Kimberly Long 0:00

Good morning. I am so excited to have Wendy Thomas with us. She is Director of Patient Care Services and Nurse Exec for Shriner's Children's Hospital. Wendy, welcome. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm glad you took some time to spend with us this morning. I just have sort of a few questions that I'll use to stimulate the discussion. And then feel free to add anything else that you desire to add to your interview today. You ready? Sure thing. Wonderful. So can you walk us through your journey to executive level leadership and define the moment that shaped your trajectory?

Wendi Thomas 0:37

Oh, that's a great question. It's been an amazing 30-plus year journey. That's a lot to sum up in a short little uh podcast this morning. But um, you know, I started my journey as an emergency room nurse. I always was interested in the emergency room. I had worked there as an ER tech back in the day and got my first job in San Francisco right after nursing school. They hadn't hired new grads into their emergency room yet. I was their guinea pig, their first one. I got two weeks of orientation and it was sink or swim. So I definitely swam. And that started a wonderful career in emergency nursing. And after having my daughter, I wanted to work closer to home. So I worked in Petaluma, California, where I uh started as an ER nurse. And then shortly in, and sometimes this has happened to a lot of leaders where they're like, hey, you have some great talent. Would you like to be the assistant nurse manager? And I was like, sure. Yeah, yeah, I could do that. And then that led into a little while after that, suddenly it was like, oh, can you be the manager now? She's uh the manager has since moved on. And then several years as manager in the emergency room in the community in which I lived and raised my children. My husband was on the police force there. So it was one big, happy community hospital that was amazing. And through that time there, I also became then a director. They said, Can you take on intensive care? Can you take on OB? Can you take on surgical services? How about the nursing supervisors? And eventually I had everything. And it was amazing. And I wouldn't take any of it back. It's uh it's really been a wonderful journey, and I've been able to affect many lives, both patients and other nurses in that. And then as an executive, I was asked to take on a second hospital. So I took on a second hospital as chief nursing officer for two hospitals in Sonoma County. And that was also amazing to learn somebody else's hospital and come in as an executive to really fine-tune the nursing practice that they already had that was great. It was just taking them from great to greater, as I say. And then, you know, due to a series of reorganizations and life events, I uh found myself that my position had been eliminated. And that gave me an opportunity to pause and say, what's next for me? Where do I see myself? What is next on my path? How can I influence? Where will my voice be heard? And so I took some time and um found a new home. And the new home is at Shriner's Children's Hospital in Sacramento, which has just been amazing, filling my cup more than I ever thought it would.

Kimberly Long 3:33

Oh, I think that's wonderful. That is absolutely wonderful. And so from your perspective, what are the greatest opportunities to strengthen alignment between healthcare systems and the academic institutions? We know that the academic institutions prepare our practitioners. How do you feel that alignment can be strengthened?

Wendi Thomas 3:58

Yes, it's really important, right? The academic institutions are training the nurses and doctors who are going to take care of me one day. And so I have a vested interest in making sure that their training is appropriate. And how do we integrate that into not losing sight of the compassion that can be delivered at the bedside, but adding in technology and knowledge with AI and so many other things now, but you can't forget the basics. And often I go back to the book that Florence Nightingale wrote about notes on nursing, where she wrote it way over a hundred years ago. And interesting how so many of the things she talked about in her book are still applicable today. And so I think that with our academic partners, we really try to create a platform for students to learn and grow and develop their practice as oncoming nurses and doctors who are going to go out into the world and take care of patients all over. And so we want to provide foundation. And in my career, I've been so fortunate to be able to teach many nurses, paramedics, doctors, and other people. And now they've blossomed into being just amazing practitioners. So if we don't partner with academics so that they can send their students to us, help us teach them, I don't know where we'd be, right? We're gonna have a nursing shortage coming up here. We know that. We know that there are not enough nurses and doctors entering into the program. So we really want to make it so that it's a wonderful experience. So more people are wanting to go into healthcare. Summer at Shriners, we're offering a academy for young students in high school age who are interested maybe in going into healthcare and getting them exposed to walk in the door, to teach them how to even put on gloves and a gown, to teach them what surgery's like, to teach them about therapies from physical therapy to mental health therapy and everything in between. We do a whole session about nutrition, right? Nutrition's so so crucial to the healing process. And so to be able to teach, you know, 16 and 17 year olds who might be interested in a career in healthcare is really amazing. And we're so excited to be able to do that again this summer.

Kimberly Long 6:17

Oh, that is absolutely wonderful. So I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit. Currently, because of all the changes that are ha happening in healthcare, there are a lot of competing priorities. How are you navigating those competing priorities, such as cost containment, workforce investment, innovation, those sorts of things?

Wendi Thomas 6:41

That's a great question because there are competing priorities. I feel like change is inevitable, right? Change is every day, all day. And in healthcare, sometimes it's coming at you so fast, it's hard to keep up. And so I try to realign with my team and myself. So, you know, from my team up above and my team down below, I um try to really be mindful to have weekly, if not more than weekly, sessions where we're saying, what are the priorities today? And there are internal and external priorities and competing priorities. For example, right now we're waiting for joint commission, right? Everybody gets all ready for joint commission. But I don't want to lose focus of the other things that we're here to do. We're here to grow and take care of more children and to develop new nurses and to get our policies in alignment and to look at new ways where we study and we have research. And right now it's time to send in our research proposals. And we're gonna have 25 research studies at Shriners Children's, hopefully, in the next year. And so, how do you compete with all of that? And so for me, I always just really try to focus on what's my true north. Where is my my personal true north is to care for as many people in the most compassionate way. And how do I deliver on that and ask those that report up to me to deliver on that and and those above me to deliver on that? And sometimes when you're talking budget, it's not easy, right? You're talking about the budget or you're talking about new legislature. And if you could pause for a second and say, hold on, what's our true north? We're here to care for children. That's what I'm doing here today is caring for children. Even in my previous roles where we were caring for all ages, there's still competing priorities. And so try to control the things that are right there in front of you. And you can control that. You can control the amount of compassion being given at the bedside. You can control how you show up every day. And that's what I try to make sure to instill in my team so that we can move forward because the challenges are gonna be there no matter what. And so, how do we control the challenges that are right there in front of us?

Kimberly Long 8:52

Oh, I love it. Absolutely. So here's the last question How can leaders more effectively influence legislative and regulatory decisions that are impacting nursing and healthcare? How can we get more involved in influencing those things?

Wendi Thomas 9:11

Yeah. Well, there's certainly power and numbers, right? So joining organizations like ACNL, where there are uh, you know, hundreds of other nurses that are interested in and walking the same path. So certainly looking that. I think storytelling is very important. And to be able to get an audience and tell a story, how it impacted somebody, how the work being done impacted. And I I remember distinctly one time as an emergency room nurse not being able to give crutches to a patient because they weren't covered under the insurance. And that was heartbreaking for me. I thought, oh my gosh, we have to do better. I remember a dad coming in, not being able to afford insulin. He had to choose food for his kids as a single dad versus insulin. And then he ended up in diabetic ketoacidosis and ended up in the ICU with a ginormous bill, where had he had insulin, you know, that trajectory could have changed. So I think really storytelling and sharing, you know, those challenges that are affecting those at the bedside. The one thing I loved about shriners is they are able to give care to those that need it, no matter the financials. And working in other hospitals for so long where financials were really the top priority. It's been really a blessing to have changed paths. And if a child needs crutches or an orthotic or a prosthetic, they get it. And they get it through their whole life journey as they grow, you know, from a two-year-old to an 18-year-old and everything in between. So I think helping legislatures know, inviting them to see the work being done in the hospitals, the compassion, the love being shown, the sacrifices, I try to make sure to round on holidays. So I know that those nurses and doctors and other uh care providers that are not with their families, that they're choosing to be at the hospital to care for the patients that need us. 24-7, 365 is so important and helping other people see that. So, I mean, fixing healthcare is a big undertaking. And I hope to see it changed for the better in my lifetime. Sometimes I can only do what I can do and help to ask others to join me on my path, to just give my best every day and to influence where I can. So have my voice be heard and helping legislative people who are making decisions for financial reimbursement or programs, helping them really understand the impact and taking that to an actual patient scenario when there is not enough dollars or focus on mental illness. What's the impact to that, right? The mental illness patients are clogging emergency departments all over the nation. And so why? Well, because there's not a place for them. Why? And so I go back to the five why sometimes and really try to explain that to someone that might not understand that in its entirety and really speaking in a language that they can see. And that's the challenge, and that's what I'm up for every day.

Kimberly Long 12:20

Wendy, I have one more question for you. What advice would you give your younger self, knowing what you know now?

Wendi Thomas 12:27

Well, that's a great question. I don't know that I'd change any part of my path because every stone on the path is important. And I have a phrase that I say that we either win or we learn. And so sometimes you don't win, but what did you learn from that experience? And so if I could tell my younger self to learn a little bit more early on, I would certainly do that. I might tell myself to, you know, listen more, talk less, because listening is so important. And although I felt like I was a good listener, it took me till my adult years to to really understand that a little bit more. And also I would say to my younger self, which I learned to do probably more in my 30s, which was about sacred encounters and sacred moments. And I have instilled that there's still nurses today that either worked for me in the years past or still work for me who say, I want to tell you about a sacred encounter I had. And those sacred encounters are those wow moments, those moments where you're like, I really made a difference in somebody's life. And they could be small and they can be big, right? Especially as an emergency room nurse, you just never know. But sometimes they could be just, you know, the smallest thing that you sat at a patient's bedside and heard about his 55-year marriage. And what made them tick? And what did you absorb from that? Or I tell the story where I walked out of the grocery store and a lady stopped me and said, Oh my gosh, you were the nurse that was there when my mom passed away. I will never forget your face. And that's a wow moment. That's chills up the arms, wow moment. And I call them sacred encounters. And I wish I was paying attention a little bit more in my younger years, but certainly I pay attention now. And every one of those moments, it's a privilege and an honor to be with someone on their health journey. And I look at it as that. It's not a job, it is a privilege. And I feel so fortunate to be in those sometimes.

Kimberly Long 14:33

Oh, I love it. Wendy, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to spend with us and share your thoughts and perspective. I really appreciate it, and it's great to see you again.