Child Life Wild Life
Jessica Lewin, CCLS & The Child Life Mentor, sits down with Certified Child Life Specialists, students, and professionals to talk about topics surrounding the field of child life. Come and gain tangible next steps and confidence as you learn how to use your child life skills, protect your mental health, and glean inspiration, hope, and ideas. I'm so happy you're here!
Child Life Wild Life
The Wild Life of Being a Neurodivergent CCLS with Ellen Palmer
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Certified Child Life Specialist, Jessica Lewin, talks with friend and CCLS, Ellen Palmer, about her journey as a dyslexic and ADHD-diagnosed child life specialist, sharing how these differences have become her "superpowers" in the emergency department.
What if your neurodivergence wasn't just something to overcome, but actually your greatest professional asset?
Ellen's story begins with her early diagnosis of dyslexia and later discovery of ADHD as an adult professional. With refreshing honesty, she walks us through the challenges of navigating education with learning differences – from qualifying for accommodations to masking during school days – before tackling the particularly rigid child life certification process.
What makes this episode truly special is Ellen's perspective on how neurodivergence enhances her child life practice. Her ability to process multiple conversations simultaneously, remember specific details about her colleagues' preferences, and rapidly assess complex situations has made her exceptionally effective in fast-paced healthcare environments. When supported by understanding teammates who provide simple accommodations like fidgets during meetings, these natural tendencies become professional strengths rather than obstacles.
Beyond personal experience, Ellen offers a powerful critique of accessibility in our profession, noting the startling fact that there are more FBI agents in the US than Certified Child Life Specialists worldwide. She advocates for tangible changes like normalizing note usage and simplifying application processes to create a more diverse and sustainable profession.
Whether you identify as neurodivergent or are simply interested in creating more inclusive healthcare spaces, Ellen's insight that "the way I advocate for myself is how I advocate for my patients" provides a compelling framework for compassionate care. Tune in to discover how embracing different ways of thinking might be exactly what our profession needs.
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Advocating for the Next Generation
Speaker 1The way I advocate for myself is the way I'm going to advocate for my patients . The way I advocate for myself is I'm going to advocate for the next generation or the upcoming generation , right , and there's this philosophy , and you look at things of I went through this and I'm going to fight so hard to make sure that it's a better experience for you . Or I went through this , so you're going to have to go through this too , and I always try and be the one who goes . I'm going to reach my hand back and make this a better experience for you .
Speaker 2Welcome to the Child Life Wildlife Podcast , a platform dedicated to sharing the honest ins and outs and vulnerable truths about the child life profession . With your host , jessica Lewin , come and gain tangible next steps and confidence as you learn how to use your child life skills , protect your mental health and glean inspiration , hope and ideas from fellow certified child life specialists , students and professionals . And now here's your host , jessica Lewin .
Speaker 3Hello and welcome to the Child Life Wildlife Podcast . Today I have on the show Ellen Palmer . She has been a child life specialist for five years and she is with me today to share her experience as a neurodivergent child life specialist . I think Ellen did a really fabulous job throughout this conversation , validating the experiences of other neurodivergent child life specialists and also sharing some tips and tricks on how to increase understanding for those who are neurotypical . So , without further ado , here is my conversation with Ellen Palmer on navigating child life as a neurodivergent individual
Meeting Ellen: Type A with Neurodivergent Superpowers
Speaker 3individual .
Speaker 3Hi , Ellen , Thank you so much for being on the Child Life Wildlife podcast . Hi , how are you ? I'm good , how are you Fantastic , Wonderful . I'm really , really excited for this episode . This has been a topic that has found its way into my DMs since like season one , and I just wasn't quite sure how to go about it . I wanted to make sure that I had the right person and that I was able to have like an open dialogue and just use respectful language , and the more times it was brought up I was like okay , the next season we got to talk about it . So before we really dive into this topic , I would love just to take a second to get to know you a little bit better . So anything that you'd like to share how long you've been a child life specialist , who you are , fun facts or anything you want me and my listeners to know about you .
Speaker 1I'm Ellen . I've been certified for six years but working for five and outside of work I love reading and crafting and I'm a regular old Pinterest girly . You know that type A everything color coordinated kind of gal .
Speaker 3So that's awesome . Me too , I very much resonate with that .
Speaker 1I feel like it's a universal theme in our profession that a lot of us are very type A and super organized and like a good color code .
Speaker 3That's true , and that's probably because of the process , to be honest , because I don't know how you get through the internship without some color coordination in there .
Speaker 1I can't imagine without a spreadsheet and a seven-step plan . Yes , exactly , shout out to the students , because I could not .
Speaker 3Truly .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , I did .
Speaker 3Looking back , looking back , how did we survive ? Yeah , no , I very much , very much get that Okay . So this topic on neurodivergence and it's kind of an umbrella term that , for people who don't know , refers to different ways that the human brain processes information . So this can be autism , adhd , dyslexia lots of things go under this umbrella of neurodivergence . Did you know this about yourself as a child , or was it not discovered until adulthood ? And what does this really look like for you ?
Speaker 1So I think the best boilerplate to start this discussion obviously is everyone's neurodivergence is different , whether that's diagnosis or even within their own diagnosis right . There's a phrase that I've heard used when talking about neurodivergence , particularly about the autism diagnosis of if you've met one person with autism , you've met one person with autism , and I think that's true of ADHD and kind of all the other diagnoses that you had mentioned that fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence . So I am both dyslexic and have ADHD . I knew I was dyslexic growing up and going through school . My dad had it and I think the story I was always growing up was I was like three and I said Dad , how do you spell adventure ? And his response was F-U-N .
Speaker 1And so he kind of recognized that in myself , of my struggles with spelling and reading and all those things . So that was very normalized in my experience . So I knew I was
Navigating School with Dyslexia and ADHD
Speaker 1dyslexic going into being a student and then my ADHD diagnosis came much later as an adult in the profession . I was in my second job and had done a lot of work on my own mental health and anxiety and things , and there are still these pieces where I was like there's got to be something more . And so we looked at ADHD and I went and got assessed and they're like yes , you have what they call combined types .
Speaker 1So if you don't know about ADHD , there's two kinds . There's the more hyper , hyperactive , which is kind of those more you know quote-unquote , stereotypical things you see with adhd . And then there's inattentive type , which is more of the . I see it often described as like the internalizers , the spaces that look like they're in their own world . I get to do both in my brain and so I think you know and really , for what I love about the internet is you can learn from other people's experiences as well . And I love that you're doing this podcast and talking about neurodivergence Because , right , if I can share one little nugget of my story and someone goes , that's relatable and feels validated like as a child , a specialist .
Speaker 1That's what we're all about right Validation and and promoting understanding .
Speaker 3So knowing that you had dyslexia and that was diagnosed as a child this is just me going a little off topic of the fact that I worked in the schools and was a part of 504 plans and IEPs and all the things that go into trying to help support you that was one piece of me working in the school that I felt like child life moved really seamlessly into the school setting because I was so used to quickly adapting to every , like you said , I know one child with autism . This next room with a child with autism is going to look completely different and so that felt much more normalized and easy for me to do as a child life specialist working with these students . What was that like for you growing up in whenever you were diagnosed elementary , middle school , high school having dyslexia and trying to like be accommodated ?
Speaker 1It was certainly interesting .
Speaker 1I took a while to get on an IEP because in my experience , what I was told and I obviously every state's laws and education and all the things are different depending on where you live but I could did not qualify for an IEP or a 504 . So an IEP is an individualized education plan for anyone who's not in the lore of special ed , and a 504 plan is kind of like a step back from that where you get the accommodations but you don't necessarily have hours or minutes with a special ed teacher . Correct , yeah , so as a child I would always get tested for dyslexia or this , that or the other thing . Is there anything that would qualify me for an IEP for these adaptations to help me have success in the classroom ? I was considered quote-unquote too smart , like I was still at grade level , right I ? I mentioned earlier I love reading , so since that was something of interest to me , I thri thrived at reading . But then you'd ask me to write a reading comprehension essay and I couldn't get the words from my brain to the paper .
Speaker 1So I was behind there , but my overall academic picture didn't qualify me quite for services until about middle school .
Speaker 3Okay .
Speaker 1So a lot of my elementary school was just kind of taking a stab at figuring it out on my own for a lot of it , and then in middle school we really were able to . I'd finally fallen behind reading wise in grades . In sixth grade I had fallen far enough behind to qualify for accommodations and so I qualified for an IEP . So I had a special ed teacher . So I went to LD . I got to miss I always joke I don't know how to sew because I was always in LD class like it's like I was learning how to be dyslexic .
Speaker 1I don't . I never made a cute duffel bag like all the middle schoolers , and so everyone's like you don't know how to sew a button , I'm like no , but I did play Monopoly for six months because that was right . That was one of the skills that we were building on based on my IEP goals . And so slowly over time because I am smart it became more of a formalized study hall where I had a point person to bounce things off of to say I don't understand this . Can we talk about this , can you ?
Speaker 1elaborate on this , and it was just a quiet space with less students for me to be able to focus .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 1And so that was more of the like formalized public education side of things . When I graduated high school I was promoted to a 504 . So I still had all of the accommodations but I didn't have to have a study hall , which is great because I got to take more classes . So then I carried that with me to college and most colleges and this is just like very directly for the students listening colleges have like disability services and accommodations . So if you have a 504 or an IEP , you can bring in those accommodations and say this is what I was working with in high school . How does this look in college ? So for me in college it was I got to take my test in the student center , the student it wasn't a student center for socialization um , like a separate space , like the .
Speaker 1Yes , yes , exactly yeah uh , and for me that took the pressure off of you . Know , I think we can all relate to that moment where the first kid's done with their test and everyone kind of in the room . The beautiful thing about that room was I didn't know any of the kids in there , so in my head I'm like they're taking their statistics test , they're taking their history test . That's an econ major , I'm not an econ major , we're fine . And so really that with the extra time , really allowed me to be able to settle in and focus and to be able to show what I know .
Speaker 3Yeah , no , that makes a lot of sense and I know from experience working with these students the last three years , those who are neurodivergent . So many of them mask during the school day too , so you don't fully know that they're struggling , but then you hear the parents saying like no , they have to work like 10 times harder when they're at home doing the homework and it's taking them hours when it really should be like a 15 minute assignment , you know . So it's just , that's really , really hard , and I do see that I had seen that a lot .
Speaker 1One of my friends was late diagnosed as well with ADHD and I just remember her calling me and and you know , obviously I'm sharing the story with my friend but she called me and said it makes sense why I slept for three hours after high school because I masked all day . So I come home from high school and take a three hour nap and then that would give my brain enough executive function to get the homework done .
Speaker 3Right , yeah , yeah , wow . So , with the child life journey unfortunately not super accessible for those who may not be neurotypical , and the process is already incredibly competitive as it is , but I'm hoping that we're making strides in this area moving forward . It's a slow process , but I'm hopeful . What was it like being a student ? You talked a little bit about college , but as far as like the child life journey , what was that like for you as a student and what were the obstacles that you faced ?
Speaker 1Reflecting back on my student experience , I think the hard thing for me was the show . What you know stage things . A great example is like in my practicum . I was like there was a preschool student I was working with and I brought them markers and
The Child Life Student Experience
Speaker 1I remember my advisor asking me why'd you bring the markers ? And obviously the answer was I brought them the thick markers because they're working on their fine motor control . This is easier to grip , promote a sense of control and like I can list all the reasons why I chose markers for that preschooler .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 1But in my head I'm like you give the markers to the four-year-old If my only options are markers and colored pencils head .
Speaker 1I'm like you give the markers to the four-year-old like if my only options are markers and colored pencils I'm going markers every time , kind of a thing , and so to really have to be able to slow down and articulate the whys and the reasons , because a lot of the time , at least in my brain , I'll start in the middle of a thought , and so that I remember that being a challenge , and I remember in interviews it took me a cup of quite a few rounds to get an internship , and every time I learned from the next time , or learn from the previous for the next time . Excuse me , but I remember being on an interview once and answering a question and I had like hinted at the development of it , but I didn't directly cite whatever theorist . I was driving at Right Sure . And so the interviewer very sweetly gave me a hint and goes so what theorist are you thinking about right now ? And it just clicked in my head for me until they prompted me hey , we want to hear what theorist you're tying in .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 1And so those are really the little moments I remember of whether it was , you know , learning my own neurodivergence and like what I needed to give more of or having other people who saw me , saw what I was going for and were like sweet enough to quietly prompt what came next .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , I think that that is a problem for so many students , regardless . Just because it is so hard , especially when you're talking to professionals who you think in your head . Surely you know what I'm talking about . You're the professional . I don't need to lay this out the theory and the theorist and the stage and like we're all . We all know what we're talking about . But that is such an uncomfortable part of the interview process is that you do kind of have to learn how to like tie that all in and not feel awkward doing it , because you're talking to people who know the answer and know what the right thing is . But yeah , I can see that being an issue . Was it hard at all with dyslexia , like in terms of the application process ? Because if it was like six years ago , that was like the big common app , right .
Speaker 1Because if it was like six years ago that was like the big common app , right ? Oh , it was the huge , common app . Yes , I am very lucky . I have great friends and family who went through and edited everything for me and caught . You know , anytime I used the number four spelled out as opposed to four . Sure .
Speaker 1And all those little , just dyslexic things that I do as I'm trying to pour my brain onto paper . And I think I sent my Common App besides to all the places I internshipped . I think I ended up sending it to my whole family and so I was very lucky that everyone was like , yeah , I'll take a look at it , I'll take fresh eyes , let's tweak this and all of that , because I was an independent student so I didn't have a writing center for someone to look at my essay , who's in English or teaching or something to sit there and go through it . But I also know that's a resource on a lot of campuses . One of my two of my college roommates worked at a writing center and they're like just top notch .
Speaker 3Yeah , no , that's a great resource for people who are in in college still and have that ability . That's a great thing to tap into . So talk a little bit about your experience . Once you got into your role as a professional , certified child life specialist , what do you feel are the professional strengths that you bring to the role as someone who identifies
Professional Strengths and Team Support
Speaker 3as neurodivergent ?
Speaker 1There are two things that are really and truly I consider my strength , and the first is the speed at which I can assess a room , because my brain already works so fast . So I feel like I'm very good at taking in the whole room , including patient , family and staff , and figure out the dynamic and , for want of a better phrase , the vibe , so to speak , of where are we at , who's doing what Right Like is they were crying in the corner , okay , that's maybe . And and my nurses , you know , knee level eye contact , doing great , entertaining the child , not entertaining the child , engaging the child , right , I'm gonna go check in with caregiver and just to be able to kind of take all of that in , but also while I'm talking to mom and comforting mom or whoever the caregiver is right , I can still hear that whole conversation with the nurse and know what my nurse is telling them , because I just taken so much information .
Speaker 1And so between my two jobs , my first job was an inpatient peds unit and my second job was in the ER and the ER is my like sole match of a unit and all of the things . And so I just remember one of the first times in the ER where I was talking to caregiver and the nurse was talking to the student or talking to the patient , and I repeated everything my nurse had said to the child back to the mom , and my nurse goes you heard that and I said I have superpowers . They're like yeah , yeah , you do .
Speaker 1That's awesome show up for kids and all of the things I . That's an inch of interest to me , right ? So I'm going to be more likely to remember it , and so I am that a little bit nerdy and a little bit . You know , sometimes my team jokes stalkery , but I know in particular which one of my nurses prefers the LMX cream to J-tip , which nurse I can like . I know each and every one of my nurses like quirks and preferences , and who wants to be the one to say step by step , what we're going to do and who wants to really take the lead on talking and all of those things , and that really allows me to adapt and I don't have to check in every time because I know this person's preferences are X , y , z and this person's preferences are A , b , c .
Speaker 3Yeah , oh , that's . Those are really really great strengths to have , and I've never really computed them to be the fact that that is a little bit more neurodivergent , that you can just do both , but that is . That is really really cool . Have you had to advocate for yourself in different ways as a professional and what has that looked like ?
Speaker 1Absolutely . I think having a really supportive team has made all of the difference . My current child life team is fantastic . We are so supportive of one another and they're so supportive of me . And there are times right so , being in the ER , I work in the afternoons and our staff meetings are usually at the start of my shift and they're in the middle of their day , and so , uh , the amount of times where I just come in and go straight to the meeting with just like my purse and my coat and away we go . And so my team learned to bring a fidget , like someone would literally bring a distraction bag and bring a fidget for me in the meeting or if anyone forgot the fidget .
Speaker 1My boss would be like , okay , you're to be our note taker , because they knew I needed something to stay focused in the meeting . Yeah , and it just was so seamless and it was such a feeling of being loved and supported and belonging .
Speaker 3That's really wonderful .
Speaker 3I love hearing that they are even just like really able to pick up on the things that you need in order , because that is hard . I've been in those experiences before , having come in early for the shift and you know the meeting's at like one or two and that's when the ER child life specialist comes in and they just are so fresh and I've been through the ringer and like sometimes that can be hard to like manage . But especially if you have a little bit more of that tendency to be fidgety and you know I love that they just love you through that and provide you the things that you need to empower you to be a team player , that's awesome . Okay , so this next part I want us to kind of take a second and imagine like a perfect child life world and brainstorm like what are some tangible ways that the child life profession could become more inclusive and accessible for individuals with physical or mental impairments or even different ways of thinking ? Like what , what would that look like
Making Child Life More Accessible
Speaker 3? And I have some thoughts too , but I'm just curious to brainstorm .
Speaker 1I know you asked for specifics , but I'm going to start general . The way we adapt things for our patients to meet their individual needs , whether or not they're a neurodivergent patient or a neurotypical patient , we can do for each other and we can do as a profession . So , if someone's a wheelchair user , okay , how do you , how you know , what do you do to make your unit accessible for a patient who utilizes a wheelchair ? What do you do ? You know ? Da , da , da , da , da . And and you know we advocate for our patients to have a voice . Let's advocate for our students with different needs and our emerging professionals with different needs . How do we want them to advocate for themselves emerging professionals with different needs how do we want them to advocate for themselves ?
Speaker 1And one of the biggest lessons I learned as a dyslexic student and now you know a dyslexic and ADHD adult and all of these things right is how do you advocate for yourself ? And something that you know my dad always goes back to I was I think I was talking to him in general about like this profession is really hard da , da , da , da , da . And he goes Ellen , you've been advocating for yourself your whole life . The way you advocate for yourself is how you advocate for your patients , and it just blew my mind right Like the way I advocate for myself is the way I'm going to advocate for my patients . The way I advocate for myself is I'm going to advocate for the next generation or the upcoming generation .
Speaker 1Right , and there's this philosophy and you look at things of went through this and I'm going to fight so hard to make sure that it's a better experience for you . Or I went through this , so you're going to have to go through this too , and I always try and be the one who goes . I'm going to reach my hand back and make this better experience for you .
Speaker 3Yeah , I have been at fault of . I can look back in , like you know , two or three or four years into being a child life specialist , the schedule that I had and the you know I was working ridiculous hours and we were working holidays and I remember we had a new child life specialist join us and I was so gung ho on like no , she needs to pay her dues and she needs to do all the things that we did . And that was , you know , six years ago now . But , like , I can look back and go why , like , why make it continue to make it hard ? Why not make it better and more cushioned ?
Speaker 3And like , somebody brought up a really good point in one of my , in one of my DMs recently about the practicum process and she was like we're looking for super polished people to do what Observe in the corner of a room .
Speaker 3Why is the bar so high for you to basically be a job shadow , which is something that a lot of jobs just let you come in off the street and do you know , like , why is it that you have to know your theory front and back and like , do all of these things in order to get a spot to come stand in the corner of a room and not do any patient care , like that is crazy that we are doing that .
Speaker 3And so I I'm definitely in agreeance , and there was a time in my career where I wasn't , but like there's no point in continuing to make it as hard as it is , just because I went through it and it was hard , you know . And then to your point too of like those are like your intrinsic qualities that you have about yourself is that you've grown up advocating for yourself , so of course you can do it for other people , and I think that that is always the reasons behind why we make great child life specialists is because of things that we've always done and they just so happened to seamlessly fit into this career really beautifully .
Speaker 1Absolutely , Absolutely . I , as you were talking , I thought of my favorite Child Life Month trivia question , which is are there more FBI agents in the United States or child life specialists in the world ?
Speaker 3I really hate that . The answer is probably FBI .
Speaker 1There are more FBI agents in the United States than there are child life specialists in the world , really . Because I remember talking to someone who didn't know anything about the child life profession and how many hoops we had to go through , right , I did two practicums , I was privileged enough to be able to go to graduate school , all of these things and travel for both my for one of my practicums and one of my internships like very fortunate , and I just remember this person looking at me and going I feel like it'd be easier to get into the FBI and it always stuck with me . So I Googled it and I Googled you know how many FBI agents there are and then pulled from the ACLP report how many child life , certified child life specialists we have at this time . And there are more FBI agents .
Speaker 3That's crazy , See . That just goes to show you it's too hard right now . We're making it too hard .
Speaker 1And then we wonder why we have job openings or you know , and people leaving the profession , and all of these things like right , it's , it's cyclical , it's if , if the bar is too high , we don't get enough fresh friends to come join us and do this very important work , and then we don't fill those positions , so then we're putting more strain on our teens to show up and do all the wonderful things that we know child life specialists can do , yeah , and that could burn out , which contributes to people leaving the field , which contributes to job openings . Yeah , yeah , we just got you know . I think for me , it really comes down to how do we make the application process easier ?
Speaker 1And and and yes , it is . You know , I've had the privilege of both being an intern applicant and applying to a ton of places and I've had the privilege of reviewing internship applications and it does feel overwhelming to get 60 , 70 , 100 applications . It is absolutely overwhelming , 100 applications , it is absolutely overwhelming . So I was , I was impressed to see that we moved to a more metric and measured objective system to kind of go through those things but I would like to the goal posts , get a little a little easier .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , I was even thinking too , because I I mentored some students this summer and so so I was reviewing the new , you know , application and focusing more on , like the KSAs now and things like that . And I still was thinking to myself because I had just quit my job at the school , so I was in the process of , like applying for jobs and things like that and I was like it's actually more time consuming and harder to apply for a child life internship than it is to apply for a job that's going to pay me , like , which I think is crazy . Like I'm not totally sure why we went away from the good old fashioned send me your resume and cover letter . Like I feel like that should be plenty and maybe like an essay question feels appropriate , but like I don't know if we really need to be sending all of this information . It just feels like a lot .
Speaker 3And then the people who are privileged to have mentors or to have , you know , social media platforms where they can learn from child life specialists who know more of the ins and outs of what places are looking for that that's hard too . So it just it is very much feeling like the bottom line of practicums and internships , which is where you start , like you said , to bring the friends into the profession to help those of us who maybe need more support and are burnt out . It's too hard and so we're just going to have the students burnout and the child life specialist burnout , and that's just not going to be fun . This is a beautiful profession that really should grow . I mean , there is a need for this in so many different places in the community too , like this is a very , very effective and beautiful role that is needed in a lot of different spaces .
Speaker 3Preach All
Advice for Neurodivergent Child Life Specialists
Speaker 3right . Well , we're going to head into the closing questions that I ask everyone . So the first question is if someone's listening today and really resonating with what you're saying , as someone who also identifies as neurodivergent , what is one piece of advice that you'd give to this person to help them on their child life journey ?
Speaker 1First and foremost , I'm happy you're and I would say you are worthy , valid and whole just the way you are . And if you know you're neurodivergent already as a student or you think you might be and you're exploring that track , give yourself grace and understand that you've probably been advocating for yourself already and that is an inherent set of skills that will transition and transfer well into both being a student and a professional transition and transfer well into both being a student and a professional .
Speaker 3Yeah , so I do have a lot of students neurodivergent and neurotypical who follow along and listen to this podcast . So what's one broad thing that you'd say to them as a tip for moving through this profession ?
Speaker 1Two things First , there's nothing wrong with having notes and referring to your notes and second , you can always go back and follow up right .
Speaker 1Whether you're a student and you don't quite get that interview question , you say , hey , I want to go back to that question where we were talking about prioritization . I was thinking a little bit more and I want to do this . And , as the student seeking feedback right , hey , we debriefed that IV start . But I was thinking about a little bit more and I'm wondering X , Y , Z , right , and it's something that I do as a professional with my staff I say I don't feel great about how that went . What was your read ? Get the feedback from my coworkers as well , has been really rewarding and as you grow within yourself , you'll become more and more comfortable with opening up for that feedback . But just know you can always circle back to things more and more comfortable with opening up for that feedback .
Speaker 3But just know you can always circle back to things . You know what ? That was another area in my professional unlearning that I was told no notes . And so when I first started mentoring students , I was like don't be looking at your notes . I can tell you're looking at a Post-it note , don't be doing that . And then the more I've thought about it , the more I'm like I'm a professional and I take notes . I always reference my notes . Like why would I make a student go no , no , no , you have to know it so perfectly that you can't reference any notes . It's all got to be up in the noggin . Like I think that that's crazy . Now the unlearning that I've had to do to be like you may always use notes and if there's a place that tells you you can't , then be like you may always use notes , and if there's a place that tells you you can't , then my thinking is that's not a safe place you want to do your internship at .
Speaker 1I think that's where we have to make it more accessible for students , because I always had a clipboard , I you know when I was in patient I always had my census with like detailed notes and I had a census cover that I like , broken a little boxes . I was like , okay , I know this admit's going here . I know I have these procedures , this is my play goals , like if I can just have a good play session with these rooms . And it was just general . You know cover sheet hit the highlights details and it gave me the 500 foot view of my unit for that day and then I had my very detailed census notes on all the things in my clipboard , right ?
Speaker 1no one expects you to know your unit without looking at your electronic medical record or your own census , right , so it is . You know , I it's still that we would expect students to know everything off the top of their head . But also , this profession and a lot of things in life are so much more than knowing the right answer , but knowing you know how to find the right answer and knowing that you have given yourself the resources to have the right answer . Right , no one goes into a you know , let's go corporate for a second . No one goes into like an advertising pitch meeting without notes . Right ? No one's flying by the seat of their pants .
Speaker 3For sure . Yeah , man , if the CEOs can bring notes to a meeting , surely our interns can .
Speaker 1And let the record reflect notes that they probably didn't write themselves . I'm not a CEO . I don't play one on TV but I'm going to assume that they were handed some notes .
Speaker 3Yes , no , absolutely , yeah . Okay , and then this last question is a fun one . So if child life is a wild life , what has been the wildest part of your experience so far ?
Speaker 1The easy answer is every day . But I think the wildest part has been watching myself grow and watching my team grow and see how we all work together and cross cover and cover units , and and seeing my own ER team and you know I refer to them as my nurses and because we are a team , I'm on two teams I'm on the child life team and the ER team and so I think for me , the wildest part is watching them grow and watching our relationships grow as like staff to staff , because that's what's going to be consistent . And and , um , you know , seeing some , some newer nurse be so nervous to do a peds , iv to watching them like be able to go for , you know , not the ac and see one on their forearm and go , that's what I'm going for . Um , and see other nurses build their confidence . That's the side of child life I didn't expect to like love as much as I do but , that's often .
Speaker 1That's that's the wild part to me is like I thought I could be , you know , a little miss patient care all the time and I'm like I love seeing patients and that's obviously why we show up to work every day and I love the work I get to do with patients . But I also love the part where I empower and I teach my nurses and my techs and my all the people um how to also show up for kids because , like , we're not always there or we're not , at least where I work we're not 24 seven . So how do we , how do I empower my nurses to continue to show up for kids ? And really that piece of advocation has really been where my heart has found its most child life happiness .
Speaker 3Oh , that's great . Ellen , thank you so much for being on this episode . I just felt like this whole episode was like a hug , so I hope the listeners feel like that too , really , because it just felt so safe and comforting and like that you were just able to be yourself . So thank you so much for being on this episode .
Speaker 1Oh , that was so sweet . I'm so happy to be here and chat with people , and chat with you specifically and the greater podcasts first about child life and all the magical and wonderful things we do . Thank you .