Latest / Here to Serve - A United Regional Podcast / Carol Stiltner, House Supervisor
Transcript
- United Regional: Welcome to Here to Serve, a United Regional podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Graves. My favorite part of being the Director of Patient Experience at United Regional is the incredible people that I meet and work with on a daily basis. And I want you to meet them too. Join us to meet the people behind the badge and to highlight those who are here to serve. Carol, welcome to the Here to Serve podcast. It is an honor to have you today. It's an honor to be here, Ryan. Also, I am really excited to get to visit with you today. We had a little bit of a conversation yesterday and I wish I had ⁓ the cameras rolling because we talked about such good stuff. I'm excited to get into all of those things today. You are fired up. I could tell on our pre talk. Before we get going, though, tell me who you are and what you do at United Regional. Perfect. So my name is Carol Stiltner and I'm a house supervisor for United Regional. I've been with United Regional for just under three years and I'm so blessed to be here. Three years, so that's interesting. think most of the people I've had on the podcast at this point, well at United Regional there's a lot of tenure, right? If you've been around here for three years, you've seen that, right? Yes. And I think at a lot of organizations, three years would be a lot of tenure. Most of the guests, thus far, have been like 15, 16, 20, even I've had an injury I think was 30 something years. I just had an injury on. Wow. So that's gotta be an interesting perspective of three years, I wanna get into that perspective. Before I do, I think you do other things outside of United Regional as well. You're professor, that correct? Correct. So I teach full-time for our, I teach at MSU and I teach for the School of Nursing. So I have the opportunity to work with first semester nursing students as they begin to learn and grow in the profession. Okay, so first ⁓ semester nursing students. Correct. And then also house supervisor at United Regional. Anything else? That's not enough, right? That's clear. I also do, I just recently finished my doctorate. Incredible. ⁓ Doctorate, congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations on that. ⁓ Well, let's go back to that ⁓ three years here. What have you seen in those three years at United Regional? Actually, before that, where were you before that? So I was born and raised in California ⁓ and ⁓ started my nursing career there. and then found myself in Wichita Falls after kids are grown and wanted to find a place that we could settle down and ride out into the sunset. Yeah, Wichita Falls is a great place for that. It is. Great place. ⁓ So what's that like, California to Wichita Falls culture shock? What's the deal? It was a little bit of a culture shock, mostly because you're coming from just even a different pace and ⁓ just a different healthcare landscape. And so, but it's been a good change. And I'm really, really excited to be here. Okay. If somebody wanted to, you mentioned consulting, if somebody wanted to find you consulting, where would they find you at? LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Awesome. Go find her. She's great. She knows what she's talking about. So, where did you work at before here? So, before here, like I said, most of my experience was in, well, all of my experience before Texas was in California. And so I've had the opportunity to serve in a variety of different roles from the bedside to the C-suite. And now being in the house supervisor role, I've done education and then on both the clinical side and on the academic side. How long you been a nurse? Just over 20 years. 20 years nurse, awesome. I'm next year will be 20 years for me. I'm getting really close to it. Really close to that 20 year marks. But I'm already saying how long you've been a nurse for 20 years, we're not quite there yet. ⁓ So how's things at United Regional compared to where you've been before? Like what were the things that surprised you? I'm always just genuinely curious and interested when folks work in other places. ⁓ What was that like coming here? So one of the things that I was surprised in coming to United Regional was the breadth and depth of services that we have. I was surprised to see that we have a structural heart program, all of the different specialties that we have where patients can really receive high quality care close to home. Being in a small town such as Wichita Falls, that's really great for our employees and also for the community to be able to be close to home and not have to drive far. Yeah, so true. That's such a huge thing for patients to not have to go elsewhere. I've shared it previously on the podcast, so I won't go into it again, but I've had my own experiences and seen it over and over again. What a blessing to not have to get in your car and go, especially when you're sick or you're taking care of someone that's sick. I keep jumping way back in your story here, but I'm interested to know what led you to nursing in the first place? You're 20 years as a nurse. Did you do anything before that, and what led you down that path? So, you of course we do... know, jobs when we're younger. And when I had my children, or actually before I had my first child, I had the opportunity that really, you know, two huge events in my life sparked my desire to be a nurse. The first was when I was having my first child. It was a C-section and I was very, very young and I was very, very scared. And I remember being in the operating room and just shaking. I don't know if it was from the nerves or from being cold. But this nurse, she just came up in front of me, you you're sitting there and you're waiting to get the epidural and she just wrapped her arms around me and she just, she didn't say where she stood there. And I remember it seemed like a lifetime that she just held me and she held me until I stopped shaking. And it was at that moment that I realized, you know, this woman who, she didn't have to do that. but she went above and beyond to comfort me. And to this day, I don't know if she even realizes the impact that she made. And then a few years later, I actually lost both of my grandparents to medical error. going through that as a family member was just devastating to go back and to realize that there were things that could have been done differently. And so those two events in my life really shaped me wanting to make a difference and ⁓ wanting to help, not only to help patients, but also as a faculty member working with new nursing students to help shape them to be better and to be better advocates for patients and for their families. Wow, I'm so sorry to hear about your grandparents and that the tragic thing with medical errors there is terrible. But what a driver, you know, what a core driver to keep you saying, this work matters. ⁓ Incredible. I want to go back to that hug. ⁓ I have a story that I tell. I won't retell it now, but ⁓ that I saw a hug like change lives ⁓ in healthcare. Many times I've seen that. ⁓ Tell me what that hug did for you. you've, you know, you're scared, you're shaking. What did that hug mean for somebody to stop and do that? Like what happened to you in that moment? You know, it was more I think than just a physical comfort. was the recognizing that somebody cared. Again, like I mentioned, she didn't say a word. She didn't say anything. She didn't say, you know, do you want me to hug you or would this be helpful to you? She did what she felt the patient needed in the moment. It, to this day, like I said, I still remember that feeling and that embrace and it just, it meant everything to me and it allowed me as a patient to realize that there was somebody there for me. And I think it helped calm my nerves in the moment to know that everything was gonna be okay. And again, that interaction, there were no words. There's a quote, I remember something along the lines of being ⁓ listened to or being seen by another human is so close to being loved that it's hard to tell the difference. And so I consider those moments to be certainly sacred when they come along. And I think it's genuinely hard or impossible to quantify the difference that those moments make, right? In the healthcare world. We ⁓ have ROI for everything and we have a dashboard for everything and outcomes by the numbers and sometimes something like this where you were scared, you were nervous, you were suffering and somebody provides that comfort. It's hard to measure that but there is really strong data and it's getting stronger all the time that things like that have an incredible. impact on the actual outcome, the clinical outcome of the patient, just as much many times as the actual medical care that's provided. After 20 years, would you buy that, that those things matter as much as the medicine? I would even argue that they matter more. It's that human connection, and I think it was at that point in time where we connected on a level that was beyond the nurse and the patient. was that human core connection that you mentioned of being loved and cared for. And as I mentioned to you, one of the things I often tell my students is, I say, look back and stand back and open your hands and just take a look. And your hands have the ability to touch so many different lives and the impact that you make. is so profound and what a, as you mentioned, what a sacred job that we do. we're at patients at their most vulnerable moments in life. Sometimes there are great moments, such as in labor and delivery when someone's having a baby. And sometimes there are those really tough moments where people are saying their last goodbye. But you'll never be as close to another human being as you are. when we're working with our patients. And it's such a, just a sacred, sacred place to be and such a privilege. Yeah. So that's so well said, Carol, and it is sacred. And I like what you said right there at the end of you'll never be closer to another human than when you're there in those moments. Whether it's the beautiful moments, well, let me say they're all beautiful, but whether it's the uplifting or whether it's ⁓ saying goodbye, ⁓ They're all sacred and they all matter. And Andrea, one of our previous guests, it'll come out in a few weeks from now, but she has a thing that she explains of people remember these moments for the rest of their life. For the rest of their life, they're gonna remember that. You remember that, how long ago was that hug? It'll be 30 years this year. You remember that hug 30 years later. Incredible, incredible. ⁓ I love it, I'm here for it, I totally agree. ⁓ You know, when I first got into nursing at the bedside and then into patient advocacy, there wasn't a whole lot of data available at the time on the effect of the actual, not the clinical care, but the love, for lack of a better word, there wasn't a lot of data on how much that impacted care. But thankfully, over the last 20 years, there's been quite a bit of data that is just mind blowing, honestly, when you really look at it. There's a book, I'm a big fan of, it's called Compassionomics. So if you haven't read it or anybody, it would be great for your students. But it's written by an emergency department doctor. I've been really into this book lately. But he basically tried to make a clinical case for compassion. And he was shocked at what he found when he actually started digging into what is the data and meta-analysis and all these different things. He goes, wow, there's... there's as much or more data for compassion driving outcomes as there is for any medicine that we have, for any treatment that we have, like those things move the needle. And it's not, I always like to give the disclaimer, I am not saying that we just love our patients back to health and then we don't do the surgery or the medicine, no. But those are a given. I think everybody knows we're gonna do those things. It's the other part that can easily be overlooked ⁓ if we're busy or not careful or just not seeing the importance of it. I love that message. I'm so thankful you're pouring that into your students. And then, and I see you on a daily basis doing that at United Region. We, our office works, the patient advocacy office works closely with the house supervisors. And I see you out there, you know, living what you're talking about. And so thank you. Thank you for doing that. You said something to me yesterday that caught my attention. I want to ask you about it. You said, I've never been anywhere quite like United Regional. Now that could be a good thing or a bad thing. And so I cautiously ask you, ⁓ what did you mean by that? I've never been anywhere like United Regional. So one of the things ⁓ that I found most amazing about United Regional is, you know, the people. know, Texas has a different vibe. You know, the, I don't know if it's the Southern hospitality, but the people are so kind and so genuine. And the other thing that I'm always amazed about United Regional is as a nurse, as a clinician, the fact that you have everything at your fingertips, you know, from the materials that you need, the services that you need, if you need, you know, any sort of ancillary help, it's there. And so I think that really goes to our leadership in really being thoughtful about, you know, taking care of the people that take care of the people. And so, you I'm a big fan of Simon Sinek. you know, he talks about, you know, as leaders, we're entrusted to take care of those that do the work. And I really, I've never been anywhere where I've really, it's palpable. You know, how leadership takes care of the staff and it means everyone from, you know, the nursing staff to the physicians all the way down to the folks that are cleaning our floors. So it's really a great place to be. I'm glad I asked. ⁓ I couldn't agree more. ⁓ I've got several stories I'll opine about. The first one is I had a similar experience. I was already in Texas. I came from South Texas down near the Victoria area. It's probably the closest place anybody's ever heard of. I was in a small community there. When I graduated nursing school, my family had all moved here, so I came to visit. I was single, ⁓ brand new nurse, really could go anywhere. that I wanted at that point and wasn't sure where I was gonna go. And I'll never forget, drove into, I drove through Wichita Falls and into Iowa Park, which is where my family was. And I remember having the thought of like, man, why, why would anybody move here? There's nothing out, you know, it's nothing out here. And I was from a small town, so, and it wasn't the small town, I just was like, I'll see where we end up and I'm gonna visit my family for a few weeks and then I'm gonna go find a job. And ⁓ one of, ⁓ somebody from church talked me into, going and checking out United Regional, because they're like, and the words they said were, I'll never forget this, they're like, it's not like what you expect. It's not like other hospitals. You really need to go check this place out. And, you of course, I think she was getting a kickback if I gave her name. I know that now there was a sign on bonus kind of deal, but anywho, I did. But I was impressed. I was impressed. I was like, man, this place seems have it together. Their recruiting was fantastic. And then now, you know. I'm here, 20 years later, I love it here. I love the community, I love the organization, I love the people. mean, at the end of the day, that is the differentiator, and I think that's what our leadership really lives, is like, it's the people. The people is what matter. And then my brother had a different career. He's the manager of a guest services. I don't know if you've even made that connection or not. Reed is my brother. He changed careers and I've always, I've been wanting to get him on at the hospital and when the right position opened up, I ⁓ gave him an edge, I'm like, hey, you should apply for this. And long story short, ⁓ because I knew he would love the culture. And ⁓ on day one, I went and found him and I'm like, hey, how's it going? How you feeling about things? And he said, he said on the way in the door, ⁓ the administrative person for our area met me and asked me what kind of snacks I like and asked me, what kind of pens I liked. And he said, my, I was shocked. And I said, he said, you're gonna buy me pens? And so he goes, I was like, yeah, if you're excited about getting pens, you have a happy future in front of you, because the culture he came from was not the same. I mean, it was a toy. And I hear that over and over again from people that have been elsewhere, even different industries, but even in the same industry. What would you say to folks that are maybe like me, only worked here for 20 years, if I don't have the perspective of being elsewhere, what you do, and you've been here three years, what's that perspective to you, what's different? Again, like I mentioned, it's the leadership. As I told you, Christy Wish, who was, she used to be the manager of Four West, she gave me my first shot here, and I really believe that... the leaders here at United Regional, they take a deep interest in their staff and really want to see them succeed and give them every opportunity to be the best version of themselves that they can be. And that is what I think is most amazing. So let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the house supervisor role. Tell, for anybody that doesn't know what a house supervisor is out there, I think you're the first, no, you definitely are. the first house supervisor that we've had on the podcast so tell us about that role. What's that like? What do you guys do in a on regular basis? So I'm the health supervisor at night and we are you know after all of leadership goes home at five or six o'clock, know, we are the the leadership in the hospital so responsible for ⁓ Fielding if there's patient concerns staff concerns if there are things that ⁓ that people need, whether that be patients or staff or ancillary services, we're there to help out and to field all of those calls. And it's just really, it's a blessing because we get to interact with every department within the hospital. We get to meet lots of different people and just support everybody within the hospital. So not everybody knows this. At one time, I was a house supervisor. And so I was actually manager over house supervisors and bed controls many, years ago. And so every once in a while, if there was a call in or something like that, I would, I would cover the house supervisor role. It didn't happen very often. Thank goodness. But, and I, I wasn't, I mean, I didn't do it very often. So I was, you know, figuring it out as I, as I went, it was a smaller department at the time as well. But so I, I, I understand the the maybe the weight of being, you know, basically for all intents and purposes, you're the administrator for the whole, you know, place overnight. And you, of course you have administration on call that we can reach out to and leadership and all those sorts of things, but it's a really fun job, but it can kind of be stressful at times for sure. But you guys, you guys do it amazing. We have such a strong house supervisor team, Andy and... Ryan and Courtney, and I hope I'm not leaving any of their names out, have done a great job of building, which is a great group, ⁓ great culture. ⁓ And boy, we can always call on the supervisor. How do ⁓ you keep that fire alive, being the one that you know you're gonna get all the, anything that happens wrong, you're gonna be the one that gets that call. How do you stay motivated? Really just knowing that my job is to serve. You know, it really motivates me every time I come to work knowing that I'm going to be there to support our great team in the work that they do in taking care of our patients and really just being that helping hand, whether it be pushing a gurney upstairs or going to find a turkey sandwich for somebody or even just being there to listen to a patient with whatever their concern may be. It's just having the opportunity and having the privilege to serve our community, our staff. everyone within that house. You know, Carol, there's a lot of wisdom in that. ⁓ There's such, in my experience, there's such freedom in just saying I'm here to serve, which is why we named the podcast Here to Serve. There really is ⁓ when you say I'm hands and feet. I'm not in control of what's gonna happen today. It'd be cool if I was, but I'm not, right? I'm not in control. ⁓ I'm here to serve and make a difference and there really is just a freedom I think that comes from that and ⁓ When you show up with that mindset ⁓ I know I'm gonna get problems thrown at me today. I know I'm gonna have things that are gonna be difficult But my my role is not to be served But to serve today. There's there's so much that comes for there's so much satisfaction that comes from that ⁓ whenever you are able to actually make a difference. And it's not about me, it's about what can I do for others. While really, I see so many things open up when that mindset shift happens from what can this organization do to serve me? What can the people around me do to serve me? To, I'm actually, I'm here to serve wherever I'm needed. There was a moment ⁓ during COVID. where things were really pretty, I mean, you weren't here for COA, you were probably working elsewhere, but it was pretty dark everywhere, right? There was some really hard, dark days, and there was lot of times where it was just like, man, I don't know what today's gonna look like, and a very close friend of mine said, our job today is just to be hands and feet. And that has stuck with me ever since then, there's such freedom with just, I'm here to be hands and feet. And... I think that folks that are looking for like what's missing in my life, most of the time it comes down to looking for a place to serve and truly give in to like give over that idea of I wanna serve and I wanna make a difference. I'm not here to be served. There's such freedom. There's such freedom in that. I think thank you. I didn't mean to preach you, but thank you for sharing that. You got me fired up. You actually said the other day when I talked to you, you said I am so fired up for nursing. What did you mean by that? That's not something I would hear a nurse typically say, like I'm fired up. What did you mean? Just passionate about what we have the opportunity to do every day. Again, like I mentioned, the driving force behind me being here is to impact those outcomes and to just meet the patient where they are, to be what the patient or the staff member need in that moment. It just excites me every day to be able to, again, to be that person ⁓ for our community, for our patients, for our staff. And it's exciting. Medicine has definitely changed, as you know, over the last 20 years. And so we've learned a lot, and there's a lot of different things that we do. And it's exciting to be at an organization who's on the cutting edge of... the technical pieces of medicine, but also as Corey has revamped our values and what our mission is in serving the community, it's exciting to be a part of that. Yeah, that's fired me up. His vision for we're here to serve the community, that gets me excited. I love it. I'm here for it, ⁓ for sure. You mentioned the clinical side and the communication side. What do you think? We'll wrap up around this. right here, ⁓ being 20 years in nursing, being a professor and teaching nursing students, what are the things, maybe pick one or a couple that maybe aren't always in the textbook ⁓ that you wish you had learned sooner that you'd like to impart to other folks? If any of our ⁓ staff watch this, what are things around communication that you think really can help us deliver what we're trying to deliver? I really think being an active listener and being fully engaged. In today's society, there are so many, you're used to getting so many snippets of social media or constant notifications is stopping and when you're with somebody, just being present in the moment and just being open and again, being fully, fully present when you're with somebody because it is such a gift. You know, even just being here with you today, you know, just being in the presence of somebody else is, and to learn from them and to just be fully, fully engaged. Yeah. Now I couldn't agree more. I said it earlier, but listen, being listened to or heard is just so close to being loved. People don't, can't tell the difference. You know, I'm a data nerd on some of the stuff and there's so much data out there on ⁓ what happens when you listen to somebody even for a few seconds. There was a fascinating study that showed whether a provider listened for 30 seconds or whether they listened for 45 seconds before they interrupted had a profound impact on the overall, not just that encounter, but the overall care. So, and I think it's becoming that skill, the ability to truly connect with another human being, listen to them, hear them, enunciate back to them that you are listening through. various forms, there's ways to do that, right? I always start with empathy, to enunciate what maybe they're feeling. But the ability to do that in 2026 and forward is a superpower in my opinion, because it's not often that you see people that can do it, ⁓ that are willing to do it, because of the culture that we've. You know, this is the culture now, right? And ⁓ I'm victim of it as well. I know my attention span is shrinking. And so I'm having to like counteract that when I'm with somebody and focus and look at them and know that it's sacred and it's worth doing. And I think that's only that gap and that opportunity for authentic connection is only going to grow in the coming years as we become more technologically, savvy as social media and AI and all those things become more skilled in their technical ability. The authentic connection is the one thing that only a human can do, right? AI is all I'm a fan. use AI like like crazy, but it doesn't have a soul, right? AI could could pretend to have empathy, but AI can't hug you before your c-section, right? And even if a robot did that, it still doesn't have a soul, right? And we know from mother, baby, and all these other places, skin to skin connection, there's something that happens there that science can't really explain. There's something going on there. And so the reason I'm going down this rabbit trail a little bit is I think what you said is so important right now and is going to become even more important. That ability to authentically connect with another human is gonna be the skill. And it already is the skill, but it's gonna be more than ever, think. And I don't have any data to prove that, but I'm feeling pretty certain about that aspect in the coming days. And so I love that. Anything you can do to look at another human, to hear them out, to be curious. One of our other guests talked about just being curious. Just be curious and ask questions is so huge. with that being said, we're gonna wrap up. I'm gonna be curious. Anything that I should have asked you that you wanted me to ask you that I haven't asked you today that you wanted to talk about? Yeah, well, I think that's it. Okay. Well, Carol, I've gotten so much out of this. This has ministered to me significantly just to get to talk to you. I look forward to getting to know you a whole lot more ⁓ in the coming ⁓ days and weeks and years. Thank you for coming on. We appreciate it. you. Thank you for having me.