“Oh, I can’t do that. I don’t have enough experience.” I remember uttering these words to my nurse manager after she encouraged me to pursue an open position as a clinical nurse educator. This came after I requested a meeting with her during a …

By Katie Lawrence, CPNP & Kaci Osenga, M.D. Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) has been a board certified subspecialty in pediatrics sponsored by the American Board of Pediatrics since 2008. PPC has been a specialty service at Cook Children’s …

I have shared before about the insurmountable insecurities that I experienced as a new clinical educator: I was only 25 years old when I first began (and something that I used to be apprehensive to share fearing that people would quickly calculate …

What do those people do down at the admin building all day? All I ever hear about is meetings. Well, the fact is…that is most of what they do. And we need them to keep right on doing it. While we can roll our eyes or scoff, the reality is it’s …

By Joel Steelman, M.D., Endocrinologist at Cook Children's Health Care System

As pediatric health care providers, we collaborate with our young patients’ families for their care and well-being. We provide them copious amounts of information about their child in multi-media forms: printed materials, verbal instructions, video …

When I was approached to write articles about “Work -Life Balance” I couldn’t help but chuckle a little under my breath. Balance? What’s that? As a busy full-time pediatrician, wife to an even busier attorney, and mother of two small kids, …

About five years ago, I was at work, walking down a long hallway wearing a pink feather boa, oversized yellow sunglasses, carrying a marshmallow launcher. A staff member I didn’t personally know was walking toward me, squinting his eyes. When we …

A common misstep for leaders is to not seek feedback from peers, subordinates, and other leaders. Creating a healthy feedback loop both opens the room for conversation from folks whom disagree with you, as well as grows you as a leader. I worked …

Advanced Practice Providers (APP) are integral members of the health care team that promote and support the delivery of high quality, safe, and effective care here at Cook Children’s. We are often called many terms, “midlevel …

As far back as I can remember, I had one wish for my life: To be a mom. I truly picked the path of nursing for the single purpose that I knew I could pay my bills as a single parent, if I ever had to. My first nursing job was terrible. I …