Jen Arnold, MD, MSc, FAAP
Episode Description:
In this Episode of Stirring the Shot Podcast, Tracey and Tiffany interview Dr. Jennifer Arnold, who is the new Program Director of Boston Children’s Hospital Simulator Program (SIMPeds) as well as a Member of the faculty, at Harvard Medical School. We’re speaking with Dr. ARnold today about working in a healthcare environment with special abilities. So send the kiddos out to the play yard and find a comfortable place to sit because you will not want to miss Jen’s insight on how to pursue your life goals despite having special abilities, and how to interact with colleagues, friends and family with special abilities. She is also an author of a few books and one that is particularly salient for today’s topic called, Think Big, Overcoming obstacles with optimism). You can purchase that book on her website, www.jenarnoldmd.com. She delivers an incredibly inspiring story and helpful insight along with several resources linked below. Thank you, Jen!
More about Dr. Arnold:
Jennifer Arnold, MD, MSc, FAAP was born in St. Petersburg Fl and grew up in Orlando, FL. She completed her undergraduate bachelor of science degrees in Biology and Psychology at the University of Miami in Florida. She then completed her medical degree at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD and graduated in 2000. She attended a Pediatric Residency Program at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. During her fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, she obtained a Master’s of Science in Medical Education from the University of Pittsburgh. She is Board Certified in Neonatal Medicine and most recently worked diligently as the Medical Director of the Simulation Center at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where she had an integral role in development of the center. She is beginning a new position as the new Program Director of Boston Children’s Hospital Simulator Program (SIMPeds) as well as a Member of the faculty, at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Arnold has a rare type of dwarfism called Spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia Type Strudwick, which involved more than 30 orthopedic surgeries. She is a 4-year cancer survivor. She has an incredible story regarding pursuing seemingly impossible life goals and achieving them against all odds.
Dr. Arnold, her husband Bill and their children Will and Zoey are featured on TLC’s docu-drama, “The Little Couple”, which follows their personal and professional lives and is now in its 12th season! She has also appeared on television programs including Oprah, The Today Show, GMA, Dr. OZ, The Doctors, Wendy Williams, Anderson Cooper and CNN among others.
Links and Resources:
https://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/little-couple/
https://www.childrenshospital.org/clinician-resources/education-and-training/simulator-program
http://www.exceptionalnurse.com
Facebook group: The AMPHL Portal
Apps:
https://www.facebook.com/appmyear
Sabinetek
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Credits:
Music Jingle:
- Tiffany Hull (lyrics, vocals, sass) at Tiffany Hull Music
- John Kelly (guitar, bass, vibes) at The Hideaway Cafe
- Joey Interrante (drums)
AV Production:
- Matt Hennessy (audio mixing/mastering) at VSOP Productions
- Travis Hull (video/lighting) at Talking Heads Studio
Stirring the Shot Podcast is a Tracey Taylor Productions, LLC, original.
Special Abilities
Tracey: [00:00:00] well, hi, Tiffany.
Tiffany: Hey Tracy. What’s going on?
Tracey: Oh, you know, another day, another dollar what’s going on with
you?
Tiffany: Well, I don’t know about you, but I got $2 today.
Tracey: What? I need to talk to you, obviously, your side hustle is better than mine.
Tiffany: …right after our [00:01:00] contract episode. No, I didn’t get a contract. I’m just kidding.
I didn’t have anything else to say, so I just made that up. So you’re welcome.
Tracey: Well, thank you. Um, I appreciate you participating in the banter. It helps. So I’m so excited for today’s episode. I can’t wait. I can’t wait. I can’t wait. I know our audience knows that we have Dr. Jen Arnold coming on and…
Tiffany: Did they know that before?
Tracey: They didn’t know that…
Tiffany: We have kept that from them for a long time.
Tracey: We kept it from them until this past week. And then we, you know, we released that so that people would know. Okay…and made sure that the people who love Jen got to listen. So we have…it’s been hard to keep it a secret, but we finally were able to, let our audience know that. Yes, in fact, we have talked to Dr. Jen Arnold. So before she comes on though, I wanted to talk to you, [00:02:00] Tiffany.
Tiffany: Yes ma’am?
Tracey: …about our topic today…
Tiffany: What is our topic today?
Tracey: So we’re talking about special abilities and specifically special abilities in healthcare providers, nurses, physicians, RTs…it doesn’t matter, any healthcare provider. So here’s the thing…
People often look at me and go, “what do you mean by special abilities”? Well, that’s just my way, because I think language matters, I’ve always said special abilities instead of disability. Because to me, that sounds like there’s something wrong. There’s nothing necessarily wrong. If you have a special ability, you just have a special ability, right?
Tiffany: Yeah.
Tracey: So that’s our topic today and we’re talking about it and healthcare providers, and how we can help, how we can open up the dialogue so that everyone knows how to help in the clinical setting or in the academic setting or whatever setting you [00:03:00] might happen to be in to make sure that we are not excluding some of our finest healthcare workers, because they may have a special ability.
Tiffany: Absolutely.
Tracey: Well, before we introduce Jen, and I want you to do that because I’ll let you tell why, but before we introduce Jen, I would like to introduce you to someone else that I know that’s a healthcare provider that has a special ability.
Tiffany: Do I know this person?
Tracey: I think you might, I think you might. So, I met this person a couple of years ago and, um, found out kinda the hard way that this person has a special ability.
And it’s really interesting because special abilities can be seen or unseen. And really this was my first, other than being a provider of care…but, this is my first experience with this, with a healthcare provider. So I was sitting next to this person [00:04:00] and I had a full on conversation at a meeting with this person.
And, no response, just no response whatsoever. And I thought, “Wow, okay, so either they absolutely don’t like me or don’t want to talk to me, um, or this has got to be like the most stuck up person I have met”.
Tiffany: Maybe the latter…
Tracey: Yeah, maybe the latter you think? So fast forward a few minutes, and um, this person said something, turned and looked at me and spoke.
And I said, “did you not just hear everything that I said? Because it was exactly about what we had been talking about”. And, and she said, “No, I’m hard of hearing. I have hearing aids and I’m having trouble with the one on the right side. So, if you need to talk to me, you should probably sit on the other side”.
And I felt, [00:05:00] I don’t know, I felt like I really needed a big glass of water to wash down that foot. You know what I mean? It was pretty bad. I was like, I am a terrible person, you know, for thinking those things, but I didn’t know, because there was an unseen, special ability.
Tiffany: Sure.
Tracey: So you want to know who it was?
Tiffany: Yeah, of course!
Tracey: It was you.
Tiffany: I knew it! (laughter)
Tracey: It was you, my friend. It was you! That’s how we met and it was a meeting at the academic place that we work at and, um, yeah, that’s how we met!
Tiffany: You got the wall! You got the full wall treatment because you didn’t know.
Tracey: I did get the wall and it wasn’t like the cool album from the seventies. I got no pink Floyd. I got Tiffany’s wall. Um, and I just had no idea! I really didn’t know. So tell me what that’s like for you? I mean, I [00:06:00] know now, I know you, so I know, you know, some of your work arounds and how you adapt, but tell me what that’s like for you in the clinical setting? What do you see on the daily?
Tiffany: Yeah, I mean, I feel like having a special ability just means that you’re a little more attuned to your inner MacGyver-ness because you…
Tracey: Oh! Your inner MacGyver…what can you do with a stick of gum, gum wrapper and a paperclip?
Tiffany: Oh, absolutely. Because you’re trying to figure out how to do your job.
And in my case, you know, I work in critical care, so I have to make sure that I’m doing that safely and not compromising the safety of my patients. And yeah, you just, you have to work around a lot of different things and, you know, it’s a daily struggle. If you think about being in a really loud concert and trying to have a conversation, a serious conversation with somebody who is saying, something that you know is important and that you know you want to hear what they’re saying, but you can’t really hear [00:07:00] every single word and you’re getting frustrated and you’re getting tired from trying to listen so hard to hear what they’re saying.
That’s the daily. That is the daily for me. So, and I’m not just talking about myself, you know, there’s plenty of people who have varying levels of, um, hearing deficits, but, but it’s exhausting. And, you know, I often use the metaphor that it’s kind of like calling Europe back in the day, where there was sort of a delay between what you would say and what the other person was hearing, because…
Tracey: …the United States, calling are we reaching?
Tiffany: Yeah, exactly. (laughter)
There’s a delay because it has to bounce around my curly little head. The sound has to bounce around my curly little head until I literally figure out what you said. Whereas somebody whose, you know, who can hear just hears at face value. They make that interpretation immediately.
And it takes me a little bit longer to do that. So [00:08:00] yeah, like the meeting that you were describing, I’m quiet often in meetings because I’m literally translating in my head. And I’ll take a word, like the word bread. And I’m like, “did they say bread? Did they say breath? Did they say, you know, something else”?
And I’m reading the context and I’m reading your body language and, you know, thinking, “this meeting is for school, so she probably said this” …and, constantly figuring. Another metaphor that somebody shared with me one time was, um, you know, when you’ve had a little too much to drink? I don’t…I’m sure you don’t…
Tracey: I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what that feels like. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I plead the fifth. (laughter)
Tiffany: Okay. Well, how about if you just worked a 24-hour shift and got no sleep and you go out to your car, okay? You go out to your car and you try to swipe your badge for your car door to open. And you’re just, you’re just sitting there swiping, wondering why it’s not working.
It’s similar. You feel like you’re drunk all the time when you’re hearing impaired, [00:09:00] because you’re constantly trying to figure out what people said and you know, they sound like they’re slurring their speech sometimes, and it’s just…it’s exhausting. So, all that to say it’s challenging on the daily, especially at work in an ICU.
But there are work arounds such as you know, I’ve told you before when we have patient rounds, I make a special effort to, you know, go through the daily plan of decisions that we just made and make sure that we’re all on the same page. And it’s taken me a really long time as a person. To get over the looks that I get from different people who are like, “yeah, you just painstakingly went through everything that we just spent the last 20 minutes discussing”. You know, it took me a long time to sort of get past, feeling badly and feeling ashamed or feeling stupid or something like that because of those looks on people’s [00:10:00] faces.
And generally, you know, I’ve gotten some weird comments, from time to time when I told people that I was hearing impaired, but generally people will try to accommodate and that accommodation, you know, it’s very…it varies. So, some people just start hollering.
Tracey: I was going to say, do people just scream at you?
Like my mother on a cell phone…just screaming for no apparent reason. I’m like, “mom, it’s not a can with a string, okay?”. It’s like, “you don’t have to scream”.
Tiffany: Yeah. And it’s, you know, I’m sure some people who are hearing impaired need to be hollered at, but I’m not one of them. I just need to see your mouth, which has made the last two years a nightmare.
Tracey: Yeah. I was going to say…and masks have helped how?
Tiffany: Exactly. So, so yeah, it’s a challenge. And, you know, I think once my colleagues, learn that I’m hearing impaired, they’re pretty accommodating, but that’s certainly not…it’s not a hundred percent. I had a person who I asked them to either text [00:11:00] me or call me straight to my phone because the phone that we use for work…I can’t hear on it.
It’s not connected to my hearing aids. And I said to this person, I was like, “you know, I’m hearing impaired. I can’t hear when you call me on the work phone, please call me on my personal phone if you need to call me, otherwise text me”. And the person just kept calling me on the work phone. It was so frustrating.
I finally had to sit down and say, “what is the deal”? Like, “how do we get over this, like, you know…this doesn’t work for me”. So that’s an unusual circumstance; that doesn’t typically happen. But, like I said, I think most people, once they learn of my hearing impairment, they are supportive of that. And actually…oh, sorry, did I cut you off? Did you have a question?
Tracey: No, no. I have a dog. And this is Ouiser Boudreaux, my little schnauzer and she, had to join the conversation. She heard her Aunt Tiffany, so she’s in my lap. So sorry [00:12:00] for the interruption. Ouiser has arrived. (laughter)
Tiffany: She wants to be my guide dog, I feel like…
Tracey: She does, but she doesn’t. She would be a terrible guide dog. She’d be absolutely terrible because she barks at everything. Yeah, it wouldn’t work.
Tiffany: That’s so funny. But yeah, what I was going to say is, I belong to a couple of Facebook groups, because you know, like I was talking about that sort of progression that I went through in terms of feeling more comfortable telling people that I was hearing impaired?
And just being cognizant to do that so that they don’t think the things that you thought that, you know, that I’m rude or that I don’t care or something like that. But there’s a couple of Facebook groups that I belong to for healthcare professionals that are hearing impaired. One is called the AMPHL portal.
I’ll spell it for you because it’s, it’s kind of weird letters, but it’s ‘A as in apple, M as in Mary, P as in Paul, H as in Harry and L as in Larry’… [00:13:00] Harry Larry…(laughter).
Um, so what I did was I knew we had this episode coming up and I went on there and I sort of poled the audience and I asked them you know, “what are the complications or what are the challenges that you’re experiencing in your daily work life, as healthcare professionals?” And they really focused on requests for adaptive equipment and, just literally how they don’t get any of their requests.
Tracey: Um, that’s just shocking to me. I mean, I know that you told me this already, but it was just shocking to me because you would think like, what are we…it’s not 1950. I mean, for God’s sakes, we’ve got all of this technology at our fingertips. My God, my cell phone has more technology than what we put a man on the moon with.
I mean, if you believe we went to the moon, but that’s a whole [00:14:00] other thing. But why? What? Why can’t you have your accommodation? I mean, that’s something that I really don’t understand. And frankly, I’m not an attorney, but I don’t even know if that is legal. I don’t know.
Tiffany: I feel like it’s not. And you know, you were talking about visible and non-visible, …or ‘invisible’…I like to tell people I have an invisible special ability because then their brain just sort of explodes with like…can I see through things and whatever, right?
Tracey: Unless it’s lead, remind me to wear, lead around you.
Tiffany: Yeah. But, you know, I think that’s, I think that’s the thing, like, you know, people were just kind of like, “what? For real?” Like, I’m not asking, you know, for a huge difficult thing. Like, I’ve got a list actually from the people, from the AMPHL Portal, on Facebook.
Tracey: Let’s hear it…I’m curious now.
Tiffany: Yeah. So the things [00:15:00] that they asked for were transparent masks, which, you know, that’s tricky because not only do you have to get the hospital to pay for them, but you have to ask all of your coworkers to wear them and potentially your patients to wear them…
Tracey: Right. So that’s right. I didn’t even think about that. And plus, do they work? I mean, I see that the window would work for maybe lip reading, but you know, does it still filter? I don’t know. I don’t know. Anyway.
Tiffany: I mean, that’s a whole other podcast, but I think they’re just as effective as any other surgical masks that you tie up to your face because it has a border around it. That’s usually two-ply.
Tracey: So it’s a surgical mask, not an N95?
Tiffany: Yeah. I don’t know if they have any, transparent N95s, but yeah, it’s more similar to a surgical mask.
Tracey: But frankly, I kind of like the mask because I get to stick my tongue out at people and they don’t know that I’ve done [00:16:00] it. So the clear masks don’t…just kidding. (laughter)
Tiffany: I know!
Tracey: I actually do make faces, but the clear mask would be a problem. I would forget that I have it on and then I would totally stick my tongue out at you. And you would go, “Tracey…”, and I’d be like, “oh, sorry”.
Tiffany: Totally. Sure. We’ll draw the line at sticking the tongue out…
That is definitely that’s I, yeah. Okay. So there are other requests and I’ve made this request and had it denied as well, but like a microphone and an amplifier for meetings because you know, I’ve got hearing aids and number one, hearing aids…a common misnomer is…your natural hearing is fantastic…compared to hearing aids. Hearing aids amplify everything. Some of them reduce background noise, but let’s just, for everybody’s learning purposes…hearing aids suck. They are a terrible alternative to your natural hearing. And so, if we’re in a meeting together, and you’re 10 feet away, and I can’t read your lips or I can’t [00:17:00] you know, throw my phone down there closer to you and use it as a spy device and hear what you’re saying, then I’m just not going to hear the meeting. So that’s really hard. That was something that someone on the Facebook group had asked for and been denied. And then I think more commonly, people think about amplified stethoscopes…
Tracey: Like the Ekos that I see all the time advertised…
Tiffany: Yeah. And I actually have a lot of friends who are not hearing impaired using different amplified stethoscopes, because the technology is starting to get really sophisticated. So, you can hear, you know, an S2 murmur or whatever…like you can essentially feel like you’re diagnosing without an echocardiogram.
You know, on this group, somebody had told me that a lot of those stethoscopes hookup to, or connect with an app on your phone. So, you’ve got to hold the app while you’re listening through the stethoscope. So, they had asked their [00:18:00] employer if they could use that app, and they were denied for that request as well.
I imagine that’s, you know, related to potential, germ transmission. But, in any case, I just thought that that was interesting that they asked for that accommodation and didn’t receive that either, but…
Tracey: Fun facts…cell phones work through a quart zip-up bag. Oh yeah.
I take mine to the beach in a quart zip-up bag. So, I’m sure someone could buy a pack of Glad sliders and throw it outside the door and, you know, put a new one on each time they go in. But anyway…
Tiffany: Is your last name MacGyver?
Tracey: Um, no, and I’ve never played him on TV, so no, but hey, it’s a fun fact. It works, it keeps out sand. So, I don’t know why it wouldn’t work in a clinical setting.
Tiffany: Right. Yeah. And now that you say that, back in the day, probably about seven or 10 years ago, we had parents coming into our [00:19:00] NICU and ask them to use a Ziploc baggie for their phone so that while they’re holding their baby and, you know, using their phone, Facebooking or what have you, MySpacing, I suppose back then…
Tracey: Oh my gosh, ‘Tom’!
Tiffany: They were maintaining some semblance of infection control with that baggie. So that’s an excellent workaround that you just came up with. Ultimately, what I took away from that post in that group was I think that many people who have special abilities approach their employer and ask for accommodation and they get the accommodation request denied and then the conversation stops.
It doesn’t, you know…there’s no real dialogue, it’s just kind of a real quick exchange. But one thing that somebody on the group mentioned was instead of making your request and having it denied and letting the conversation die there, your follow-up question should be: “okay, so if you can’t provide me with a speaker and an amplifier in a meeting, [00:20:00] then what are you able to provide me with so that I can continue to work in this role and contribute my skills and expertise to the workforce?”. So I thought that was really important and I wanted to share that with you all.
Tracey: That’s a really good point. And you know, now that you’re saying this, I’m thinking that I probably am going to link the ADA Act in the (singing) show notes…
Tiffany: …(singing)…show notes….
Tracey: But you know, if you don’t know what your rights are, you don’t know what your rights are. And I think it’s more important that you come into the conversation, knowing what your rights are, because if you are denied an accommodation, a specific accommodation that you asked for, then you’re absolutely right. I think it’s dependent upon the employer to provide an alternative accommodation. So that being said, I think it’s important for our audience to know what [00:21:00] their rights are.
So I’ll make sure that I post that…the Americans with disabilities act. And there’s all sorts of language and subtext under that. So, I’ll just post the main one and then you can go through, or the audience can go through and find out, read through that and find out what their rights are.
Tiffany: Yeah. And, there’s also, I meant to say this earlier, but there’s also something that we’ll post in the show notes. A website, called the Exceptional Nurse because, you know…I’m trying to figure out how to say this..Once you’re working as a nurse, you might have a little bit more disposable income to be able to afford the hearing aids that you need, or the amplified stethoscope that you need and what have you.
But as a nursing student, that might not be the case. So, the ExceptionalNurse.com is a website that essentially gathers all of the…a bunch of different resources that you can [00:22:00] use as a nursing student or as a working nurse to find the different adaptive equipment that you may need, or just really acts as a really great resource for finding scholarships and things like that to help you be successful in your program.
And then there was a couple of apps that people use specifically for hearing impairment. One is called AppMyEar. I think that’s a HIPAA compliant…
Tracey: AppMyEar or AtMyEar?
Tiffany: App…app, as in, ‘there’s an app for that’…
Tracey: (singing) …there’s an app for that…
Tiffany: Yeah. There’s an app for that. I think people are using that as subtitles, like a caption on a conversation. So they’ll open the app, and set it in front of their colleague or their patient, and then it will provide subtitles, which is excellent if you can’t get clear masks.
Tracey: I am very curious about that one because I can tell you that Siri does
not speak Southern.
Tiffany: [00:23:00] She does not speak Midwestern Southern either.
Tracey: And anyway, I can tell you that from experience in a recent time, where I had an epic, epic parenting fail, when I text my daughter one morning and said, “Hey, I overslept, I need you to get up. We have to leave the house in 15 minutes”. And it came…I can’t believe I’m sharing this… “Hey, you’re a slut. We need to leave the house in 15 minutes”.
And I didn’t even look at it…like I didn’t even see it. So, she comes in the room because I just did text-to-talk or whatever. So, she comes in the room and she goes, “um, mom, like I’m up. What, what did you mean by this?” And I read it and I was laughing so hard. I could never like comfort my poor child that I did not call her a slut. (laughter)
Tiffany: That’s a good way to start some Springer-level [00:24:00] drama in your house. Yeah. For sure. That’s hysterical. That is hysterical.
Tracey: Well, we have a really great guest today.
Tiffany: Should I? Should I get to introducing her so we can talk instead of the two of us fool around?
Tracey: Yeah, for sure.
Tiffany: It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Jennifer Arnold. And a lot of people don’t know this, but, she was born in St. Pete, Florida and grew up in Orlando. So, she and I basically have shadowed each other throughout our whole lives, but we didn’t meet until a few years ago. She completed her undergraduate bachelor of science degree in biology and psychology at the University of Miami in Florida. And she talks about that a little bit in our interview. Then she got her medical degree at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and graduated in 2000. She, uh, I’m just kind of skimming this cause we’re going to put this in our show [00:25:00] notes as well, but she’s board certified in neonatal medicine. And most recently worked diligently as the medical director of the simulation center at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where she had an integral role in developing the center.
I got to watch that happen. And that was super fun because the thing that I appreciate about her is I feel like when people meet her, they don’t realize what a beast she is…not only neonatology, but also in simulation, like she puts her whole self in anything that she tries to accomplish.
And I think that’s evident in, a lot of her different efforts, whether it’s, you know, TLC’s The Little Couple, or rounding with her at the bedside taking care of, neonates or what have you. So, she is also beginning a new position as the program director of Boston children’s hospital simulator program, which is called SIM peds, as well as a member of the faculty at Harvard [00:26:00] Medical School.
Tracey: That’s all?
Tiffany: I know. And there’s more!
Tracey: And wait…there’s more where that came from…behind door number two…(laughter).
Tiffany: I think the thing that people really want to hear about her and the way that people sort of know her or resonate with her is from her, TV show. So she and her husband, Bill, and their children, Will and Zoe, who are adorable, are all featured on TLC’s docu-drama called The Little Couple, which features their personal and professional lives and it’s now in its 12th season.
Tracey: Has it been going that long?
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a commitment. I mean, the viewers have watched those kiddos grow up. I mean, you know, just the entire story of Jen and her husband Bill, and then their, you know, adopting their kiddos and things like that. It’s so cute.
Tracey: It’s so compelling. Yeah.
Tiffany: She’s also appeared on television programs like Oprah and she has hilarious [00:27:00] stories to talk about that experience if you can nail her down and get her to talk about them…The Today Show, Dr. Oz, The Doctors, Wendy Williams, Anderson Cooper and CNN. And let’s just the short list.
Tracey: So that’s the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
Tiffany: Now this isn’t her first rodeo…
Tracey: Apparently not, but what kind of dwarfism does she have, do you know??
Tiffany: I do. I just can’t say it very well.
Tracey: Um, let me look, let me see, “spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia type Strudwick”.
Tiffany: Yeah, well done…like an adult nurse.
Tracey: Like a boss!
Tiffany: So that’s a really rare type of dwarfism and really hard to say, but the, the thing that’s challenging, about that form of dwarfism is, you know, you can, you can visualize that she has a special ability, but she’s, again, she’s a trooper. Like she is a, just a frontier [00:28:00] woman in terms of all of the surgery she’s had to undergo just to be able to keep going every day.
So I think she’s up to about 40 musculoskeletal surgeries. She’s also a breast cancer survivor and just keeps on going, has a great attitude, is a great person overall, just keeps inspiring the heck out of everybody. So, she’s also the author of a few books and one that’s particularly salient for today’s topic called “Think Big: Overcoming Obstacles with Optimism”, which I think she kind of alludes to a little bit in our interview with her.
But, you can get that on her website, which is, www.JenArnoldMD.com. She’s an inspiration to all healthcare professionals and humans that know her or know of her. And that is why we are elated to welcome her to Stirring the Shot.
Tracey: Welcome Dr. Arnold!
Tiffany: Hello, welcome! How are you?
Jen: Doing really well! Thank you. Thank you so much for having me today. [00:29:00] Oh my goodness.
Tiffany: We are so excited to have you, for a number of reasons because you’re a very inspirational person, but also a friend and colleague of mine. And that’s always a hoot for me when all of my…when all of my worlds collide.
Tracey: And it’s good to see you again. Our paths have crossed before when I was able to tour a facility that you were instrumental in putting together for simulation and was just so blown away and impressed by everything you did there. So, thanks again. It’s so good to see you again.
Jen: Thank you so much. Yeah, no, very proud of the program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s, but I’m not there anymore. So, life is changing, you know, constantly changing.
Tracey: Constantly.
Tiffany: Changing…I heard you, had a transition recently and you’re in the, uh, what Northeast?
Jen: Yes, it’s very cold here. I’m, you know, I’ve lived in the North, but not for very long. [00:30:00] So, I’ve been a Southern girl most of my life, so it’s definitely exciting and different to see snow. In fact, today’s the first snow day for our kids. And so they’re having a blast being home and playing in the snow.
Tracey: Wow. I bet that’s so much fun. Is their first time ever seeing snow?
Jen: Well kind of, they’ve been once to Vermont, but they don’t remember. They were so young. Right. So pretty much. Yeah. My daughter has yet to go out. Actually she’s been trepidatious, but Will’s been out there, you know, throwing snowballs and doing snow angels.
Tracey: I can see that. I can see that. Well, thanks for joining us today, Dr. Arnold, we really wanted to talk to you about something. I like to call it ‘special abilities’ and Tiffany and I both have kind of adopted this language, but it always, I don’t know, it never sat well with me to say disabilities because you know, I don’t think that there’s anything dys about people’s special abilities, right?
[00:31:00] And so there are two types of special abilities that we’re going to talk about and one is unseen and one is seen. So, understanding that’s the premise, we just have some questions and would like to get your perspective on special abilities. Tiffany?
Tiffany: Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify, because I’ll be talking about my hearing deficit later in the episode, but I just wanted to clarify, you know, being a unicorn, is that one of the unseen special abilities or are we not discussing that?
Tracey: I don’t know about that because you know, on a unicorn, you would definitely see the horn. So I don’t know. That’s true. Everyone has something that causes them to be a unicorn, so Tiffany, why don’t you start with the first question?
Tiffany: Yeah, absolutely. I just, again, I’m so excited to have you here [00:32:00] today, Jen, and I’ve had the opportunity to hear you speak a couple of times, and it’s just incredible. I’m not just saying that because I have a, you know, professional crush on you, but you’re just so inspiring. It’s really sort of sickening. No, I’m kidding! But I just love to hear you tell your story and, I don’t even know if you know how inspiring it is, but I just wanted to open the floor and let you kind of tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, I know you talked about how you’re a Southern girl.
We were actually born in the exact same town. Yes. So kind of get some foundation from you for our listeners so they kind of understand where you’re coming from and what your story is and what kind of challenges you’ve had, specific to your special ability.
Jen: Yeah, no, I mean, first of all, thank you both for having me here.
It’s just, I mean, Tiffany, we’ve been great friends now and colleagues and [00:33:00] I love the opportunity to connect again. And so, um, and it’s been great to get to know you too, Tracey. So, um, thank you. You know, I would say my, you know, my special ability obviously is related to my skeletal dysplasia. So, I have a type of dwarfism called spondylitis epiphyseal, dysplasia type Strudwick, we think, based on, you know, my features, but, you know, it’s obviously very obvious and my entire life, you know, I was fortunate to, I think, to be raised by parents, family, having a good social network that supported me to really, you know, do what I wanted to do.
And, you know, I definitely, I have to say, I don’t think of myself as inspirational. I just think of myself as doing what I wanted to do in life. And trying to figure out how to do that with my, you know, my abilities, my challenges, and you know, always, obviously wondering if it’s [00:34:00] possible. But because I’m the kind of girl that likes to have her cake and eat it too, I was definitely not afraid to try.
So, so in terms of my story, what would you like me to talk a little bit about like, a little bit more on the physical pieces, like what I’ve been through? Cause I, you know, I guess part of my physical disability is, or we shouldn’t say disability…see it’s actually ability, special ability.
It just comes out. I know it’s horrible the way our terminology in our world affects us or how we, you know, how hard it is to change. So I, you know, part of my physical ability, my physical special ability is, I’m only three foot two. and so I’m very short statured, but to me that’s like not even a big deal compared to the other features of my condition, which is the orthopedic complications.
So sure, growing up in my life, I’ve had, you know, I’ve [00:35:00] probably close to 40 now…orthopedic surgeries. Most during childhood, you know, every summer having to have bones broken to realign them so that I could walk or breathe and then spending time, you know, in body casts, spike casts, and lay casts and whatnot, so that I could get around. So, you know, I’m actually in less than a month, will go for another hip revision surgery. So, it just, you know, it, it doesn’t really end, but you know, as long as I can keep going, it’s really, also not that big a deal. But you know, my skeletal dysplasia involves a lot of joint issues.
And also some, you know, potentially vision and hearing as well. So as I’m getting older, I’m starting to see those effects. And, um, I don’t think of myself as old yet, but it gets my body does so, so it’s starting to hit pretty quick. But other than that, you know, my goal though, is to give back to the world [00:36:00] because of what I’ve been through.
So I had an amazing surgeon growing up who dedicated his career to trying to figure out how to care for kids like myself. And it’s because of him that I’m here. I had great nurses who were, you know, took care of me that are friends to this day. You know, I feel that all of those experiences shaped who I am in some way. And that’s why I wanted to go into medicine and that’s why I became a physician.
Tracey: That’s amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. To tag on to that, can you talk a little bit about entering into the healthcare profession and entering into the clinical setting, you know, going to college and medical school and residency being a person who’s three foot two, and having special abilities?
I’m sure that there are…there are times as a 5’1” tall person that I can’t see what I need to see, so I can only imagine from your perspective, and I think I said something like that when I was touring the [00:37:00] sim center and totally felt like I put my foot in my mouth because I was like, “I’m a short girl. I can’t see you”, and I was like, “wow, that was stupid”.
Tracey: But having said that, how are you your best advocate? How did you advocate for yourself to make sure that you had what you needed? Did you meet any resistance and if so, how did you overcome?
Jen: Yeah. So I mean, the stories that I could share are almost too many for this short time, but, you know, applying to medical school first and foremost was probably that first phase of, you know, ‘is this possible’?
I definitely got a tremendous amount of pushback. You know, it’s a long story, but applying, you know, when you’re applying to medical school, you have to apply to lots of programs. And, you know, I worked really hard to have good grades, be involved in all these activities and despite having sort of similar, I think, you know, similar [00:38:00] grades, and, academics too.
Friends and peers who were also applying, I didn’t get hardly any interviews. And I think that’s probably because I put out there in my essay that I was a little person that was only 3’2” and I wanted to give back to kids in a way that I had benefited. And back then, at that time, you know, people, there were no little people that I knew of that were physicians.
And I don’t think that the world was quite as aware of, you know, what you can or can’t do when you have a special ability. And so I didn’t get any interviews. And in fact, the one interview I got, uh, two, I should say, I don’t know how I got it, cause I think I got it on my own. And then the other one I got because, you know, the head of the university where I was going to school knew me.
And when he heard I already got rejected, I’m pretty sure, although I can’t say that I know this for sure, he called because then I got an interview after being rejected. So, I went to that very first [00:39:00] interview at the school of medicine for my soon to be alma mater and, you know, I had a trauma surgeon and an internal medicine doctor asking me, you know, at first very normal stuff like, you know, “how are your grades? Why do you want to go into medicine?”
And then it got into, “well, how are you going to see patients?” And you know, “how are you going to cut open the chest of a 60 year old MVA victim that walks in through the ER?” and, you know, as a college student, I wasn’t completely sure how to answer all those questions. I didn’t even know, you know, what to say, but, well I did answer and I don’t know if this is good or bad, I guess I ultimately ended up getting in.
So it may have been not so bad, but I said, you know, I watched and I think it would be hard for me to be the trauma surgeon, but I could be an ER doc or with a step stool, get access or with the, you know, with the airway or, you know, run the team. And I said, it takes a whole team to take care of critically ill patients.
And so I think what [00:40:00] I learned from that lesson is that, you know, what they had envisioned for a physician, someone who is going to take care of people who are sick or who have other special abilities that you had to be, you know, capable of all areas and that’s not realistic. And that, really in the end, keeps out people who have been there, done that, who know what it’s like to be the patient, and who may have great talents to bring to medicine and to healthcare.
You keep them out just because you think that they can’t do it all. And, you know, in the end I also went to my dream school for an interview. I got an interview at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and there, they really never asked me about my size. And so I knew from that experience, I was kind of afraid it went wrong for a different reason.
So I brought it up. I said, “you know, I imagine I’ll use step stools to see patients, and I use a scooter for long distance and I’ll bungee cord my step stool to the [00:41:00] scooter so I always have it”, you know, I started, you know, I think you have to be a planner when you are dealing with you know, a difference that people don’t understand.
And I guess it must’ve been convincing enough or you know, maybe my answers were good enough that I got into both schools and I ended up choosing the school that I thought had the right interpretation about me, and that was Johns Hopkins. And, you know, it was four years, it was the hardest four years of my life, for many reasons.
But I think in the end, when you’re going through these challenges, I think you have to just realize that no one’s going to know your limitations or your capabilities better than yourself. And so if you’re honest with yourself, you know, I knew I couldn’t be a trauma surgeon…that would be physically so hard, but I did believe I could be something in medicine.
I could do ophthalmology or genetics or pediatrics. And, you know, ultimately I chose neonatology where my patients are never bigger than me.
Tiffany: I was going to ask you [00:42:00] that! I never put that together. But as you were talking, I’m like, “how do I ask her this and not seem like over the top?”. But it’s brilliant. It is a brilliant strategic plan.
And I wasn’t sure if you were in neonatology necessarily because you were passionate about neonates or, strategically they’re smaller and you can, you know, it’s easier for you to work on them from a physical standpoint, or both? So, yeah.
Jen: It’s a little, it’s a little bit of both. Yeah. I realized I love the adrenaline of resuscitation a little bit.
I also liked talking to people and I realized that in neonatology thankfully you can talk to lots of parents. And the babies never asked me why I am so little. I mean, you know, the parents may, but in pediatrics, I got that a lot from the kids, which is fine. It was very fun actually, it’s a good ice breaker, but in the end, I just, I love the combination that neonatology had, including the fact that with the step stool, it was so easy [00:43:00] for me to do everything I needed to do. I never had to worry if I had to do CPR. On a 17-year-old, I would worry that I may not have been strong enough to really do effective CPR, but in a baby, it wasn’t a problem.
Tiffany: Right. That’s a great!
Tracey: Great point. That’s really great.
Tiffany: Well, Tracey and I were talking earlier about just sort of, how do we open that dialogue? So I’ll use myself as an example because I know myself pretty well, but, we were talking about how, you know, a lot of people don’t know that I’m a massively hearing impaired and they’ll either think that I’m a snob because I don’t seem to acknowledge them when they talk to me or they think that I’m not intelligent because I’ll say something that they just said, and they think I’m, you know, either not smart enough to follow along with them or, you know, I’m just not listening to what they said. And so Tracey and I were talking and she’s like, how do we change this culture and make it so that we can communicate better [00:44:00] about that so that I’m not nervous about sharing that, with some, and so that they don’t feel weird having that conversation with me? And as you were talking, I kind of put it together. We all kind of need to be pediatric patients and just, you know, say what…
Jen: Exactly. Break the ice. Right. Yeah, I mean, I can’t even, I’m sure that’s hard because I struggle with it as well. And most of my, all my challenges are pretty visible. Although, you know, the way the orthopedic complications, I don’t think people always know that either. And so I have to sort of explain that, that’s, you know, why I prefer to take the elevator over the steps, you know, I don’t know how to, I don’t know what the right answer is, but I think you hit the nail on the head.
If we talk about it more and we start to make it not a big deal, then, then it won’t be a big deal. And [00:45:00] I just think we don’t have enough representation yet in a lot of you know, whether it’s media or in our own industries, you know, people aren’t rising to the top, I think that have various special abilities, and so we still have that hesitation of ‘maybe it’s not okay…maybe I won’t be accepted…maybe I can’t share it’, but I think as we start to hopefully see improvement there, like we have in other areas of difference, right? In our culture more as of late, I hope it will become easier and people will see it as a plus, not a negative, including ourselves. You know?
Tiffany: Well, I think sometimes people think that they’re telling me something I don’t know, like you know, when a pediatric patient says to you that you’re small, that’s not new news to you. I think that sort of feeds the oddness of the conversation…is people [00:46:00] think they’re going to tell you something that you don’t already know.
And it’s like, okay, we all understand she’s small and what else? Right? Like, let’s move the conversation along kind of thing, you know?
Jen: Exactly, and sometimes, just asking people if you’re not sure, you know, I don’t know, I have a lot of people that come up to me and they’re like, “well, should I kneel? Should I stand?”. You know, when they want to talk to me and I’m like, I appreciate the asking. You know, I usually don’t even think about it to be honest. Cause if you’re standing or kneeling, it doesn’t really matter to me, but it is nice if we’re going to be talking a long time, if you’re eye-to-eye. So I say whatever’s comfortable for them, you know?
Tracey: Yeah, I like the idea of normalizing the conversation because as someone who is not dealing with the type of special ability that either of you are, sometimes I just don’t know what to say. You know, I don’t know what to say. When I walk in the room, I don’t know what to say too, and you don’t want to ignore [00:47:00] it.
Right? Because that, to me, that makes it more awkward. So we have to be able to normalize having these conversations and advocating for ourselves if we have a special ability, but advocating for our colleagues, if we don’t, that do have a special ability. Right. So if Tiffany comes to me and says that she can’t hear the end of report, can we not do it across a large table, then I should make the effort to say, “absolutely. let’s make sure that you get what you need”. How can we advocate for ourselves or in the clinical setting, or how can someone with a special ability take that up the chain and say, “okay, I’m going to need that stool”, or “I’m going to need some sort of pre-, subscript…not subscription, not prescription”…what is it? Subscription equipment?
Tiffany: Adaptive equipment.
Tracey: There it is.
Jen: Yeah, no, that’s a really good question. And I think it’s really important for, you know, those of us that [00:48:00] are in whatever field we’re in to try not to be afraid to ask those questions. You know, I don’t know what the right answer is.
Cause when I was younger, right in my training, I was very afraid. I was like, oh, I got this. I would bring my own…I still sometimes find myself saying that, “oh, I’ll bring my own stepstool. It’s not a big deal”, but honestly, you know, it is your employee’s responsibility. But I, I feel like by offering it, it makes it hopefully not a big deal and at least I’ve opened the door for the conversation.
But I have found that if you don’t ask, you probably won’t get what you need, because there’s no way for anyone else to know what you need. And a lot of times when people assume that they know what I need, it may or may not be on the mark. So I think it’s a little bit of courage.
It’s a little bit of, again, it goes back to the normalization that it’s not a big deal to ask for it, but it’s also on those of us who may [00:49:00] not have a special ability. I think as much as possible to not be afraid to bring it up either. Right? So like, I just had a conversation with one of my new bosses here and my new job.
And he was like, “you know, my goal is to give you everything that you need to be successful because we need you and we need you to be successful”. So that makes it sort of feel…not only is he being nice and wants to help support me, but, it’s important to him to help me be successful because the reason they hired me is for something that I can bring to the table.
And it’s not just asking for things so that I can do what anyone else would do. No, no. There’s something about me that they want. And so it’s in their best interest in addition to mine to support what I need, how that conversation happens can make a difference as well. I think until our comfort level of being able to freely share what we need, or do you think, I don’t know, if you [00:50:00] think about that…can I share a story that’s not so good?
So, so this is how not to do it. I have an experience, you know, not recently-recently, but you know, more recent than I would have liked or thought would have happened. Right. Sort of in my longer career…I’m getting older, you know, I needed step stools to work and care for babies.
Right, and I had sort of, you know, I was going to work in a new location, I said, “hey, you know, I just need to make sure we get step stools in all the rooms, cause I’ve always had them before”. And I didn’t really think anything of it at this point in my career, I’ve been practicing for, you know, 15 years.
So I didn’t think…it didn’t even occur to me anymore to be afraid to ask. And when I did that, the response I got was very [00:51:00] distressing. It was, “well, unfortunately that location, it turns out that they would be unwilling and unable to provide step stools when there’s other neonatologists that can provide the same service without needing the step stools”.
Tracey: Sorry. You’re kidding, right? No, no, that actually happened?
Jen: That actually happened. And so I was just like you at first, I was like, shocked. I’m like, wait, what am I really hearing this? Like, especially at…you know, if it happened when I was first in med school, I would not have been as surprised.
Right. I mean, I dealt with that even in the application process, but you know, more in a more recently-ish era, I was very surprised to get that response. And you know, what I realized at the time, you know, I have to fight for this, but not only for me. And I was angry enough at my stage in the game being older, [00:52:00] to fight for it.
I also needed to fight for those that were more junior to me and would be afraid, like if I was an intern and that was told to me, I’d be like, “okay, I guess I won’t learn. I will go work there,” and that’s not right either. Right? So, I guess in the long run…I’m sharing that story because I think, unfortunately we’re not yet at a place where we can stop advocating and by advocating for ourselves, we might also advocate for others and we can’t be afraid to have the conversations. I had to address it, as hard as it was and it ended up being that they said, they’d get step stools.
Tiffany: And you weren’t asking for a wing of the hospital to be built on for you, right? You’re asking for…how much does a step stool cost?
Tracey: I mean, I just Googled it and you can get them off Amazon for like $15. So, I’m not sure what kind of, what they thought that you needed, but a plain step stool does not seem to be [00:53:00] that big of an accommodation. But thank you so much for sharing that, because that shows you that we still have a lot of work to do. I think we have made some progress in this area, but we definitely have more work too.
Yeah. Well, you have been so inspiring and Tiffany has one final question for you. I think that it’s kind of a fun question.
Tiffany: Yes. And I was just going to sort of wrap up that by saying, you know, it seems like a small thing to offer you an adaptive piece of equipment, but I can tell you there’s a couple of groups that I belong to on Facebook that are, you know, hearing impaired healthcare workers.
And, they mention that kind of stuff all the time, whether it’s a conference, like microphone type thing to sit in the middle of the table when they’re getting sign out as a group, or you know, a phone that whatever your piece of equipment is, you know, there’s Volt and there’s Kucera or whatever the phone [00:54:00] is, but they don’t always work with your hearing aids and to have something like that, or even an amplified stethoscope, it’s such a, it’s such a challenge.
You’re right. You know, for somebody who has been managing this for a number of years, over a decade in your professional life, it’s sort of a little epidemic within those circles. So, you’re absolutely right making those decisions to sort of advocate for those who come behind us as healthcare professionals who want to give good care and safe care but need the appropriate pieces of equipment to do that, that’s extra special. And I just, I appreciate that about you and, and the fact that you’re willing to make major decisions based on whether or not, not only you are getting what you need, but what those behind you might need as well. But I do have a fun question? I can’t wait for this question.
I’m so excited. The question [00:55:00] is, I know it’s not the 1970s and we’re not in a punk rock band, but you know, those little buttons that we all used to pin on our denim jackets? Yeah. So if you could make a button with something that you wanted everybody to know, some kind of message, what would your message be?
Jen: Oh. Okay. So this is a good one, I love this. And actually now you got me thinking I should really do it. I’m a seventies girl. All right. So you know, I say I have this motto about thinking big to achieving your goals and overcoming obstacles. And so I think I would put on the button: “think big”, but I would have underneath it, “start small” because I think change happens with little, little, little small steps. Um, so “think big, but start small”.
Tracey: That’s fantastic. And if I decide to…I like to have sayings around my office just to help inspire me through the day. So if I do write that, I’ll [00:56:00] put ‘Dr. Jen Arnold’ and I’ll screenshot it and send it to you so you can see it.
Jen: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We’re still waiting yours.
Tiffany: I’m still working on mine. I was talking to a colleague about three weeks ago about this and whatever I would put on my button. I said it just sort of off the cuff and she laughed almost to tears, but it was something along the lines of, you know, like I was talking about people that think that I’m not intelligent because you know, there’s a, it’s like calling Europe, right?
Like speaking in America, and then seven seconds later in England, they can hear it on the phone. Right. Like there’s a delay while I try to interpret what you’ve, what you’ve said. And, uh, it would be something along the lines of, you know, “I’m deaf, not dumb” or, or something like that, but you know, maybe a little more PC than that.
Jen: But why more PC? Yeah. I love it. Well, you know, it kind of brings it out there so people might know, you’re not afraid to talk about it, you know? That’s [00:57:00] true.
Tracey: Yeah. Yeah. I think my button would, would read something like, uh, “don’t let life happen to you, you happen to life”.
Jen: Hmm. Oh, I like that.
Tracey: I heard that somewhere, so I can’t take credit, but I have no idea who said it, but I’ve, it’s always stuck with me and I love it. So yeah.
Jen: I love it. Yeah. I like it; make life what you want of it. Life is short. No pun intended, see? (laughter)
Tracey: That’s going in this podcast; we’re using it! (laughter)
Tiffany: Yes, that is awesome.
Tracey: Thank you so much, Dr. Arnold for being here today.
Tiffany: Thank you; we’re at the end of our time, but we’ve had so much fun talking with you and thanks so much for agreeing to come on and, if you’re up to it, you don’t…I’m not calling you out right now, but if you’re up to it, we would love to touch base with you again and just follow your journey and see if you have any inspirational words for nurses on down the line.
Tracey: Good luck with your [00:58:00] new position.
Jen: Thank you. Thank you. No, I’d be happy to come back. Thank you. It’s always good to see you guys.
Tracey: You want to do this in person? It’s 78 degrees here today. So just to let you know.
Jen: I know I miss it. I feel like I still live there. I’m definitely coming down next time.
Tracey: For sure. For sure. Well, it’s been our pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Jen: Thank you.
Tiffany: Goodbye.
Tracey: So that was an amazing interview, Tiffany. I’m so glad that Dr. Arnold, ‘Jen’ joined us today.
Tiffany: Yeah. She’s amazing.
Tracey: Like everything that I aspire to be; she is amazing.
Tiffany: Yeah, she is so trendy. She’s a little fashionista. Have you ever seen what wears all the time?
Tracey: Yes. And she sent us the most like adorbs, presh picture that I’m super going to [00:59:00] post on website to, you know, for her to be on there.
Her bio pic I’ll get it out in a minute, but it is so fabulous. Love it. It just sums up what I think her personality is.
Tiffany: Yeah. Super fun.
Tracey: Super fun. So I just wanted to add one more thing to the interview and just say, you know, for those of us like me who don’t necessarily have a seen or unseen special ability, what can we do to help in this situation? How can we help our colleagues with special ability?
Tiffany: Yeah, I think, you know, we talked a little bit about this with Dr. Arnold, but essentially, you know, there’s so much stigma still to this day associated with special abilities in terms of, you know, people being nervous about having a conversation, just like you said, in the early part of the episode where we were in a meeting and you got responses [01:00:00] from me that didn’t seem to make sense in your mind.
And instead of saying to me, “oh, I’m sorry, were you able to hear me?” or something like that, you just sort of developed this idea in your head about who I was and whether or not I was cavalier and what have you.
Tracey: Yeah. I sucked it up really bad and I feel really sorry about that. I sucked it up.
Tiffany: We just have to commit as a culture to keep that conversation open and keep the dialogue going. You know, I’m happy to tell you that I have all my chromosomes and I lost my hearing playing really loud rock music. But I’m fully intellectually intact and I’d love to talk to you more about that, but, you know, the conversation has to, has to be open and has to be, you know, ongoing.
So I think what’s important is just like I said, when we were talking to Dr. Arnold, if you come to me and say, you know, “it seems like you didn’t hear me. Do you [01:01:00] have a hearing impairment?”, you’re not going to be informing me for the first time that I have a hearing impairment…like I’m not embarrassed.
Tracey: I’d be like, what? I didn’t know! Really?
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s important. Keep the dialogue going, just like you did earlier in the episode where you were talking about the Americans with disability act; that was a beautiful example of, somebody who doesn’t have a special ability supporting somebody who does, you know, we’re talking about the folks on that Facebook group who mentioned, the difficulties that they have. And you’re like, “hey, I know of a resource that can be helpful”. So whether it’s advocating or providing resources like that, those are all very helpful ways to support, your colleagues that have special abilities.
Tracey: I love it. Thank you so much for that. And again, you know, I used myself as an example and I wanted to be really transparent and vulnerable because, [01:02:00] how I reacted was, was dead wrong. And, you know, knowing what I know now, I would make a different choice and I didn’t do anything bad. I didn’t say anything bad. This was all internal dialogue going, “what the hell is wrong with her?”, but you know, me not knowing that you did have a special ability.
So it really helped me, you know, it kind of was the slap in the face that I needed, unlike many slaps in the face that I’ve had before, but this one I needed, and I have learned from that. And now I really think about it if somebody is specifically this situation, but even in other things, like I don’t immediately jump to, well, they’re just…whatever I say. Okay. Well, is there more to the situation that I just don’t know?
Tiffany: Right. Right. And I think this conversation is especially salient right now because we have such issues with, low workforce. You know, we don’t have enough bodies, [01:03:00] functioning as nurses and nurse practitioners right now. And so we certainly want to support our colleagues who have special abilities so that they can be part of the workforce.
And you know, don’t forget that whether you have a special ability or not, you still have something to offer in the workforce. I remember taking care of a patient, you know, I work with babies, so I was taking care of a patient probably 10 years ago. And the parents had just found out that the infant was completely deaf or mostly deaf…I don’t remember, but the parents took the news really, really hard and they were just devastated, understandably, but they just didn’t know where to go from there. They were like, “he’s never going to do this, he’s never going to that” and what have you. And I said, “listen, I am a walking, talking, breathing, jumping individual who functions at a very high level with a very severe deficit”.
And essentially I encouraged them to [01:04:00] treat him as a regular child who could hear and then allow him to draw his own boundaries and say, you know, “that’s really too hard for me, or that’s exhausting, or I can’t do that”, or what have you, but essentially, you know, treat them as if they don’t have a special ability and let them sort of figure out their own limitations instead of placing that on them.
Right. Yeah. And I walked away from that experience that day thinking, you know, there’s nobody else in this building right now that could have had that conversation with that family and made a difference in the way that I did. So it’s important to include people with special abilities for that reason because they bring a different skillset to the to the table, you know?
Tracey: Yeah. It makes me think about, you know, we really are, we have a push in our country, rightfully so right now, to make sure that diversity and inclusion are at the front and center of our narrative going forward. [01:05:00] But so often that diversity and inclusion is limited to ensuring that different genders or different races or different sexuality or whatever it is included, but I’ve really not heard a whole lot about diversity and inclusion actually including those special abilities. And I really think it should for the reasons you just mentioned.
Tiffany: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Tracey: So thank you for being so vulnerable today, Tiffany and letting me, you know, expose your secret.
Tiffany: Well, it’s only because I can’t hear you well.
Tracey: You’ve got to stop. I can’t.
Tiffany: You know, if we were across the table from each other, I don’t know how participative I would have been.
Tracey: Well, or definitely if I was sitting to your right, which I now know is not the thing to do, but anyway, thank you again [01:06:00] and thanks to all our listeners out there.
Tiffany: And thanks a mil to my buddy, Dr. Arnold, and we wish her great success in her new position. And, hopefully we’ll get her back on the podcast at some point to continue to joke around with us and share her pearls of wisdom.
Tracey: Yes, she’s amazing. Can’t wait to read that book
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