153 - Kim Wiest Pt 2: Consider That Whole Soul That is in Front of You

Continue with nurse practitioner and Grafton, West Virginia, and North Carolina native Honored Guest Kim Wiest as she waxes eloquent about her superpower, how her mother’s journey informed her passion in functional medicine, some of the differences between nurse practitioners and physician assistants, how to get connected to her practice and education, and more!

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Transcript

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Welcome back to the Feeding Our Young® podcast and Kim, thank you for sharing that story. As is tradition here, we do something different for the, if people are willing and or we have the time, we do something different for the part two intro. And I think that was brilliant. So thank you for sharing that story for that. ah But with that, let's dive right into the discussion. And I like to start off with just a little bit more about you. So there were a couple of questions you answered that I really liked the way you answered. ah One of which was, if you could have a meal with anyone, who would that be? I really had a hard time kind of thinking about this, but I think Betty White because she just, I mean she lived so long. Just imagine all the things that she saw and just her, acted, you know, she portrayed someone that was so simple and ditzy and that sort of thing, but she was really, she had perfect comedic timing and. If you've ever seen any of her outtakes, I just think that that would be the absolute best meal. It would be hysterical. So that's who I picked. 100%. I'm a huge fan of Betty White and everything that she had ever did. Because she was, and like you said, like just, you could see how sharp her mind was uh all the way through her life. And even though she did so many things predating this, one of my favorite things in her later life that she did, did you ever see the movie The Proposal? Yes, yes, Ryan Reynolds and yeah. And so yeah, and she just, mean. Oh, just hilarious in that. She just, in everything. Everything she did. So that's fantastic. I would sit down at that meal if invited, for sure. And then the second question I like how you answered too was, what is your superpower, Kim? So I feel like my superpower is to take really complex, know, because the body's complex. God made us amazing. So anybody that says that this was just by accident, I just have a hard time with that. This is by, you know, uh intelligent design and just the way that the body works is very complex. you know, teaching people how their body works. um can be really complex. And we have to remember that not everybody understands science or geeks out on science like we do. And so my superpower is really taking these complex things and making it very simple. Not only so that patients can understand what I'm trying to get them to buy into for their health, but also nursing students. Over 35 years I've mentored a lot of nursing students and I just think that if if you truly understand something, that the true testament of that is if you're able to explain it to someone else. And so I do that as a way of just reinforcing my knowledge as well, but it just, it somehow evolved into my superpower. That's incredible. And is that something that you think you were quote unquote born with? mean, you know, everyone has kind of a innate ability or talent of whatever, you know, kind of wherever direction they go. Do you feel like that's something you were born with and or something that you've had to hone over time? No, I think it came out of necessity because I, you know, even though I've said before that nursing school just kind of made sense to me and I never really struggled or anything like that, but if there was something that I struggled with, what really frustrated me was the fact that I would ask a question and I would get exactly the same information in exactly the same way. And I'm like, well, I didn't understand it the first time. Speaking louder to me, saying it again. doesn't make me understand it any better the second time. And so it was really built out of that frustration. um And so many times, you know, you hear this all the time, if you have a question, ask it because there are no dumb questions. If you have the question, someone else likely has the question. And so I was relentless and I would be like, I don't understand that. Tell me again or tell me a different way or tell me, you know, so I just I really do kind of root for the underdog and I can kind of see struggle. little bit and so I that's where that came from. I just I just really wanted people to understand how their body works and you know to get that explanation. So it came out of I guess empathy or sympathy having my own you know my own frustrations with not truly understanding a complex you know concept. Indeed. And that's one of the things that we are as nurses, it's one of our primary duties, right? Like not only are we not doing harm, not only are we trying to help someone through uh some difficult portion of their lives or whatever the case may be, we're combating disease, we're combating this lack of health, et cetera, et cetera. But then you're teaching along the way. mean, hopefully the goal, right, it's not fishing for somebody, it's teaching somebody how to fish, right? So what do we, moving forward. How do we avoid maybe coming to this place again or coming to a spot where you're as poorly as you are currently? Something along those lines. Even discharge education, right? Like when you, when it's time to, and I'm obviously, I've got the hospital brain, but even outpatient clinics, whatever the case may be. Okay, something brought you in. We're helping you with X, Y, or Z. Now when you leave, here's, you know what I mean? Here's some education, here's some information, here's some recommendations on how to better yourself for the future. And that lends itself very well into kind of this, kind of the whole topic of the second episode, which one of the concepts you wanted to talk about was nurses as health coaches. And I feel like that goes hand in hand with kind of what you're passionate about currently and doing as well. So Kim, I will interject every once in a while, but I'm turning this mic over to you. I'm gonna do my best to keep these gums from flapping and let's hear from you. Let them flap, let them flap. Yeah, I, let me think about how best to say this. So a couple of years ago, I really did a hard pivot in ah my career. I thought that once I left being a nurse practitioner and went into anesthesia that that's really what I was gonna be doing forever. And I still do that, but... um At that time, my mom was sick and she ended up dying at the age of 69 from metabolic disease. And the sad part was is that she was a good patient. She did what the doctors told her to do. She took the medicine, she went to the doctor's appointments. But part of the problem is is that they didn't really ask about her habits and her eating and what a meal looked like to her and how many calories she was getting and how she was sleeping and all the things that affect your... know your metabolic health and so she died at age 69 and I remember I was I was so upset because I just remember she was always such a healthy person she was young and vibrant and healthy and then menopause hit and I remember very distinctly seeing her body change her mood change and this was she never really right at that core she just you know menopause was like a big pivot and um she she just sort of stayed on that path until she was dead. And heartbroken, I myself at the same time was going through menopause myself and it was not, it's not a good uh easy road for most people. And so if you are going through menopause or you know somebody that's going through menopause, just have some sympathy and empathy and realize that it truly is life changing. And so I was struggling. I was probably 60 pounds heavier than I am now. I wasn't sleeping well. I was having 50 hot flashes. day and I saw it that the care of my OBGYN and she was less than synthetic. You know she basically said yeah you know menopause sucks, I can give you these synthetic hormones and that was pretty much it. She didn't ask me how I was sleeping, she didn't ask me anything about my mood, anything about my energy, she asked me nothing and I got mad. Yeah. I got mad and I decided that I was going to figure this out. I was going to figure out holistically how to make myself feel better, how to make myself feel like myself. That was really what I was looking for. And so I went down the rabbit hole of um functional medicine, holistic health, those sorts of things, and it just clicked. Like it was, I'm home. This just clicked because I've spent all this time dealing with disease and now I wanted to focus on health. I really wanted to focus on the positive, the good stuff, and not just treating disease but really focusing on health. And so I spent a good six months learning functional medicine, unlearning some of the things that we believe in traditional medicine that don't make sense maybe, that we need to learn a different way, we need to hear a different way, and opening my business and then starting to treat patients. So I just recognize that I think as nurses we are expertly positioned to do this. So let me give you a little side story as well. Because I was a nurse practitioner before, I was previously able to write prescriptions. In the state of North Carolina, uh nurse anesthetists are not considered advanced practice nurses unless we're saving your life in surgery, or we are in the pre-op area saving your life, or we are in PACU saving your life. Other than that, we are not considered advanced practice nurses. So I function as a nurse in my functional medicine practice and initially I was a little upset by that because I thought my gosh I have all this education and I'm not able to use it, I can write these prescriptions, I can do you know hormone replacement therapy, whatever it was and I was really I even considered going back and and re-educating so that I could do that but I didn't do that and I have to lean into functional medicine. I think it makes me a better functional medicine practitioner that I can't write prescriptions because I think a lot of functional medicine practitioners who do have that prescriptive authority kind of ride the fence and they'll give you some functional medicine stuff. They do some of the functional tests and you know that sort of thing but then treatment they kind of rely on these medications and I don't do that. So I am nutrition first. We're gonna talk to you about lifestyle. We're gonna talk about, I wanna know how you're sleeping. I wanna know what you do for the hour before you go to sleep, if you're having trouble sleeping. I wanna know what happens when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning, every morning. Like, what is it? What do you do when you wake up at three a.m.? How do you feel? And then, you know, we're gonna talk about when do you get outside for the first time? ah What do you have for breakfast? um You know, those kinds of things. And I have to lean on that because that's all that I have. uh I do supplements, you know those sorts of things, but supplementing, uh don't exchange a natural supplement or you know for a prescription. I don't do that. We supplement when all this other stuff hasn't worked and I got great results. And so I actually have seen you know um again you know getting in that line sort of accidentally from my political science major to the university. We are again. you know, there was a whole, there's divine design behind why I was a nurse practitioner and I let that license lapse to now, you know, making me the functional medicine practitioner that I am. And I just think that, you know, there's, that nurses are uniquely positioned. Our whole history is not helpers. of doctor. We have our own unique education and we do things and we think of things that medicine doesn't think about, that traditional medicine doesn't think about. um We ask about those relationships. We want to know, you know, we're not just going to send you home to take care of this wound on your own. We need to know how many steps do you have to walk up to get to your house? um you know, where's the handrail on your stairs going up? You know, how are you gonna use that crutch to get upstairs? Who's gonna be making your meals for you? um Are you safe at home? Those sorts of things. And so we are so uniquely positioned as nurses with the nursing education that we have our own, you know, our own nursing. our own nursing education. I don't know how else better to say it than that you are unique. um What we focus on and. say, we have a unique foundation and it's not, you know what I mean? It leads to what this, collaborative medicine, right? This relatively newer idea of collaborative medicine as opposed to the, you my wife's grandmother saying that back in the day, a physician, an MD walked into the room and every nurse stood up. The doctor took their choice of chair or wherever they needed to sit. And then everybody sat back down and went back to work. And that, I understand the respect part of that. But we've come a long way from those days to the point where You get all these different collaborative ideas together. But that's, know, in regards to what you're saying, I feel like that's the direction we're going, right? We're talking about the foundation that we're provided as nurses as opposed to other disciplines in healthcare. And it has its own unique, uh you know, its own unique discipline. I mean, there are things, when I was a nurse practitioner, and you know, we talked about this, that um why did you not hire a PA? So let me talk about this. uh why did you not hire a PA? And he said, well, because PAs, no offense, I love PAs, I have many friends, so this is not better than, worse than, different than. And he said, a PA is educated in the medical model, and they are taught part of what I am taught as a physician. Now this came from the surgeon that I worked for. They are taught part of what I am taught as a physician. But you, are taught so many other things, you think differently, you see things differently, you you go about things completely differently. He goes, I want you to make my practice better. He said, I don't want, I just felt like a PA was going to be a watered down version of me. And he said, you're putting like the cherry on top of my practice, which is why I loved him. Like addition by multiplication, right? Like that's the whole thing. got it. He totally got why nurse practitioner was what he wanted rather than a PA. we have to own that. And instead of, you know, instead of sort of... feeling less than and feeling like, well, I'm not a doctor or I'm not a whatever. Nope, you know what, you're not. You have this very unique set of skills, set of knowledge, and your view is so totally different than what medicine is and that medicine actually needs us to own our uniqueness. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love the way you say that. my gosh. And I feel like we could end right here, but we're not gonna, because I love that you're an incredible storyteller. so ah bringing it back around to this, know, kind of this functional medicine, how long have you been doing what you're doing? You've talked about your business briefly, but tell us more, like A, you talk about these examples of people you have helped. You know, obviously HIPAA and, you know, patient confidentiality and all that, you know, keeping that in mind. Tell us some stories of how this has functionally helped people. And then, you know what mean, how long have you been doing this? And tell us more about your business. So I opened my business uh March of year before last. just not quite two years that I've been doing this. And I'm 100 % telehealth, which was, I'm a kinetic learner. I talk with my hands, you know what I'm saying? I thought, I don't know how this is gonna, I don't know how I'm gonna feel about this. I don't know how they're gonna feel about this. But functional medicine really is a lot about getting the story of what's going on with someone and allowing them the space and the time to talk and to give you the information. There's not a ton of, there can be, but there's not, in my practice, there's not a ton of hands on. I mostly focus on metabolic disease, metabolic health, um you know, for obvious reasons. uh so I have just, I get to, I wrote a book. this summer. haven't published it yet because publishing is a beast. But I wrote a book and it's about how I uniquely view um health. And I view it as starting in the gut, that gut is foundational. We hear all the time that our gut is our second brain. I'm here to say that our gut is our first brain. And the reason that I say that is because in utero, your gut and your brain form at exactly the same time and they split. But as we develop and as we go on throughout life, your gut sends twice as many messages to your brain as your brain sends to your gut. And your gut communicates with every other organ in your body, including your skin. um So it really is, I believe, the first brain and it's foundational to health. So if your gut is not healthy, you are not healthy, period. uh my whole, you know, I do, I teach metabolic loop. which is that everything, are one organism, so you can break us up into as many subsystems and a kidney doctor or you know what I'm saying, you can have all these different focuses. We call that siloed healthcare where everything is just kind of systems based. That isn't how your body functions. And so when you treat someone like that and you don't see the whole picture and you don't see how everything relates to everything else. then you're not gonna be successful in helping people to focus on health. You might be successful in managing illness, but when we're talking about health and that's a completely distinct focus, you really have to look at the body as an ecosystem. And then once you fix the gut, hormones are naturally gonna come into balance. I teach that hormone is one side of the coin, neurotransmitters is the other side of the So many people are anxious these days. So many people have mood issues uh that they feel like they're coming out of their skin or they're depressed. mean, suicide and all of that. It's it's so sad. And first of all, a lot of that starts in the gut by the diet that many people have been fed their whole life now, you know? But a lot of times I think that we think that neurotransmitters is something I was born with. Hormones is something that I can manipulate and that isn't true. They're billed from the same building blocks and so what you're eating and how you're honoring the rhythms of the day, of the seasons, of where you are in life, all of that is gonna affect your hormones and I think that even when we talk about hormones, are like, hormones is something that you give someone, it's something that you just manipulate and it's not, it's something that you support. Your body is wonderfully made and it knows how to heal itself. A lot of times we just have to get out of the way and we just have to support in what it needs to do. And I tell people that if we can knock down that first domino, everything is in a circle. So it's just gonna start a chain reaction and you're gonna get healthier. Or if you've neglected all of that and that first domino falls towards dysfunction, that you're gonna keep going in that spiral because everything is connected towards disease. And then the last part of it is, where we really want to make our biggest improvements or changes towards health is at the cellular level, but you can't start there. You got to start at the gut. You got to support the hormones and the neurotransmitters because those are the messengers of the body. And then you can have an effect at the cellular level. So that's my book in a nutshell. uh it. I'm so excited because and for a little background to anybody listening like Kim has been on the feeding our young radar for quite some time, you know, we went back and forth she scheduled and and then we had this thing, you know, and this happens on occasion, right life-lifes and all the things and so then it was like then we had this long gap of like I had I just you know, I'm watching you from afar and I'm like writing this book and you're doing it have all these things going on in your life and I was just like oh I hope she comes back someday. I'm gonna have her in studio. I'm so excited. And then it worked out and here we are. um And so I'm excited for however that gets published, however that gets released to that point, in seeing what these things, these very principles that you're talking about. And so um I would hope that down the road, everybody, as that book is published, wherever it's available, et cetera, et cetera, that we'll update our website information. with your, you know what mean? Do you have a website for your business? Let's start there too. Okay, wonderful. actually went back to school one more time. We haven't talked about that. I got a um PhD in holistic nutrition that focuses on ancestral diets. So the way that our ancestors ate before, you know, there was a Kroger down the street. What do you have? Do you have Wegmans in Spokane? definitely heard of it, yes. Do you have Albertsons? Okay, that's I was trying to think. I had a brother-in-law that lived in, it begins with a K, it is outside of Seattle. Kirkland, yes. Yes, he was actually a teacher for Bill Gates' children and he won Teacher of the Year like three years. Anyway, but that's what I know about Kirkland. um I love it. I honestly love it. No, uh, and that's uh, sorry. I was going somewhere with that. You keep going. You talk. You talk. Yeah, so, um gosh, I don't even know what I was saying. So ancestral diets, gosh, you talk about rubbing people the wrong way. Like a lot of things that I say, like cholesterol does not increase your risk for cardiovascular disease. Certain types of cholesterol that we actually don't look at. in our lab panels will affect your risk for for uh cardiovascular disease but cholesterol itself. tell people, so let me tell you, let me let me give you an analogy. Let me let me sort of put into action what I said about taking these these complex concepts and sort of making them understandable. um Here's what I tell people about cholesterol, is that cholesterol is what 85 % of your brain is made up of, that um when we made all of these statins that we actually didn't affect the cardiovascular disease rate at all, but we've skyrocketed our dementia and Alzheimer's disease rates. So you need cholesterol to make every one of your sex hormones, progesterone, testosterone and estrogen. So if you're real worried about your hormones, you need cholesterol for that. We also need cholesterol to have a healthy brain and our cell membranes, so if we're talking about hormones, our cell membranes are made up of cholesterol, our mitochondria that produce the ATP in our body, remember the Krebs cycle and all electron 14 and all of that crazy stuff that you had to learn. or that you are learning, um that is a membrane. so cholesterol is part of that membrane. And cholesterol is one of our biggest repair molecules. So you have high cholesterol on your labs and your traditional practitioner may be telling you, we need to lower that. We need to put you on a statin to lower that so we can lower your cardiovascular risk. But here's what I say. So it's kind of like you have a house fire. That's inflammation, that's oxidative stress, that's damage to your membranes, to your cell receptors, to your mitochondria. or whatever it is. your cholesterol is going up because it's responding to that and it's going to those areas to try to repair that area. And you have the news crew, so you got a house fire and you got cholesterol, these are the firemen that show up. And then you got a news crew that comes and takes a picture and it says, house fire, firemen, they must have started the fire. That isn't the case at all. Yeah, yeah. Wow, I just, yeah, I love, I do. I'm just sitting here listening to how you teach things. And I'm like, I just wanna sit down with you myself. And hear this, you know what I mean? um And so, golly, I mean, as far as your business is concerned then, so let's take it from there. You say you do a lot of telehealth and that sort of thing. So. uh I mean, it sounds to me as though you are able to take on patients, clients from wherever. Is that accurate or is there a limit there based on licensure and all that? there is a limitation. So I can see patients anywhere there's a compact, anywhere we have a compact state uh agreement. and so I can take one-on-one clients. But I also do, I have an educational program, so it's not that patient-client relationship. So I actually educate you, and then I can do that nationwide. um And it's the same information, like it's still my, you know, it's still my knowledge, it's still my metabolic loop, that's how I treat people. um But it's just done in a little bit different way. So you access a portal and you have these pre-recorded uh you know, like this is step one, this is what we do first, this is what we do next, you know, that sort of thing. A 12 week program that's available to everyone. And my website, which I never got to because I got distracted on ancestral diets and ticking people off, is kimwiestphd.com. Awesome, awesome. So it has my one-on-one practice that you have to be in a compact state in order for me to work with. And then it also has my educational information on there as well, my educational practice as well. And in regards to compact state, is that something you make a determination of or on the website is someone is, you know what I mean, from Colorado and they're like, hey, I'm listening to this podcast. I want to check out kimweesephd.com. Like, are they going to be able to see automatically which route they go? that, how does that get determined? and I don't recommend that you figure it out because I recommend that we have a call. It's free. um You tell me what you got going on. Sometimes we'll do a lab review for you to see if you know because I want to I want to make your data make sense for you and um you know we can do that. We do that on a call. um A lab review costs a little bit of money, but the call is free. Say, hey, this is what I got going on. This is who I am. Not everybody is gonna get the full benefit of an educational program because they're not self-starters. I mean, they're just not. And so, they need that accountability and they need that handholding and they need that constant course correction that you get with 101 Care. I would. you know, let you know which one I think. you know, a lot of times I say, listen, you've gone down a bunch of rabbit holes and you have a lot of knowledge. I think that you just need a path and this is the path. And so, you know, my educational program is the perfect thing for them. Nice, wonderful. Well, so you guys, anyone who's interested, please, please, please check out her website um and we'll include it in her bio on the website. And so you can also go to feedingouryoung.org, go to the honored guest page, find Kim Wiest, and you'll see her bio including that link there for that. So Kim, before we close in our traditional manner, I don't wanna, like I just wish we had all the time in the world. But before we close in our traditional manner, is there anything that we have not covered or that you wanna add to this conversation. No, I just want to say, know, kudos to you for doing this because I think a lot of times, you know, nursing school can be intimidating. It's hard. It's, you know, you just sort of feel like nobody understands what you're going through. I mean, it is, you know, it can be really draining. It's just, and to just know that there's this podcast out here that really understands you and talks about the elephant in the room. I love it. thank you. That's the whole heart. That's the whole goal. And we want you all walking away from here with something new. You've learned something new. uh at minimum, you're walking away going, my gosh, there's somebody who's been there, done that. I want to be like her. I want to be like him. I want to, you know what I mean? Or it just gives you enough oxygen to get you through the next day, the next exam, the next whatever uh clinical rotation that you're dreading. Like that's the whole heart here. So, my gosh, Kim, awesome. All right, so with that, talking about nursing school, you came up with three words. You chose three words to describe nursing school. What were they again, and why did you pick? Accident for obvious reasons because I sort of feel like I'm an accidental nurse. uh But calling because there really are no accidents. Master of the universe is designing our path and so this is truly a calling. And every evolution, every twist and turn and all the forks in the road when I went left, um there was a reason behind that because this is truly a calling. I can't imagine doing anything but this. and hearts because you really have to have a heart for this. You have to lead with your heart and you have to see other people's hearts in order to be a really good nurse, I think. Very well well said, very well said. So if there is one thing, other than your website of course, that you want people to walk away with after listening to your episodes, what is that one thing? I think that, you know, what I would love to leave people with is that um don't forget that, you know, the person sitting in front of you is someone's mom or someone's daughter or someone's sister or someone's spouse. They have this whole life that they bring with them. All these experiences, all these skills, like you don't know what they know, you don't know, you're seeing them in the most vulnerable spot in their life potentially. And they might not be on their best behavior, but you really have to kind of consider that whole soul that is in front of you. you know, we always hear about... be kind because you don't know what someone is dealing with. And I just think that you really have to, you know, forget the fact that you're on your fourth 12 in a row and that you haven't had lunch any of those four days and that you're working with like your... your work bestie isn't there and you're working with this lady that you don't love and you just had two codes and you are not coming into that situation maybe in the most prepared way or the best way. But you still have to give everyone, no matter what they look like, no matter what they're in with, no matter, you have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and you have to realize that you are... that you are nursing their soul. ah I love it. I absolutely love it and it has a perfect way to end. Kim, thank you for taking time out of your now afternoon, my morning, ah and just waxing eloquent about all things nursing and functional health. I'm so happy to be here. I'm happy that we finally did this and thank you for your perseverance because it's been a long road but I'm so glad that we got here. ah Thank you, Kim, and I look forward to just hearing all about what's going on with you in the future. All right, sounds great.