This special series from "Better Today, Healthier Tomorrow – An Arkansas Children's Podcast" is designed to bridge the gap for health care providers who predominantly treat adults. Pediatric care can be intimidating for those unaccustomed to it; with a mix of expert knowledge and relatable experiences, Charles ensures that no child's healthcare needs are left unaddressed.
Join us as we make pediatric care more approachable and ensure every child receives the best possible care.
This special series from "Better Today, Healthier Tomorrow – An Arkansas Children's Podcast" is designed to bridge the gap for health care providers who predominantly treat adults. Pediatric care can be intimidating for those unaccustomed to it; with a mix of expert knowledge and relatable experiences, Charles ensures that no child's healthcare needs are left unaddressed.
Join us as we make pediatric care more approachable and ensure every child receives the best possible care.
Hello, I'm Kristen Bandy, your host of Better Today Healthier Tomorrow. And we are joined here today by Charles Wooley. He is going to be the new host of our Providing Pediatrics series. Charles, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I’m excited. Tell us exactly what that series will encompass. So the idea is that we would be able to reach the providers around the state who sometimes don't take care of kids on a regular basis. Right. So they mostly take care of adults. So when they get a kid, you know, it's intimidating to take care of kids if all you take care of is adults. So that includes EMTs and paramedics on the on the ambulance. That's going to include that school nurse that she takes care of a lot of kids, but not really sick ones. Right. And then those those providers that are in those rural hospitals around our state And you had your own series that you did to educate those types of people who run into kids a lot but may not know how to necessarily care for them. How did that start? Well, for me, it all really goes back to the reason why I do a lot of the things I do around this place. I really remember how it felt to be in that situation, and I relate to that and I've never kind of gotten away from that. I've always held on to that kind of feeling of not being prepared to take care of a sick or hurt kid and the emotions that come with it and that come flooding in whenever you're having to do that. And that's what kind of drove it. But I started the actual Zoom presentations as an answer to COVID. before the pandemic. I would go out on a weekly basis and do classes around the state, and it was just amazing and fun. And we'd go to a fire department and we would do simulation even. Just hands on and presentation stuff and couldn’t do that any more. So we had to do something. It's kind of how a lot of things started was because COVID shut everything down, but a lot of good things came out of it. Oh, it was such a treat because all of a sudden I could grab a really highly qualified subject matter expert, walk into a room, and I could get on a podcast or a Zoom and have people from every corner of the state represented and getting the same information that we had been able to provide before, but in that setting. So it was really, really nice. I love it. And you mentioned that you traveled all over the state prior to COVID. What is it that you do here? So now I'm the outreach coordinator for the Heart Institute here at Arkansas Children's. I'm also the Project Adam coordinator for the state and Project Adam is what I live and breathe every single day, and I'm really proud of it. I've been doing this since really the first of the year, since February or so, And what we do and what I do is I help stand up small teams in schools that respond to sudden cardiac arrest. So there's a lot that goes into that. But I empower I help empower the school nurse or sometimes it's a principal, some leader that steps up and says they want to start this in their school. I help walk them through the process. There's a couple of things that go into it. I go out and do a risk assessment, walk through and look at where their AED’s are kept, and we talk about the process. They write a written plan that says how they're going to respond to a medical emergency on their campus, and then they run practice drills and then I go back with my mannequin on a given day and put them on the floor and they save the mannequin. And they really do. They show up and do amazing work. We work with the fire department and the EMS service. We actually make a 911 call. The whole thing gets done all the way from point A all the way through to point Z and it's a really neat way to spread preparedness That's amazing. As I get older and become an adult, I realize how important training like that is in schools that these things do happen and somebody needs to be able to help somebody other than me. I'm not so great in an emergency. This exact same thing from so many people. So can you imagine being a teacher No. Never. No, no, no. So many reasons no. Yeah, doesn't always work out so well, but a lot of them still say, you know, what is the right thing to do for the kids? So I'm going to step up and I'm going to learn how to do CPR. We don't have to have everybody be a CPR provider on that team. We have There's so many roles on that team you really need. Somebody is going to call and be the communications person. You're going to need somebody to meet the ambulance out front and bring them in. You know, because the campus is intimidating. It's huge and you can get lost. Oh, absolutely. And if I know anything about teachers, they're pretty selfless. So I'm not surprised that so many of them step up for this. I am trained on a lot of things. Stop the bleed and CPR, but I am terrified to ever have to put that training to use. So it's great that other people are able to be trained for that. Tell me, since beginning your journey on Zoom during COVID, what has been something that stands out that came out of it? What was the best thing that came out of these chats and talks? There has been so many. We always it seems like we get started and it's kind of like, Oh, this, you know, this is kind of rough getting started. But once we get into it and we realized that we're getting feedback from the audience that says, Hey, that was good. You know, it really needed that. We really And so we've heard so many people either through emails or through phone calls or letting us know that, hey, we really appreciate you guys putting out this support and I think feeling like we were doing our duty to support these people, the providers out there in the community, they're taking care of the kids that we're going to eventually have to take care of if they're hurt or if they're sick. that was really rewarding for me. That's kind of my purpose. I love it. One of the common themes when we talk to various providers here at Arkansas Children's is that it is so different caring for pediatric patients versus adult patients Their bodies are different. The way they talk to you is different. Everything is different. So to do this and to put this out there I think is an incredible benefit for the community. Yeah, it's it's huge. It's a there's a fear. There's an absolute fear for for taking care of kids. And it's just exactly what you said. But there's a whole lot more that goes into that, you know, taking care of adults, especially when you think about the paramedics and the EMTs out there, these guys get just a little smidge of pediatric care in school compared to the large amount of education they get to take care of adults. And that is simply based on the fact that they are only picking up adults. Maybe five or 10% of our kids. So you really have only a limited amount of time to train these folks So that already sets them up for a feeling of not being prepared. So when they get there, they're like, did I really learn this or is this something that I'm thinking in my head? Right? not to discount a 76 year old female patient that's having chest pain, not to discount her future, but a three year old in respiratory distress or respiratory failure. Totally different things that the level of anxiety goes through the roof. Right. Because you don't want to mess that up. There are so many subject matter experts that are here right now on this campus that can provide that level of education and that level of support to give that provider out there in the community the confidence they need to go forward and to take care of kids Well, we're excited to have you come do this special series of the podcast. What were your initial thoughts when we reached out and asked, this has always been a dream of mine, because, you know, we've done this thing on Zoom and I've always wanted to make it, always take it to the next level, make it better or make it bigger, provide that service that we were talking about to support the the outside providers, you know, So more than excited to get going on this and I'm more than excited to pull the right people and to talk and to share their knowledge. We've already got your first interview scheduled. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you're interviewing and what we can expect from that? Yeah. So I'm really excited to sit down with Matthew Whaley from Angel Transport Services at Arkansas Children's. I actually started my career here at Angel One and have a lot of respect and love for Angel one. Matt and I go all the way back to the emergency department. We worked in the emergency department together and so we have a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about the delivery of a newborn in the field. Heavy topic for the first one. I don’t think it gets any scarier. And then we're going to take it to the next level and we're going to talk about the resuscitation of a neonate. And both of those things are are high, high risk. You know, both of those things come with a lot of anxiety. both of those things are specialized and especially the resuscitation of the neonate It is not the exact same thing as doing CPR on even a three year old or an adult. So very tiny, Everything is a lot smaller, all the equipment is smaller. The whole approach is completely different. So you mentioned that you started your Zoom interview series because of COVID, but what really led your heart to want to educate everybody about how to care for pediatric patients? I guess early in my career as a paramedic, I was working in the north part of the state on an ambulance for working for a fire department there. I must have been a paramedic for maybe it felt like now it's been a long time ago. It felt like now that it was maybe a couple of weeks and I remember it just like it was yesterday. Like it's one of these moments in your life that you probably because it changed me so much, is why I hold onto this moment so much. But I was it was shift change. We always before we got off duty that day, we would always make sure that unless was ready and tidy for the next crew coming on. And I remember I was washing off the delta bugs that were blasted all over the front of my inbox for the night before, and the tones came in, the emergency tones came in and the broadcast came in that said Pediatric Emergency, and they gave us the address. So we jump in the lots and take off to the other end of town. And it was just that from dispatch, just pediatric emergency that was it. That's all they told us. Right. And so we're running across town, lights and sirens going. And I'm thinking I was just you know, I was just a pediatric nurse. I was a brand new guy. I didn't really know what I was doing So we get to an apartment complex and I see a mom running out of an apartment complex carrying a lifeless baby. And it was that obvious to me, by the way, that she was carrying this child. And as she approached the ambulance, I remember getting out and putting my boots on the ground. And as soon as my boots hit the ground, she was giving me her child and saying, Save my baby, save my baby. That level of trust. I was not prepared for that. And then a lot of things happened. I remember being in the back of the ambulance, and complete fog People talk about the fog of war, I completely blanked out. This is hard for me to admit sometimes, but I did not know what to do. I had gone through a very, probably the best paramedic program in the state I had a lot of education, a lot of training, I had been on several calls I wasn’t a new firefighter, a wasn’t a new EMT I had been there for a couple years already. I just could not remember what to do because of the ovewhelming emotions I felt at that moment. and lack of knowledge. Once the fog cleared I did what I had to do, but it absolutely changed my life and I remember saying to myself, actually the next day I went to my chief and said I dont want to be a paramedic anymore I said, I just want to be a firefighter and pull hoses and run into burning buildings that must have been some big fear to go back to. I just want to run into a burning building, like So he says, Wooley, we’ve invested a lot in your education. Gave me some time off of the ambulance one shift. I did a couple things wrong, I should have really spent some time talking to someone about that that like that right away and in the future. But it did really, really, really sink into my soul. And now that I have the opportunity and now that I have experience with pediatrics, I just want to push it and give it and shower somebody with it, especially people that are going to be in that same situation that I was in and let them know as much knowledge as I can possibly share with them to make them feel better in that situation. that makes a lot of sense why an experience like that would lead you to something like this. And you know, the good thing about a podcast is you can listen to it over and over and over again and really cement that in your brain kind of. And then you have the muscle memory maybe of of doing that, because I would imagine a lot of the ease of dealing with adults is if they do it so often and it just becomes second nature. So hopefully listening to your show will be enough to put that in the back of their mind. Oh yeah, he mentioned this on that one episode. Well, we're really excited to have you come on the show. We're really excited for this series. I think it's going to be great for providers. I think that there will also be some things that the non providers can find very interesting. I'm going to ask you one question that I ask everybody that comes on the show. What do you love about your job You get a chance to make a difference. Absolutely. Love that. I realize how lucky, how blessed I am every single day when I get to influence change in the community. And it I have to really hold myself back from just bragging and gloating about it because I love it. It makes me feel so fulfilled and it's just been such a treat to be in the role that I'm in and have the support I have from the people I answer to and the support of this facility and the system to go out in the community and make a difference. I absolutely love what I do. You can tell. I mean, it just seeps out of you. It really does. We're really looking forward to having you host our new series, Providing Pediatrics. And thank you for joining us on the Better Today Healthier Tomorrow, Arkansas Children's Podcast. Have a great day