Introducing Jillian Berman – R.N. at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, CA. After decades of experience as a Pediatric Trauma Nurse, Jill has transitioned to the role of supervisor and mentor within her unit. Throughout this episode, she walks us through the ins and outs of inclusive service in the healthcare industry. Tune in as we discuss:
MORE ABOUT JILL
Jillian Berman BSN, RN, CPEN has been practicing as a pediatric nurse for 33 years at Rady Children’s Hospital. She has worked in various areas of the hospital over the years and is the Educator/Supervisor of the Emergency Department. Jillian is the mother of 2 wonderful children (now adults) and feels privileged to have all the opportunities afforded to her.
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Introducing Jillian Berman – R.N. at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, CA. After decades of experience as a Pediatric Trauma Nurse, Jill has transitioned to the role of supervisor and mentor within her unit. Throughout this episode, she walks us through the ins and outs of inclusive service in the healthcare industry. Tune in as we discuss:
MORE ABOUT JILL
Jillian Berman BSN, RN, CPEN has been practicing as a pediatric nurse for 33 years at Rady Children’s Hospital. She has worked in various areas of the hospital over the years and is the Educator/Supervisor of the Emergency Department. Jillian is the mother of 2 wonderful children (now adults) and feels privileged to have all the opportunities afforded to her.
CONNECT WITH US
Website | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Mike Cole 0:05
Well hello, everybody, and welcome to Peoplecast. I'm your host, Mike Cole. And with me as always, today is our co-host and producer extraordinare Jerrin Padre.
Jerrin Padre 0:16
Hello.
Mike Cole 0:17
Great to have you, Jerrin.
Jerrin Padre 0:19
It's good to be here!
Mike Cole 0:20
Here for—what is this episode five today? Wow.
Jerrin Padre 0:24
I know it just flew by.
Mike Cole 0:26
It did, it did! So on the show today, for those that don't know—well, obviously you don't because we haven't said anything. But we have Jill Berman. Jill is a registered nurse at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. Jill holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a CPEN which is a Certification in Pediatric Emergency Nursing. Welcome, Jill. Glad to have you on the show.
Jill Berman 0:51
Thank you for having me.
Mike Cole 0:52
We appreciate you taking time to stop and talk with us about inclusive service because that's what season two has been all about. What better person to talk about service than someone who's in the healthcare industry? Especially now.
Jerrin Padre 1:06
Oh, yeah.
Mike Cole 1:06
I have a couple questions for you, Jill. First question I have for you. When you go into a department store or grocery store, like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or something like that, real cashier or self checkout?
Jill Berman 1:20
Well, that's dependent on my wine consumption that day. But if it's wine, then I am the cashier. And if it's no wine, it's me, myself, and I.
Mike Cole 1:31
Now you're talking specifically about the wine that you're purchasing, not how much you've had to drink before you go into the store, right?
Jill Berman 1:38
Absolutely. Because we don't drink and drive. I am a trauma nurse.
Mike Cole 1:45
Okay, okay. Just clarifying. Yeah, I think either way that would affect my decision one way or the other. So next question, digital book, or are you a page turner?
Jill Berman 1:56
Digital book for I am a poor reader, and therefore a brilliant listener, and therefore, an audible listener of books.
Mike Cole 2:07
So you're taking the digital book one step further. And so you're not reading a digital book. You are listening to a digital book, right?
Jill Berman 2:14
Oh, good point. Well done. Yes, I am listening to a digital book. I'm not reading one on a Kindle. Absolutely not. I'm not reading the words, I am listening
Mike Cole 2:28
Do they still have Kindles? Do they make Kindles?
Jerrin Padre 2:30
Yes! Of course!
Jill Berman 2:31
Yes! Absolutely.
Mike Cole 2:34
I'm sorry. I'm an Apple user. I'm an iPad user. So what are these Kindles you speak of? Our local library, they have an app that is quite the challenge to navigate. Somebody can make a mint in developing an app that all libraries could use. You know, just saying,
Jerrin Padre 2:49
That's a good call to action.
Mike Cole 2:51
It is. It is. You know, it's probably out there. And I just probably, you know, threw that to the wind and people are gonna be like, "Oh, really? There's 'x' app. It already exists. What, are you living under a rock?" That's fine.
Jerrin Padre 3:02
I know. We don't have to budget for a fact check yet, okay?
Editor's Note 3:05
(We do now! One quick Google search and I found an app called "Libby." There ya go!)
Mike Cole 3:05
No, we don't, we don't. We just fact check on what we know. Or how quickly I can grab my phone to look something up. So
Jerrin Padre 3:13
Yeah, I was about to say if it's based on what we know, that is a limited fact check. But thankfully we do have Google.
Editor's Note 3:19
(And an editor/transcriber.)
Mike Cole 3:20
Yeah, we're biased by our experiences and our upbringing. So yeah.
Jerrin Padre 3:25
Yeah.
Mike Cole 3:27
Well, no, Jill, thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I know you're busy. And there's a lot going on in the healthcare industry right now. And huge respect to what you folks have to deal with every single day. And so grateful for you to take the time out to chat with us here on Peoplecast. So I have a question for you. This one is is probably going to get more into the meat of what we're talking about today. And the question is what was your first job? You know, getting paid and putting money in the bank? What was that job? What do you do?
Jill Berman 3:58
Well, I'm going to tell you about my first job paid in the healthcare field. I took a certification as a nursing assistant, and I worked in a convalescent hospital. And I took care of acute care patients, which I lasted doing for eight months. It was the hardest job I've ever had. And I've had some hard jobs, but this one was particularly difficult in that in eight hours, I was expected to take care of about 15 people. And that meant bathing, feeding, dressing. And so there were days that I literally was the shower person. And all I did was transfer patients into wheelchairs, drive them down to the tub, transfer them into the tab, bathe them, transfer them out of the tub, back into the wheelchair, dress them, and send them back to their room, and to start over. So I learned a lot. I learned a lot about dignity, and how I would want to care for my patients, and how I would want my family to be cared for, my friends. So it was—it didn't deter me from going to nursing school. I think if anything, it catapulted me into being more passionate about it.
Jerrin Padre 5:18
Is that—sorry, just to go back. So 15 people in the span of eight hours were the people that you had to attend to basically.
Jill Berman 5:25
Absolutely.
Jerrin Padre 5:27
That's so—that seems like such a crazy ratio. What is the typical patient to nurse ratio?
Jill Berman 5:32
Right. So in a convalescent hospital, it's a different story, but welcome to California. In California, registered nurses do have ratios. And thus, it is a big pull—not to mention the weather—but a big pull for nurses to come and work in California, because we do have a 1 to 4 ratio, sometimes 1 to 3. But you'll never have more than four patients to care for.
Jerrin Padre 5:58
That sounds a little bit more reasonable. To me, I can't imagine having to deliver the same level of care to 15 different people you just be spread to thin.
Jill Berman 6:06
Impossible.
Jerrin Padre 6:07
Yeah!
Jill Berman 6:07
Absolutely. It wasn't possible. And that's probably one of the reasons why I lasted for such a short period of time. It's not a funny story. But something actually happened on my very last day of work in this convalescent hospital where I was caring for multiple people. And I had a very young woman who had a stroke, and she was completely dependent. And I had placed her in what is called a Hoyer lift, which is like a sling that is driven on wheels. And it's a way to transfer patients and I was by myself. And I got her into the Hoyer lift and I wheeled her down the hall, and I was going to give her a bath alone. And as I got into the bathtub, the her foot, which was rigid, hit the bathtub, and she flipped forward. I mean, I'm not laughing—I'm laughing out of nerves because it was so stressful. And nothing happened to her. But that was the day that I quit. I couldn't do it anymore. And I literally screamed for help, and got help to help me get her back into the Hoyer lift and take her back. And I quit the job that day and got a job in a hospital. So absolutely. You're only as good as your equipment. This is true in medicine as well. But part of having equipment is having human people that can help you care for a high acuity patient. It takes a village really.
Jerrin Padre 7:39
Yeah. I know, Mike, you have your your typical intro questions. But you said something about dignity. So I just want to follow that train of thought.
Mike Cole 7:46
Oh, no, no, you're in the same vein I was going in? Yeah.
Jill Berman 7:50
Oh, absolutely. I mean, in the end, really, I think it's helped me understand that I always tried to find the positive in people. I try to find the best, even if there might be only an inkling of the best in someone. And part of this is having respect and dignity for other people. That—I mean, nobody wants to be bathed by another person when you're an adult, or have your diaper changed when you're an adult. And regardless of their mental state, you know, you always have to put yourself in the position of the patient, or maybe the position of your parent, or your family member, and treat them the way you would treat the ones that you love.
Jerrin Padre 8:36
Yeah. And I can't imagine how that plays out because you work at a children's hospital. Right? So there's so many different ways of catering to people, and people want to be catered to in different ways. So something that you'd communicate to a child is obviously not the same way that you communicate it to a parent or a grandparent.
Jill Berman 8:56
Absolutely. And when you're coming into the emergency department, as a parent, you're already stressed. Right. And so your coping skills are really hardened or lessened. Maybe that's a better way of saying it—where you can't really cope because you don't know what's going on. And so and never more so is customer service important because knowledge is power. And if you can empower somebody to understand what's going on in the simplest terms to help them comprehend their fears. And it's also being a people person, you not only have to be good at your job and be able to identify what's wrong, when to intervene, when to get help, but also take in the emotional intelligence piece of understanding personality, situational awareness, and how you deal with people.
Mike Cole 9:50
I think you just answered most of the questions that we had for this episode.
Jerrin Padre 9:55
That's it, that's a wrap!
Mike Cole 9:58
But I want to go back. I want to go back a little bit because here's the thing. So I had an aunt who was an RN, I have a cousin who's an RN, he's actually a traveling nurse right now. Was there a time in your life during your childhood or, you know, shortly after—was there any sort of memory that led you to where you are today?
Jill Berman 10:19
The truth is, I had no idea until I was a late teenager that I wanted to go to nursing school. But one thing I did love was science. And it was the one subject in school that I did well in. So I think that was one of the things that maybe prompted me into looking into the sciences and then being exposed to friends that were nurses, and in medicine, that influenced my decision to go into nursing. And never, not a minute of any day since I've become a nurse, have I regretted it. Not even on the worst day. It was the best decision that I made. And I am grateful for what I've experienced, although I've only worked at really one hospital as a registered nurse, and that is Rady Children's. I've worked there for 33 years in multiple departments, but now in the emergency department, and can't think of wanting to do anything else.
Jerrin Padre 11:20
So emergency department, you said you're a trauma nurse. So can you tell us a little bit about your role today and what you do on a day to day basis.
Jill Berman 11:29
So two years ago, I became the educator and supervisor of the emergency department of Children's However, I've been teaching for many, many years. And that really is my passion. As much as I love the patients, my passion are the nurses, and the ancillary staff that I get to teach. As much as I do love the patients—and I do, particularly as I am a pediatric nurse—my passion is with the staff, and how do I grow the staff and get them to where they feel successful, and safe, and accomplished.
Jerrin Padre 12:07
It's so interesting to see the different career paths within nursing, because I know it differs for every single individual because each individual prioritizes different things, they value different things in their careers. And there are just so many different routes you can take within this field. And I think it's really, really awesome that at some point, you discovered what worked for you and you wanted to share it with others. I think that's really powerful.
Jill Berman 12:34
Well, that's nice of you to say I agree 100%, that the choice in nursing can be anywhere from working in a clinic, working in a doctor's office, working in the operating room, and you can flip flop whenever you want. That's the joy of nursing, and the flexibility and being able to have a family, and have work/life balance, because it seems to be the theme, particularly with COVID and the stresses of health care. I know that you know that my daughter is a nurse and an amazing nurse at that. But she recognizes, even though she does a three day a week, 12 hour shift that it's so stressful. And the burnout rate is so high that to have that flexibility, to have that downtime, to have a life outside of work is so important in order to want to go back because it is so draining when you're there.
Jerrin Padre 13:36
Yeah. Yeah, I can't imagine. This definitely makes me think of this idea of leading through crisis and especially like in your industry, it's been hit pretty hard. So you know, you as a leader, as a teacher, how do you incentivize your team members to continue to serve through that crisis?
Jill Berman 13:57
It's been very, very difficult. And the one thing that I think as a leadership team we have done is introduced different classes and programs and support systems for the staff so that they have a way to have a release. So every Wednesday we have a wellness day, where we will go out as leaders onto this unit to help them get a break and they get to do some meditation massage, and it's a no touch massage. Uh, you know, food goes a long way. In medicine, you know, you can feed the nurses and they're very, very happy. But I think there's so many moving parts, particularly in the business of hospitals and medicine, that sometimes you can misread what the institution is actually trying to do for you. And as a result, we lost a lot of nurses in COVID for multiple reasons, and trying to rebuild the staff, so that we're at a level where we have support in the unit, and we have resources, and the nurses don't feel so overwhelmed with the amount of sick patients that we have—you know, it's a challenge. So we try all sorts of things, the social workers in our department have office hours for staff, we have a Diversity Equity Inclusive program that we utilize, we have nurses that are on a subcommittee called You Matter. And when we do have something tragic that happens that we do need debriefing, this group of nurses help debrief in real time. So there's so many factors that go into being a supervisor in an emergency department. And so as a result, I've chosen to always see the glass half full. And if I have any issues with staff where I do need to discipline them, it's done in a way that is respectful and in a growing manner.
Mike Cole 16:07
So Jill, I love the fact that you mentioned glass half full, right? Because that's something we hear a lot. It's either your glass is half full, or your glass is half empty, it depends on how you look at it. And that's one thing that has kind of led the season to really focus on inclusive service, the company that Jerrin and I both work for, we've just launched a program called Fill The Glass. And it's all about inclusive customer service. And so that's why a lot of these questions are tailored toward that, not just because of the thing that we've just launched, but we really truly want to dig deep into inclusive service across all industries. And so I really liked the fact that you mentioned that because it definitely is part of it. Right. So you also mentioned your DEIB committee that you guys have at Rady. My question for you is within that DEIB committee: to that committee, and to those who are serving on that committee, and even to yourself, what do you think inclusive service means in the industry that you work in? And how does that committee practice or instill inclusive service into into the hospital there?
Jill Berman 17:12
So individuals from my particular unit were nominated by their peers to partake in the Diversity Equity Inclusion program, and they attend a Zoom seminar every—I think it's every month. And you know, the goal for them is to help feed it into real time conflict that we may have on the unit, which is every day. I mean, it can be misconstrued that based on your perception of what is happening in an emergency room that somebody is getting care over them, for whatever reason. And it happens every day. And there's a lot of hostility. So I think it's a little bit of a hidden program at the moment, unless it's done in real time on the unit with a fellow colleague. It's not really something that we all get to see. But we did as a unit. I don't know if you have heard of DISC, but it's personality—
Jerrin Padre 18:15
Oh, yep, yep.
Jill Berman 18:16
So we all took a profile, we all did our own profile on DISC, and it puts you into a category based on how you think, what your style of communication, and we taught the staff what each color in this disc means, and we stuck this color on everybody's badge. And that way, when you're talking to somebody, if you recognize that they are somebody that wants to be communicated to in concise, short, to the point sentences versus someone like me who can go off on a tangent, you know, wants to have a whole full on conversation with you just to get to the point. You can identify, based on the color, who you're dealing with. And so, you know, little things like that that we've tried to incorporate to help—we're a staff of 150+, just in our department. And when you're talking about 150+ people, you're talking about a myriad of personality. So it is learning to understand your emotional intelligence; not only for your co workers that you work with, but also families. Families under duress. Their personality has changed because of the duress. So it's hard, it is hard and sometimes it doesn't work. And then that is when you have to come back, take a breath. You know, I used to—when my daughter played soccer when she was little, the rule was you've got a 48 hour rule. If you have a problem with the player, or the coach, you take 48 hours to stew on it before you actually have that crucial conversation, so that it's not charged, and you can think about how you're going to say it in a way that's constructive, and get a positive outcome, because in the end, that's what it's about. Because tomorrow, you have to come back to work with that person.
Mike Cole 20:17
Sounds like to me there's a large focus on internal customer service, as well as external customer service.
Jill Berman 20:24
Absolutely. And I mean, my, my job is the internal piece, because of the nature of being the educator. There are other things that the hospital uses in order to engage patients' families, where they do a survey, and we do a [unintelligible] score. So it is a business. I mean, you don't have to get your care at Rady Children's, even if we're the only pediatric hostpital in the whole of the Imperial Valley. So it's kind of—I think it's hard for healthcare workers, including myself, even though I'm in leadership, to realize that we are a business as well.
Jerrin Padre 20:25
Right. I mean, I find myself talking to your daughter, Lauren, about this all the time. Like we walk into a hospital, we're expecting some level of care. And our mind doesn't immediately go to, "This is an organization and an institution just like any retail organization or institution." Because it's providing such a—you know, on Maslow's hierarchy of needs of wanting to feel safe, protected, healthy, I think health goes into that safe category, right? So it's just such a critical human need that we all have. And it's not natural to tie that to a business, right?
Jill Berman 21:41
Right. Right. Look, it's tough times right now with mask mandates and vaccination mandates, and we've lost a lot of staff related to that. And parents that come in, and don't want to wear their masks, and we have to discipline them into saying, "Please put on a mask." And getting any kind of feedback that is negative.
Jerrin Padre 22:02
So what happens in those moments—like what do you feel like people listen to most when you ask them to put their masks on if they're hesitant to do so at first? Like, what's the one thing that they hear that incentivizes them to do that?
Jill Berman 22:15
I think because we are all in masks 100% of the time, and that's a state mandate, that's the way it is whether or not we like it—which by the way I do. And we are taking care of you, we have to be protected, you have to be protected. So it's very interesting times.
Jerrin Padre 22:36
And I guess if you're a parent of a child, and you know, your child is obviously in a critical condition, they're not gonna—if they hear that it's, you know, a mandate, and that they won't be able to be with their sick child, I'm sure that that's enough of a motivating factor for them to.
Jill Berman 22:52
Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. And obviously, there's always an exception to every rule. And I'm not afraid to bend—I don't break rules, but I don't have any problem bending, especially if they make sense. So for example, if we have a visitors policy, where we allow two parents to visit their patients or their child, but they only can come one at a time, but this is maybe a child that has had a very difficult diagnosis, or their end of life or something like that. Rules need to be bent for those kinds of things.
Jerrin Padre 23:30
I think that leads into another question that we have, because you know, you could call it rules being bent. But to me that kind of just sounds like you went above and beyond for your patient.
Mike Cole 23:41
One question here. You—clearly you deal with a lot of maybe new nurses just coming into the profession, or nurses that have established themselves and have been working in the industry for quite some time. What practical tips or advice that you can give maybe other aspiring nurses or even any other healthcare organizations, when it comes to maybe the impact that they have on, you know, their patients in general?
Jill Berman 24:09
I think that communication is the be-all and end-all, regardless of whether you're good at it or not. So for example, when you—and we have all been patients in a doctor's office, or wherever you are, urgent care in maybe even in the emergency room—where there is no allotted understanding of time because what is your emergency might not be the physician or the nurse's emergency. Staying in communication with your families, when you are a nurse, just to say, "Hey, I'm just checking in on you. I just want to let you know that A B and C has happened. I'm waiting on D. Is there anything that I can get you? Do you have any questions?" And rounding constantly, so that your patient isn't sitting in a cold room in a gown, for hours sometimes, not seeing a face? It is my pet peeve having been on the other side of the door, not as a nurse, but as a patient, to not know what's going on. Even when you're sitting in a waiting room, and you're worried, but you have someone that comes up to you and says, "I've got you on my radar, I haven't forgotten about you. As soon as I can, I will. If there's any issue that you have, I can do such and such." There's nothing more empowering than knowledge, right? Knowledge is power. And what I would tell the young nurses is that this world is your oyster, you get to be what you want to be. There isn't a day, in my 33 years of being a registered nurse, where I haven't learned something new every single day.
Mike Cole 26:07
Yeah, that's quite the outlook right there.
Jerrin Padre 26:10
Oh, yeah. I mean, speaking of multitasking you—as a nurse, you already have to multitask as it is. You're already thinking of a million other things, and especially in your position as a supervisor, as a teacher, and then having to, in the case of an emergency—knock on wood—have to step in, if there aren't enough hands. So when you're juggling all those things, on top of providing service where you're not scaring your patients, scaring their parents, what do you do to stay sane, and also stay focused?
Jill Berman 26:44
I mean, that is so true. It does take a multitasking type of personality, but we're trained to be multitaskers. Nurses are multitaskers. They have to be able to critically think. I think the way to stay sane for me is about having relationships with my coworkers. I consider the people that I work with my family. And I look forward to going to see them. It is about going to work for my coworkers and the people that I work for, to make their lives better and easier. That's what gives me job satisfaction. What doesn't give me job satisfaction is when I don't feel like I am doing well at my job. So it's just a matter of my self worth. If I know what I'm doing is creating change and for the good, then I have job fulfillment and satisfaction.
Jerrin Padre 27:49
Right.
Mike Cole 27:51
Jill, definitely, thank you for being on the show. I mean, what you and everyone in the healthcare industry is having to deal with right now, and what you do to truly serve people. I mean, that's what—in your, you know, everything you said goes back to service, and building trust, and relationships. And what you do is just incredible. I don't know that there's any words that could really speak to what you do, so. But we just thank you for spending some time with us on the show. And we have thoroughly enjoyed it!
Jill Berman 28:27
I really appreciated being asked. And it was a great experience! Thank you for listening.
Mike Cole 28:36
Thank you for being here, and to the listeners, thank you for listening. And, until next time, we'll see you on Peoplecast!
Jerrin Padre 28:42
Bye!!