Episode 8 - Global, RN
October 7, 2024
About This Episode
In this episode of Better, RN, co-hosts Alyssa Saklak BSN, RN, CMSRN, and Laurin Henderson MSN, RN, CMSRN, discuss ways nurses can be involved in global health and disaster response with Claire Liszkay, a dedicated registered nurse from the medical intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"The best thing that I learned, is that if you really want to provide good culturally competent care, just stop, listen, and look around ... I've learned so much from my nurse colleagues in the places that I'm at, and I try to model my care and my behavior after how they do it."
Episode Guests
Claire Liszkay, BSN, RN, CCRN
Claire Liszkay, BSN, RN, CCRN, is a clinical coordinator in the medical intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Liszkay has her master’s degree in global health and has traveled to conflict zones and disaster-stricken areas such as Haiti, Sierra Leone and the borders of Bangladesh and Myanmar to use her nursing skills to provide humanitarian aid. Within the U.S., her assignments have included hurricane relief in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. In her free time, she likes to garden and ride her bike.
In this episode of Better, RN, co-hosts Alyssa Saklak BSN, RN, CMSRN, and Laurin Henderson MSN, RN, CMSRN, discuss ways nurses can be involved in global health and disaster response with Claire Liszkay, a dedicated registered nurse from the medical intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"The best thing that I learned, is that if you really want to provide good culturally competent care, just stop, listen, and look around ... I've learned so much from my nurse colleagues in the places that I'm at, and I try to model my care and my behavior after how they do it."
Episode Guests
Claire Liszkay, BSN, RN, CCRN
Claire Liszkay, BSN, RN, CCRN, is a clinical coordinator in the medical intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Liszkay has her master’s degree in global health and has traveled to conflict zones and disaster-stricken areas such as Haiti, Sierra Leone and the borders of Bangladesh and Myanmar to use her nursing skills to provide humanitarian aid. Within the U.S., her assignments have included hurricane relief in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. In her free time, she likes to garden and ride her bike.
transcript
[00:00:00] Alyssa Saklak: I am Alyssa Saklak
[00:00:06] Laurin Masnari: And I'm Laurin Masnari.
[00:00:08] Saklak: On Better, RN, we get real about nursing.
[00:00:11] Masnari: The good and the gritty.
[00:00:12] Saklak: We talk to real healthcare experts.
[00:00:15] Masnari: With the goal of becoming better.
[00:00:17] Saklak: For our patients, our colleagues.
[00:00:18] Masnari: Our family, our friends.
[00:00:20] Saklak: Our partners and ourselves.
[00:00:27] Masnari: Hi, Alyssa. How are you?
[00:00:28] Saklak: Hi Laurin.
[00:00:30] Masnari: Alyssa, I'm really excited to be back doing season two of Better, RN with you. Last year we focused a lot on overall nurse well-being and what does it look like to be healthy in all aspects of your life. And I am thrilled that this year we get to talk to some people and understand state of our union. What is the state of nursing? What's happening here within Northwestern Medicine and elsewhere? And how does that translate to what's going on at the bedside?
[00:00:53] Saklak: I'm so excited. There's so many interesting guests and topics this season. I'm pumped to talk to them. Not specifically on wellness, but each person's journey and story, how they got there, where they are, and all the different avenues that nurses do and are at in the hospital.
[00:01:10] Masnari: When I think about what I thought nursing was eight years ago when I graduated from my bachelor's program, I really only saw inpatient nursing as sort of the path forward. Like that's what you did when you graduated from college. You started on a medicine unit, and then you found your passion and went somewhere else. But I think this season is really going to show people that nursing really can be a choose-your-own adventure. There are so many different opportunities outside of bedside nursing that our profession has and that really Northwestern Medicine supports.
[00:01:42] Saklak: I'm excited to hear from professionals across Northwestern Medicine regions. So not just central location, but Delnor, CDH, Lake Forest, to hear the perspectives of nurses across the region.
[00:01:55] Masnari: I think the common thread that we will see throughout this season is that there's not one path forward. There are so many different things that you can do that open up doors, and it really is your choice whether you want to walk through that door and take on a new challenge or wait for something else. And that is the beauty of nursing: that you can do so many different things, and we're going to see a lot of that this season.
[00:02:18] Saklak: Today I'm super excited 'cause I have a passion for public health, community health and, more importantly, global health.
[00:02:25] Masnari: Yeah, and we're talking to Claire Liszkay, who is someone that you and I actually know from back in our staffing days and our early leadership time when we worked at the bedside on the 15th Floor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Claire is one of the clinical coordinators in the Medical ICU, and so I can't even tell you how many times that she has answered a phone call with a silly question from me or responded to a rapid response or a code and just absolutely saved the day. So I'm so excited to talk to Claire about her come-up story and everything that she has done as a nurse.
[00:03:02] Saklak: I think it's so important too because, as we talk about health and being the best versions of ourselves and the different domains, Claire has such an interesting story and I'm so excited for the listeners to hear about it and be inspired because I swear every time I talk to her, if I'm having a bad day, I feel inspired, and I get goosebumps. She's just done some amazing things, and she really is an advocate for global health and knowing that we can even do this in our own backyards, in our own community that we serve here in Chicago downtown, and all the other Northwestern Medicine regions across Illinois. Claire is a nurse in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, but her nursing career and her masters in global health have taken her far from the MICU to places like Sierra Leone and the Bahamas.
[00:03:47] Masnari: Claire's gonna talk about nursing all over the world and how she applied lessons learned abroad to caring for patients in Chicago, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Welcome Claire.
[00:03:57] Claire Liszkay: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:03:58] Saklak: This is a big celebration 'cause this is season two. And Claire, we got to meet last year when I was trying to find stories, and I'm still blown away by who you are, what you do. Tell everyone else a little bit about yourself and your background so we can get to know the amazing Claire a little bit better.
[00:04:17] Liszkay: Thank you so much for your kind words. I do appreciate it. I am a nurse. I work in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Medicine. I am the clinical coordinator there. I have been working at Northwestern Medicine for about 13 years now. And I am very privileged to have also been working in disaster response for about the same amount of time.
[00:04:37] Masnari: How did you get into nursing, and did you start in the medical ICU at Northwestern Memorial Hospital? What's your, like, grow-up story? How did we get here?
[00:04:46] Liszkay: My original career choice was actually ecology. You know, ecological restoration was what I really thought I was gonna be doing for the rest of my life. But I moved to Nicaragua to learn Spanish. And while I was there, I was leading tours of volcanoes and there were some medical needs of the community members in my town, and that's really what got me interested in nursing. So, after nursing school, I was working at another healthcare system, and there was the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and they sent a group of medical professionals down to Haiti to assist, and I just happened to be on the team for that. And I was hooked. I decided that's what I wanted to do.
[00:05:20] Masnari: That's amazing. So, Haiti, you said you lived in Nicaragua. What are some other memorable places that you've gone and practiced global health?
[00:05:27] Liszkay: Well, I have done quite a bit. I've worked here in the U.S., primarily after hurricanes. So, Houston after Hurricane Harvey and Florida a couple of times. North Carolina. I've been to Haiti I think now close to a dozen times. Dominican Republic. I've also done some work with refugees in conflict zones. So I spent some time on the border of Bangladesh and Myanmar. I was on the border of Iraq and Syria. You know, disaster looks like all sorts of things. So given the opportunity I try to assist and help when I can.
[00:05:56] Saklak: I actually just got done with a class about disaster management, and I think that's really how we connected with Claire was because, you know, you've had all this experience responding to disasters as nurses and in health care. I think we do one section in nursing school about, like, disaster response in case you're a nurse in an area that it hits in public health. But what was so interesting was your take on a disaster that occurred in our own backyard. Can you share a little bit more about what that was like, I feel like we're kind of getting on that turn of outside of COVID, but there was so much to learn from that. So I'm just curious, you know, what would you share?
[00:06:30] Liszkay: Pre-COVID my biggest experience with an epidemic pandemic was in Sierra Leone. I was there on an Ebola response team during the Ebola epidemic. And that in itself was something I had never experienced anything like it. And I did not anticipate really ever experiencing anything like it again. It was definitely a challenge in that we were in a very resource-poor setting, and everything about it was different for me, the culture, the language and the expectations of medical care. And also the fear, the real fear that every single person had, medical provider, community member, a patient, everyone was just so scared. But, one thing that really kind of stuck out to me was also that, patients are patients and humans are humans, and we all wanna be well, and be with our family members, and we want them to be saved and to be helped. And I do remember thinking about, kind of, my privilege and being able to do that because I had a set date that I was going, and I had a set date that I was coming back. And if anything happened while I was there, if heaven forbid, I did in fact get sick, I had a passport, and I would be brought back to the U.S. where I'd receive medical care here. And so you know, my family wasn't there, my community members weren't there. I was in somebody else's community doing this work, and when I left, they had to continue doing the work. And I don't think I fully appreciated that until COVID hit here. It was not like I had a choice. And made that decision to, I'm going to go somewhere and work in this pandemic. It was, it's here and we're doing it, and it's your coworkers, and it's your family, and it's your community members. And it's everywhere. And that was a very different type of fear than going somewhere else.
[00:08:04] Masnari: I just got full body chills when you said, I knew when I was going and I knew when I was coming home, but thinking about that during COVID, there was no end in sight for so long. Your experience working in disaster relief and all of these other areas, do you feel like it helped you develop coping skills? What are your strategies? How do you take care of yourself when you're dealing with all of these really heavy things? And then also working in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
[00:08:31] Liszkay: I think things like wellness and self-care, they're buzzwords today, right? We're all talking about it. And I think that the answer is not a one-size-fits-all. I think that's very personal for everybody. One thing that I did definitely take away from working in the ICU during COVID is that we are amazing. The team is amazing. We can do amazing things. When I look back and you know, look at what we did, it's just crazy and wild to think about, and I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of what we did. But I think we also learned that we are not super humans. We are humans, and we have feelings, and we get burned out. And we get upset about things, and we have to figure out how can we take care of ourselves? Because if we can't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anybody. And when you're in that moment, that's aside. You don't think about it, right? Because you have the adrenaline going, you know what you have to do today. It's kind of that, like, chronic, after it's been going on for a while that you realize that this is causing harm or I'm suffering from it. So I think we really do have to consider, how do we care for ourselves? Physically, mentally, financially, spiritually, everything that goes into that. How do we, as humans and as nurses, be able to continue to do our work, but also not be so changed and traumatized by it that we just can't.
[00:09:38] Masnari: It's this concept of like second victim trauma that I think is so understudied in health care. And now I feel like people are starting to realize that nurses and people in health care, they can't just continue to rebound as we did previously because the landscape of health care is so different than it was what, five years ago even.
[00:09:59] Liszkay: Absolutely.
[00:10:00] Saklak: And the world, like when you think about disaster, especially Chicago and where our hospital's located. Knock on wood, we don't have many natural disasters like hurricanes 'cause we're not by the ocean, but we have a lot of hybrid and or manmade disasters. we're living in this world and culture where I feel like it sometimes feels like so much, and as healthcare workers, you're always kind of like what situation's gonna be next? And I think you're so right about individualizing and finding out what fits for you? But I really love that we're acknowledging this and talking about it because I think that this is where it starts. And I'm curious, Claire, what do you feel like helped you the most on your team when you were going through this that other nurses can learn and take away from, and what do you feel like was maybe not so helpful that you're like, if I'm ever in this situation again, I would do it differently.
[00:10:47] Liszkay: Yeah. You know, hindsight is amazing. And I look back at that time now, and the things that really stick out in my mind were my teammates. You know, knowing you're coming to work and this is who I'm working with, and I care about them, and we're gonna do it together. I also know everyone was working well over and above the normal working hours. I remember when I wasn't working, I felt really guilty about not being there because I knew what was happening. And can I go back and say I can change that guilt? I don't know. You know, I don't think so. Even knowing now that working all of those hours, and really kind of going full steam is only sustainable for so long. And then we kind of feel the aftereffects of that. And I think we still are actually, I don't think that we can say that we have recovered from that in any way. We talk about going back to normal. The normal that was normal before is not the normal that is normal now. Now, I try to be very diligent about how I use my time when I'm not at work. You know, I always make sure I schedule myself a bike ride or, you know, those types of things. Right now I can, if this were to happen again, this is how I would do it, but, knowing how we as nurses function, I think that is a very, very hard thing to do, to take a step back and say, I need a moment. I need a break when everyone else is going at it still.
[00:11:55] Masnari: We talked a little bit about this in some episodes last season, but these, I don't wanna call them silver linings, but these little glimmers of things that came out of COVID, like how you mentioned recognizing when you need a break and being able to speak up, or for me it was remembering how lucky I am to be able to gather with friends and family and not be a little bit scared or feel a little bit guilty for doing so. So, it's so interesting how even in these horrible, awful, devastating times for people, we can still find these little pearls of goodness that come out of it.
[00:12:33] Saklak: I feel like the line that stuck out to me, Claire, when you just said, was the guilt of not being at work when all this was happening and knowing what your colleagues were going through. I think that's still in the profession, regardless if it's a disaster or not. And I don't know that that ever goes away. And I think that like us kind of connecting and having that shared experience almost made me feel better. And I was like, oh, Claire feels it too, you know? And Lauren feels that too. But I think acknowledging it is like the first step. But that to me was a huge experience of it all too. And feeling like you kind of always had to be on and be in this hero mode of we've gotta help people right.
[00:13:08] Liszkay: Yes, absolutely.
[00:13:09] Masnari: Claire, since we're living in this, I don't even wanna call it the post-COVID era because it's still here, but now is disaster relief and going abroad, is that something that you still find to be a passion or have you needed to step back from that?
[00:13:25] Liszkay: I did take some time away from it during COVID, for a lot of reasons. Logistically it was very hard to travel. Also, all the stuff that was happening here wasn't really able to get away. I find myself as a nurse, I kind of have two, not separate but connected, parts of me. And one of it is with the work that I do here in the ICU and the other part of it's that the disaster response, and they are closely connected, and I cannot say that I would be a complete human or a complete nurse without being able to do both.
[00:13:51] Masnari: We love to highlight all of the things that you can do within nursing, and global health isn't something that we've really ever talked about before on the podcast. What advice would you give to someone who is maybe curious about stepping into this world?
[00:14:05] Claire Liszkay: I think my first advice would be go for it. In my own experience none of these, kind of, global health experiences fell into my lap. We had to work a little bit to kind of get myself in a position where I was able to do it. The first thing that I did I actually did this during when Ebola was coming about, was I looked at the news articles and saw which organizations were there and went on their websites and applied. And I would definitely recommend if you are very interested in doing something like disaster response that you start researching different organizations that send nurses or send whatever, your skillset is, apply when there's not a disaster, because that's when they're doing their hiring. And then get on their list. And that way when something happens, they'll call you. The other thing is that can be a little bit intimidating and then also a little bit hard to fit into your life. But there are definitely global health opportunities in your own community too. I'd say if you're just interested and you wanna see how it is, there's a lot of organizations here in Chicago that do work with you know, the migrants coming through. The Red Cross has a robust response here for things like fires. So you don't have to go very far to do it.
[00:15:02] Masnari: So, Claire, you talk about going abroad and spending a lot of time away from your full-time job here at Northwestern Medicine. How have you managed to get that time off sometimes on such short notice.
[00:15:14] Liszkay: Yeah. I'm really lucky. I have very gracious wonderful managers. And they understand that this is something that's very important to me. And that also sometimes I do ask for time off at short notice. And so, I am always saving my PTO just in case. And of course everything is a conversation. So as soon as I know that there's something on the horizon that I may be called up for, I talk to them about it. We decide what works. Will these dates be okay? Do I have to take a leave, or can I just use PTO? And so that's how we work it out.
[00:15:46] Saklak: Lots of communication and I can only imagine the navigation around that of like logistics. Yes, absolutely.
[00:15:53] Masnari: Shout out to the managers in the Medical ICU. They're so great.
[00:15:58] Saklak: I love that. And as I was sitting here, I was kind of reflecting too. I just have to ask this as a nurse. Do you find yourself kind of from your perspective and experience, which is this tremendous scope, when there's little things at work that people are like so annoyed about, you're like, it could be worse, and you think about the resources we have or this or that. I feel like after that you would have to be like, well, the grass is always greener. Or, this could be the middle of an Ebola outbreak. Do you find those moments?
[00:16:23] Liszkay: I do. I don't think you have to do global health to find those moments. Actually, I have found myself a little bit overwhelmed with coming back and going from a resource-poor environment to a resource-rich environment. And it can also be extremely overwhelming to go the other way back, right? From a research-rich to a resource-poor. The thinking about it is different and the how you kind of approach things is different as well. But yeah, the experiences are mixed. You can't separate them.
[00:16:45] Saklak: Well, and Lauren, this reminds me of a conference and the keynote speaker was the CEO of Zipline and talked about his product that essentially delivered blood to areas in Africa that had a lot of maternal death that needed blood transfusions and it literally like parachutes the blood down to the hospital and they were able to like reduce maternal mortality rates by like 50% or something like that. And he said, as humans, we adapt so quickly. And he said, the first day when the blood came, everyone's like, yes, this is amazing, this is great. And then the next day they were like, you're two minutes late. And so it was so funny to kind of like feel that experience and kind of reflect on that as a nurse too, and just be like, how often do I take for granted the blood that comes up through the tube station or you know, these resources that we have and, not to get into like comparative suffering to be like, it could be worse, or my experience is not, you know terrible. But I do think perspective helps you find gratitude. And gratitude can help you so much through hard times. I just think about, you know, the things that you've seen and experienced and how that probably helps you a little bit more too when you come back here and you're, kind of, you know, dealing with difficult situations as a nurse.
[00:17:48] Liszkay: I think you're right. And also about how we see the world through the filter of the experiences that we've had. And I think that seeing other people experience things in other cultures and other worlds kind of helps you sometimes be a little bit more empathetic to how people are experiencing where they are at the moment. Because I see my experiences through my filter and it's different for everybody.
[00:18:09] Saklak: How did you prepare for the different cultures? I think about patients that we see at the hospital and the resources we have when providing cultural-competent care. Was there resources that they gave you to kind of better understand what you were coming into?
[00:18:21] Liszkay: Yeah, there are always resources available. I'm a big fan of Lonely Planet, and I like to kind of get the Lonely Planet guide of where I'm going if I'm able to, if there is one available. But absolutely there are always resources. But I will say the best thing that I learned is that if you really want to provide good culturally competent care is just to stop, listen, and look around. Because you can look at the Lonely Planet and read your sheets about it, but to actually see how people react and respond is a little bit different. I've learned so much from my nurse colleagues in the places that I'm at, and I try to model my care and my behavior after how they do because that's really the best way to do it. Stop, listen, look, I think.
[00:18:59] Saklak: It's like that situational awareness.
[00:19:01] Liszkay: Right, exactly.
[00:19:02] Masnari: Claire, I think I can say firsthand that a lot of the nurses in the Medical ICU do the same thing when they're watching you. Because you are such a good caregiver and such a good provider. And so hearing you say that, I was like, I know that there are people in the Medical ICU that feel the same way about you, You are so wonderful and such a great asset to Northwestern Medicine and to Chicago and all of these places that you've gone, and I can only imagine in your 13 years of nursing here and abroad, how many lives you have changed.
[00:19:34] Liszkay: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Your words are just, they're so kind, I appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:19:39] Saklak: So, what's next on the radar for Claire? Any fun plans?
[00:19:43] Liszkay: Well in terms of global health stuff, I don't have any plans, but I tend not to until they just arrive which is how it goes. I have some personal plans. I'm an avid bike rider, so I am training for a very big bike trip, and then I'll just wait and see what comes down the line, what pops up in my email in terms of, you know, if there's a need somewhere else.
[00:20:01] Saklak: And is there any, like, community thing that I know we kind of talked about stuff in our own backyard, but is there any one that you've done in particular that kind of helped you as a stepping stone or things that you have seen before or experienced?
[00:20:15] Liszkay: Yeah. You know, I had the experience of living and working abroad before I was a nurse, so I kind of jumped into the international part of it, and I was comfortable in that, as much as you can be. However, Northwestern Medicine has, you know, volunteer opportunities. I know some providers who are working with the migrant community.
[00:20:32] Saklak: And there's the Chicago Street Medicine, which are providers that actually go out in the community to help provide medical services like wound care. And that was something that I was so blown away about the work that people are doing. But I think this brings up a greater point that sometimes it's hard to see like what's happening in the community and I feel like it's like a game of Double Dutch, of like, when do I jump in and like, how do I help? And so even starting small, like the Northwestern Medicine volunteers, the services and finding different community organizations can really help you get involved. And what I love about it is that it helps you better understand the community that we serve. That helps me with a completely different perspective than what maybe sometimes can happen is if you just don't understand and there potentially is like frustration or just misunderstanding. My gosh, our organization is so huge. Like sometimes it's just getting connected with the right people who can kind of show you something in your own backyard, which is awesome.
[00:21:26] Liszkay: Yes, absolutely. You know, again, you don't have to go far. The need is here. If you have a skillset, it can be matched.
[00:21:32] Saklak: And then what would be your last words of advice for nurses coming into the profession? The irony is I just had a conversation with some nurses the other day, and I realized, I'm at the point now where there's nurses who are coming into the profession who did not experience COVID in the hospital, who experienced it maybe in college with virtual classes and having to pause, but nurses coming in and working with other nurses who have been through that experience. So, what would be your word of advice, kind of Claire's words of wisdom?
[00:22:02] Liszkay: I think to newer nurses, I would say welcome. It's a very challenging profession but can also be very rewarding. There are some things that helped, me and that is remembering that we are all learning. All of us. No matter if you are a new nurse or you are not a new nurse, everybody is learning. So be patient with yourself and be patient with each other, and we'll get there.
[00:22:23] Saklak: I love that. I'm gonna replay that. It's gonna be my morning mantra.
[00:22:27] Masnari: Thank you so much, Claire. This was such a lovely conversation, and you are so wonderful, and Alyssa and I, now being managers, don't work as much with you at the bedside, but I look back fondly on all of the times that you saved us when we called the MICU. So, this was fun. This was great to chat with you. Thank you so much for all of the work that you do here and abroad and for taking some time out of your busy schedule to chat with us this morning.
[00:22:50] Liszkay: Oh, well thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you so much for having me on. I'm always excited to talk about global health.
[00:22:56] Masnari: Thanks, Claire.
Thank you for listening. Please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and rate and review the show.
[00:23:06] Saklak: We'd love to hear your comments and any topics you might want us to explore.
[00:00:06] Laurin Masnari: And I'm Laurin Masnari.
[00:00:08] Saklak: On Better, RN, we get real about nursing.
[00:00:11] Masnari: The good and the gritty.
[00:00:12] Saklak: We talk to real healthcare experts.
[00:00:15] Masnari: With the goal of becoming better.
[00:00:17] Saklak: For our patients, our colleagues.
[00:00:18] Masnari: Our family, our friends.
[00:00:20] Saklak: Our partners and ourselves.
[00:00:27] Masnari: Hi, Alyssa. How are you?
[00:00:28] Saklak: Hi Laurin.
[00:00:30] Masnari: Alyssa, I'm really excited to be back doing season two of Better, RN with you. Last year we focused a lot on overall nurse well-being and what does it look like to be healthy in all aspects of your life. And I am thrilled that this year we get to talk to some people and understand state of our union. What is the state of nursing? What's happening here within Northwestern Medicine and elsewhere? And how does that translate to what's going on at the bedside?
[00:00:53] Saklak: I'm so excited. There's so many interesting guests and topics this season. I'm pumped to talk to them. Not specifically on wellness, but each person's journey and story, how they got there, where they are, and all the different avenues that nurses do and are at in the hospital.
[00:01:10] Masnari: When I think about what I thought nursing was eight years ago when I graduated from my bachelor's program, I really only saw inpatient nursing as sort of the path forward. Like that's what you did when you graduated from college. You started on a medicine unit, and then you found your passion and went somewhere else. But I think this season is really going to show people that nursing really can be a choose-your-own adventure. There are so many different opportunities outside of bedside nursing that our profession has and that really Northwestern Medicine supports.
[00:01:42] Saklak: I'm excited to hear from professionals across Northwestern Medicine regions. So not just central location, but Delnor, CDH, Lake Forest, to hear the perspectives of nurses across the region.
[00:01:55] Masnari: I think the common thread that we will see throughout this season is that there's not one path forward. There are so many different things that you can do that open up doors, and it really is your choice whether you want to walk through that door and take on a new challenge or wait for something else. And that is the beauty of nursing: that you can do so many different things, and we're going to see a lot of that this season.
[00:02:18] Saklak: Today I'm super excited 'cause I have a passion for public health, community health and, more importantly, global health.
[00:02:25] Masnari: Yeah, and we're talking to Claire Liszkay, who is someone that you and I actually know from back in our staffing days and our early leadership time when we worked at the bedside on the 15th Floor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Claire is one of the clinical coordinators in the Medical ICU, and so I can't even tell you how many times that she has answered a phone call with a silly question from me or responded to a rapid response or a code and just absolutely saved the day. So I'm so excited to talk to Claire about her come-up story and everything that she has done as a nurse.
[00:03:02] Saklak: I think it's so important too because, as we talk about health and being the best versions of ourselves and the different domains, Claire has such an interesting story and I'm so excited for the listeners to hear about it and be inspired because I swear every time I talk to her, if I'm having a bad day, I feel inspired, and I get goosebumps. She's just done some amazing things, and she really is an advocate for global health and knowing that we can even do this in our own backyards, in our own community that we serve here in Chicago downtown, and all the other Northwestern Medicine regions across Illinois. Claire is a nurse in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, but her nursing career and her masters in global health have taken her far from the MICU to places like Sierra Leone and the Bahamas.
[00:03:47] Masnari: Claire's gonna talk about nursing all over the world and how she applied lessons learned abroad to caring for patients in Chicago, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Welcome Claire.
[00:03:57] Claire Liszkay: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:03:58] Saklak: This is a big celebration 'cause this is season two. And Claire, we got to meet last year when I was trying to find stories, and I'm still blown away by who you are, what you do. Tell everyone else a little bit about yourself and your background so we can get to know the amazing Claire a little bit better.
[00:04:17] Liszkay: Thank you so much for your kind words. I do appreciate it. I am a nurse. I work in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Medicine. I am the clinical coordinator there. I have been working at Northwestern Medicine for about 13 years now. And I am very privileged to have also been working in disaster response for about the same amount of time.
[00:04:37] Masnari: How did you get into nursing, and did you start in the medical ICU at Northwestern Memorial Hospital? What's your, like, grow-up story? How did we get here?
[00:04:46] Liszkay: My original career choice was actually ecology. You know, ecological restoration was what I really thought I was gonna be doing for the rest of my life. But I moved to Nicaragua to learn Spanish. And while I was there, I was leading tours of volcanoes and there were some medical needs of the community members in my town, and that's really what got me interested in nursing. So, after nursing school, I was working at another healthcare system, and there was the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and they sent a group of medical professionals down to Haiti to assist, and I just happened to be on the team for that. And I was hooked. I decided that's what I wanted to do.
[00:05:20] Masnari: That's amazing. So, Haiti, you said you lived in Nicaragua. What are some other memorable places that you've gone and practiced global health?
[00:05:27] Liszkay: Well, I have done quite a bit. I've worked here in the U.S., primarily after hurricanes. So, Houston after Hurricane Harvey and Florida a couple of times. North Carolina. I've been to Haiti I think now close to a dozen times. Dominican Republic. I've also done some work with refugees in conflict zones. So I spent some time on the border of Bangladesh and Myanmar. I was on the border of Iraq and Syria. You know, disaster looks like all sorts of things. So given the opportunity I try to assist and help when I can.
[00:05:56] Saklak: I actually just got done with a class about disaster management, and I think that's really how we connected with Claire was because, you know, you've had all this experience responding to disasters as nurses and in health care. I think we do one section in nursing school about, like, disaster response in case you're a nurse in an area that it hits in public health. But what was so interesting was your take on a disaster that occurred in our own backyard. Can you share a little bit more about what that was like, I feel like we're kind of getting on that turn of outside of COVID, but there was so much to learn from that. So I'm just curious, you know, what would you share?
[00:06:30] Liszkay: Pre-COVID my biggest experience with an epidemic pandemic was in Sierra Leone. I was there on an Ebola response team during the Ebola epidemic. And that in itself was something I had never experienced anything like it. And I did not anticipate really ever experiencing anything like it again. It was definitely a challenge in that we were in a very resource-poor setting, and everything about it was different for me, the culture, the language and the expectations of medical care. And also the fear, the real fear that every single person had, medical provider, community member, a patient, everyone was just so scared. But, one thing that really kind of stuck out to me was also that, patients are patients and humans are humans, and we all wanna be well, and be with our family members, and we want them to be saved and to be helped. And I do remember thinking about, kind of, my privilege and being able to do that because I had a set date that I was going, and I had a set date that I was coming back. And if anything happened while I was there, if heaven forbid, I did in fact get sick, I had a passport, and I would be brought back to the U.S. where I'd receive medical care here. And so you know, my family wasn't there, my community members weren't there. I was in somebody else's community doing this work, and when I left, they had to continue doing the work. And I don't think I fully appreciated that until COVID hit here. It was not like I had a choice. And made that decision to, I'm going to go somewhere and work in this pandemic. It was, it's here and we're doing it, and it's your coworkers, and it's your family, and it's your community members. And it's everywhere. And that was a very different type of fear than going somewhere else.
[00:08:04] Masnari: I just got full body chills when you said, I knew when I was going and I knew when I was coming home, but thinking about that during COVID, there was no end in sight for so long. Your experience working in disaster relief and all of these other areas, do you feel like it helped you develop coping skills? What are your strategies? How do you take care of yourself when you're dealing with all of these really heavy things? And then also working in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
[00:08:31] Liszkay: I think things like wellness and self-care, they're buzzwords today, right? We're all talking about it. And I think that the answer is not a one-size-fits-all. I think that's very personal for everybody. One thing that I did definitely take away from working in the ICU during COVID is that we are amazing. The team is amazing. We can do amazing things. When I look back and you know, look at what we did, it's just crazy and wild to think about, and I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of what we did. But I think we also learned that we are not super humans. We are humans, and we have feelings, and we get burned out. And we get upset about things, and we have to figure out how can we take care of ourselves? Because if we can't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anybody. And when you're in that moment, that's aside. You don't think about it, right? Because you have the adrenaline going, you know what you have to do today. It's kind of that, like, chronic, after it's been going on for a while that you realize that this is causing harm or I'm suffering from it. So I think we really do have to consider, how do we care for ourselves? Physically, mentally, financially, spiritually, everything that goes into that. How do we, as humans and as nurses, be able to continue to do our work, but also not be so changed and traumatized by it that we just can't.
[00:09:38] Masnari: It's this concept of like second victim trauma that I think is so understudied in health care. And now I feel like people are starting to realize that nurses and people in health care, they can't just continue to rebound as we did previously because the landscape of health care is so different than it was what, five years ago even.
[00:09:59] Liszkay: Absolutely.
[00:10:00] Saklak: And the world, like when you think about disaster, especially Chicago and where our hospital's located. Knock on wood, we don't have many natural disasters like hurricanes 'cause we're not by the ocean, but we have a lot of hybrid and or manmade disasters. we're living in this world and culture where I feel like it sometimes feels like so much, and as healthcare workers, you're always kind of like what situation's gonna be next? And I think you're so right about individualizing and finding out what fits for you? But I really love that we're acknowledging this and talking about it because I think that this is where it starts. And I'm curious, Claire, what do you feel like helped you the most on your team when you were going through this that other nurses can learn and take away from, and what do you feel like was maybe not so helpful that you're like, if I'm ever in this situation again, I would do it differently.
[00:10:47] Liszkay: Yeah. You know, hindsight is amazing. And I look back at that time now, and the things that really stick out in my mind were my teammates. You know, knowing you're coming to work and this is who I'm working with, and I care about them, and we're gonna do it together. I also know everyone was working well over and above the normal working hours. I remember when I wasn't working, I felt really guilty about not being there because I knew what was happening. And can I go back and say I can change that guilt? I don't know. You know, I don't think so. Even knowing now that working all of those hours, and really kind of going full steam is only sustainable for so long. And then we kind of feel the aftereffects of that. And I think we still are actually, I don't think that we can say that we have recovered from that in any way. We talk about going back to normal. The normal that was normal before is not the normal that is normal now. Now, I try to be very diligent about how I use my time when I'm not at work. You know, I always make sure I schedule myself a bike ride or, you know, those types of things. Right now I can, if this were to happen again, this is how I would do it, but, knowing how we as nurses function, I think that is a very, very hard thing to do, to take a step back and say, I need a moment. I need a break when everyone else is going at it still.
[00:11:55] Masnari: We talked a little bit about this in some episodes last season, but these, I don't wanna call them silver linings, but these little glimmers of things that came out of COVID, like how you mentioned recognizing when you need a break and being able to speak up, or for me it was remembering how lucky I am to be able to gather with friends and family and not be a little bit scared or feel a little bit guilty for doing so. So, it's so interesting how even in these horrible, awful, devastating times for people, we can still find these little pearls of goodness that come out of it.
[00:12:33] Saklak: I feel like the line that stuck out to me, Claire, when you just said, was the guilt of not being at work when all this was happening and knowing what your colleagues were going through. I think that's still in the profession, regardless if it's a disaster or not. And I don't know that that ever goes away. And I think that like us kind of connecting and having that shared experience almost made me feel better. And I was like, oh, Claire feels it too, you know? And Lauren feels that too. But I think acknowledging it is like the first step. But that to me was a huge experience of it all too. And feeling like you kind of always had to be on and be in this hero mode of we've gotta help people right.
[00:13:08] Liszkay: Yes, absolutely.
[00:13:09] Masnari: Claire, since we're living in this, I don't even wanna call it the post-COVID era because it's still here, but now is disaster relief and going abroad, is that something that you still find to be a passion or have you needed to step back from that?
[00:13:25] Liszkay: I did take some time away from it during COVID, for a lot of reasons. Logistically it was very hard to travel. Also, all the stuff that was happening here wasn't really able to get away. I find myself as a nurse, I kind of have two, not separate but connected, parts of me. And one of it is with the work that I do here in the ICU and the other part of it's that the disaster response, and they are closely connected, and I cannot say that I would be a complete human or a complete nurse without being able to do both.
[00:13:51] Masnari: We love to highlight all of the things that you can do within nursing, and global health isn't something that we've really ever talked about before on the podcast. What advice would you give to someone who is maybe curious about stepping into this world?
[00:14:05] Claire Liszkay: I think my first advice would be go for it. In my own experience none of these, kind of, global health experiences fell into my lap. We had to work a little bit to kind of get myself in a position where I was able to do it. The first thing that I did I actually did this during when Ebola was coming about, was I looked at the news articles and saw which organizations were there and went on their websites and applied. And I would definitely recommend if you are very interested in doing something like disaster response that you start researching different organizations that send nurses or send whatever, your skillset is, apply when there's not a disaster, because that's when they're doing their hiring. And then get on their list. And that way when something happens, they'll call you. The other thing is that can be a little bit intimidating and then also a little bit hard to fit into your life. But there are definitely global health opportunities in your own community too. I'd say if you're just interested and you wanna see how it is, there's a lot of organizations here in Chicago that do work with you know, the migrants coming through. The Red Cross has a robust response here for things like fires. So you don't have to go very far to do it.
[00:15:02] Masnari: So, Claire, you talk about going abroad and spending a lot of time away from your full-time job here at Northwestern Medicine. How have you managed to get that time off sometimes on such short notice.
[00:15:14] Liszkay: Yeah. I'm really lucky. I have very gracious wonderful managers. And they understand that this is something that's very important to me. And that also sometimes I do ask for time off at short notice. And so, I am always saving my PTO just in case. And of course everything is a conversation. So as soon as I know that there's something on the horizon that I may be called up for, I talk to them about it. We decide what works. Will these dates be okay? Do I have to take a leave, or can I just use PTO? And so that's how we work it out.
[00:15:46] Saklak: Lots of communication and I can only imagine the navigation around that of like logistics. Yes, absolutely.
[00:15:53] Masnari: Shout out to the managers in the Medical ICU. They're so great.
[00:15:58] Saklak: I love that. And as I was sitting here, I was kind of reflecting too. I just have to ask this as a nurse. Do you find yourself kind of from your perspective and experience, which is this tremendous scope, when there's little things at work that people are like so annoyed about, you're like, it could be worse, and you think about the resources we have or this or that. I feel like after that you would have to be like, well, the grass is always greener. Or, this could be the middle of an Ebola outbreak. Do you find those moments?
[00:16:23] Liszkay: I do. I don't think you have to do global health to find those moments. Actually, I have found myself a little bit overwhelmed with coming back and going from a resource-poor environment to a resource-rich environment. And it can also be extremely overwhelming to go the other way back, right? From a research-rich to a resource-poor. The thinking about it is different and the how you kind of approach things is different as well. But yeah, the experiences are mixed. You can't separate them.
[00:16:45] Saklak: Well, and Lauren, this reminds me of a conference and the keynote speaker was the CEO of Zipline and talked about his product that essentially delivered blood to areas in Africa that had a lot of maternal death that needed blood transfusions and it literally like parachutes the blood down to the hospital and they were able to like reduce maternal mortality rates by like 50% or something like that. And he said, as humans, we adapt so quickly. And he said, the first day when the blood came, everyone's like, yes, this is amazing, this is great. And then the next day they were like, you're two minutes late. And so it was so funny to kind of like feel that experience and kind of reflect on that as a nurse too, and just be like, how often do I take for granted the blood that comes up through the tube station or you know, these resources that we have and, not to get into like comparative suffering to be like, it could be worse, or my experience is not, you know terrible. But I do think perspective helps you find gratitude. And gratitude can help you so much through hard times. I just think about, you know, the things that you've seen and experienced and how that probably helps you a little bit more too when you come back here and you're, kind of, you know, dealing with difficult situations as a nurse.
[00:17:48] Liszkay: I think you're right. And also about how we see the world through the filter of the experiences that we've had. And I think that seeing other people experience things in other cultures and other worlds kind of helps you sometimes be a little bit more empathetic to how people are experiencing where they are at the moment. Because I see my experiences through my filter and it's different for everybody.
[00:18:09] Saklak: How did you prepare for the different cultures? I think about patients that we see at the hospital and the resources we have when providing cultural-competent care. Was there resources that they gave you to kind of better understand what you were coming into?
[00:18:21] Liszkay: Yeah, there are always resources available. I'm a big fan of Lonely Planet, and I like to kind of get the Lonely Planet guide of where I'm going if I'm able to, if there is one available. But absolutely there are always resources. But I will say the best thing that I learned is that if you really want to provide good culturally competent care is just to stop, listen, and look around. Because you can look at the Lonely Planet and read your sheets about it, but to actually see how people react and respond is a little bit different. I've learned so much from my nurse colleagues in the places that I'm at, and I try to model my care and my behavior after how they do because that's really the best way to do it. Stop, listen, look, I think.
[00:18:59] Saklak: It's like that situational awareness.
[00:19:01] Liszkay: Right, exactly.
[00:19:02] Masnari: Claire, I think I can say firsthand that a lot of the nurses in the Medical ICU do the same thing when they're watching you. Because you are such a good caregiver and such a good provider. And so hearing you say that, I was like, I know that there are people in the Medical ICU that feel the same way about you, You are so wonderful and such a great asset to Northwestern Medicine and to Chicago and all of these places that you've gone, and I can only imagine in your 13 years of nursing here and abroad, how many lives you have changed.
[00:19:34] Liszkay: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Your words are just, they're so kind, I appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:19:39] Saklak: So, what's next on the radar for Claire? Any fun plans?
[00:19:43] Liszkay: Well in terms of global health stuff, I don't have any plans, but I tend not to until they just arrive which is how it goes. I have some personal plans. I'm an avid bike rider, so I am training for a very big bike trip, and then I'll just wait and see what comes down the line, what pops up in my email in terms of, you know, if there's a need somewhere else.
[00:20:01] Saklak: And is there any, like, community thing that I know we kind of talked about stuff in our own backyard, but is there any one that you've done in particular that kind of helped you as a stepping stone or things that you have seen before or experienced?
[00:20:15] Liszkay: Yeah. You know, I had the experience of living and working abroad before I was a nurse, so I kind of jumped into the international part of it, and I was comfortable in that, as much as you can be. However, Northwestern Medicine has, you know, volunteer opportunities. I know some providers who are working with the migrant community.
[00:20:32] Saklak: And there's the Chicago Street Medicine, which are providers that actually go out in the community to help provide medical services like wound care. And that was something that I was so blown away about the work that people are doing. But I think this brings up a greater point that sometimes it's hard to see like what's happening in the community and I feel like it's like a game of Double Dutch, of like, when do I jump in and like, how do I help? And so even starting small, like the Northwestern Medicine volunteers, the services and finding different community organizations can really help you get involved. And what I love about it is that it helps you better understand the community that we serve. That helps me with a completely different perspective than what maybe sometimes can happen is if you just don't understand and there potentially is like frustration or just misunderstanding. My gosh, our organization is so huge. Like sometimes it's just getting connected with the right people who can kind of show you something in your own backyard, which is awesome.
[00:21:26] Liszkay: Yes, absolutely. You know, again, you don't have to go far. The need is here. If you have a skillset, it can be matched.
[00:21:32] Saklak: And then what would be your last words of advice for nurses coming into the profession? The irony is I just had a conversation with some nurses the other day, and I realized, I'm at the point now where there's nurses who are coming into the profession who did not experience COVID in the hospital, who experienced it maybe in college with virtual classes and having to pause, but nurses coming in and working with other nurses who have been through that experience. So, what would be your word of advice, kind of Claire's words of wisdom?
[00:22:02] Liszkay: I think to newer nurses, I would say welcome. It's a very challenging profession but can also be very rewarding. There are some things that helped, me and that is remembering that we are all learning. All of us. No matter if you are a new nurse or you are not a new nurse, everybody is learning. So be patient with yourself and be patient with each other, and we'll get there.
[00:22:23] Saklak: I love that. I'm gonna replay that. It's gonna be my morning mantra.
[00:22:27] Masnari: Thank you so much, Claire. This was such a lovely conversation, and you are so wonderful, and Alyssa and I, now being managers, don't work as much with you at the bedside, but I look back fondly on all of the times that you saved us when we called the MICU. So, this was fun. This was great to chat with you. Thank you so much for all of the work that you do here and abroad and for taking some time out of your busy schedule to chat with us this morning.
[00:22:50] Liszkay: Oh, well thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you so much for having me on. I'm always excited to talk about global health.
[00:22:56] Masnari: Thanks, Claire.
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[00:23:06] Saklak: We'd love to hear your comments and any topics you might want us to explore.