absolutely.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: You know, so, the learning curve for primary care has been a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, but it's been fun.

Host: You enjoy it.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Yeah. I do.

Host: That's awesome. Well, just going to transition a little bit, we do have a few patient comments that have been placed on our website. And for those of you who are listening and are not aware, all of our not all, but most of our providers have their patient ratings on their Provider Profile on our website, and we do list the patient comments. So if you're interested, you could go out there and click on those. But here's a couple of them and these are fairly recent.

The first one says, Dr. Cassie was amazing. She was very caring and helped step by step to go through her concerns and my son's symptoms. She explained everything in detail, truly cares about her patients like they are her own kids.

She followed up with me that night on my son's blood work and explained in detail for 20 minutes. This was by far the best service I have ever had with Iowa Specialty. Dr. Caleb and Dr. Cassie are amazing providers to have at your clinic, and I would recommend them to everyone. Another one says, we love Cassie. She sees us every time an illness pops up and is always so thorough and so concerned. She's so amazing with Arthur and really loves everyone at the clinic. Another one says, she was very patient with our children and took time to listen and discuss with us. We appreciate the time she took to work through our situation.

She's very attentive. And then lastly, I have already raved about NP Cassie Wagner to all my mommy friends. Absolutely recommend and absolutely worth the drive from Clear Lake to Garner to see her. That has to warm your heart a little bit.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: To work It does. That's really sweet. It does. They've seemed to pick up that I tend to be a little bit too thorough sometimes, so that is something that I'm working on a little little bit.

Host: I don't know if you could ever be too thorough, but I get what you're saying. Anything else to add for the good of the podcast to let people know?

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Well, currently I am part-time in Garner. So I work Tuesday Thursday and Friday,

Host: Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: We are discussing possibly picking up another day in the near future here. And so I'm there those days, but I'm also reachable via MyChart. MyChart has been amazing tool. We have like online scheduling and things which is helpful.

Host: Nice. And if you're not on myChart, just go to our website and signup button there, you can do it very quickly. To schedule an appointment to see Cassie Wagner, please call 888-258-0078. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, Yeah I really appreciated getting to know you better and you're just a fascinating human being. Keep doing what you're doing.

Cassie Wagner, ARNP: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Host: All righty. Thank you for listening to Iowa Specialty Hospitals and Clinics ISH Dish Podcast. For more information on the topics we discussed today, visit us on the web at iowaspecialtyhospital.com. There you can read a transcript of today's episode or previously aired episodes, as well as get the latest news from Iowa Specialty Hospitals and Clinics, and explore all the services that we offer. For the Ish Dish Podcast, I'm Gina. Thanks for tuning in.