The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast
The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast is a deep dive into what 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing mean for prosthetics and orthotics. We’re Brent and Joris both passionate about 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing. We’re on a journey together to explore the digitization of prostheses and orthoses together. Join us! Have a question, suggestion or guest for us? Reach out. Or have a listen to the podcast here. The Prosthetic and Orthotic field is experiencing a revolution where manufacturing is being digitized. 3D scanning, CAD software, machine learning, automation software, apps, the internet, new materials and Additive Manufacturing are all impactful in and of themselves. These developments are now, in concert, collectively reshaping orthotics and prosthetics right now. We want to be on the cutting edge of these developments and understand them as they happen. We’ve decided to do a podcast to learn, understand and explore the revolution in prosthetics and orthotics.
The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast
Exploring Global Health with Dr. Janell Wright
Dr. Janell Wright discusses her extensive journey in public health, highlighting the impact of community engagement and the importance of addressing social determinants of health. She reflects on her international experiences, the stigma surrounding diseases like HIV, and the need for a more supportive healthcare system.
• Janell shares her journey to public health
• Emphasis on understanding root causes of health issues
• Importance of community engagement in healthcare initiatives
• Challenges faced by patients due to stigma
• Transitioning back to the U.S. and her work at the CDC
• Encouragement for young professionals, especially women in the field
• Networking and mentorship as vital components of professional growth
• Personal anecdotes revealing the importance of humane perspectives in healthcare
• Reflections on family influences and experiences growing up abroad
-special thanks to Advanced 3D for sponsoring this episode.
Welcome to Season 10 of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast. This is where we chat with experts in the field, patients who use these devices, physical therapists and the vendors who make it all happen. Our goal To share stories, tips and insights that ultimately help our patients get the best possible outcomes. Tune in and join the conversation. We are thrilled you are here and hope it is the highlight of your day. So welcome to an episode of the Prosthetics and Orthotics podcast.
Speaker 1:This is not your typical podcast, and so my sister, dr Janelle Wright, has joined us, and she has actually moved back to the US. She resides in Atlanta and we'll hear a little bit about her journey, but she has spent much of her life and career outside of the United States, and so that's going to be an interesting thing to dive into. We may actually talk about some of our childhood too. That should be interesting. And then we go from there We'll probably dive in. Janelle has been with me on multiple trips to Guatemala, and so we'll share a little bit about the prosthetic stuff that's going on with Life Enabled and how that ties in with her profession as well. So, janelle, welcome to the show. Thanks, or should I say Dr Wright? I mean, I think I can say Janelle, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, I'm just curious like where I should be.
Speaker 1:So we can look at each other, but then you can mostly look at the camera, yep. So I'm over here. You can kind of see we've kind of have a makeshift studio. I guess you would say. So if you have any questions for us, let us know and then we'll just kind of go from there. So you know, take us a little bit on your journey. So you probably have never listened to the orthotics and prosthetic podcast before. Right, I have actually. Oh, you have, I have. Okay, well, you do like podcasts, okay, so before we get into that part, then, what are some podcasts that you really like, that you follow?
Speaker 2:It's a very good question. Recently I've gotten into a lot of entrepreneurial podcasts that, quite frankly, I forget the names of them, but I like listening to them because they are talking about innovation and creativity and new ways of doing things, productivity, efficiency. So recently I've gotten into those. I've also downloaded some finance podcasts because I want to get a little bit more financially literate. This health where you're at now.
Speaker 1:So we have a very diverse audience and there's a lot of people that may be curious on how to make an impact, while they're not necessarily as a leader let's say it that way not necessarily as a clinician, so to speak. So a lot of times we'll have somebody on that's either a technician or some sort of vendor or something that they absolutely make a difference in people's lives, but they're not impacting them individually one-on-one. Now I know you do some of that, but you are have grown very much into a leader role where you empower others. So take us on your journey the multiple countries, some of the languages that you've learned, and then go from there.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'm trying to think about. I think it's a really good positioning to think about. How do you think about public health versus clinical health, and is it a versus, or is it an and or or an and and? So I like to think of it as an and, because a lot of the things that you think about as a clinician, you are also thinking about maybe on an even a bigger scale. So when you're definitely thinking about prosthetics, orthotics, you're seeing a lot of people that may have had diabetes or have diabetes, or they have some other issues that have, you know, propelled them forward into, you know, a situation where they're going to need a prosthetic or an orthotic or whatnot, and you start thinking, well, what does this look like on a bigger scale? What does this look like for the population? So, what are some of those things that we can do to mitigate those issues that lead to the things that we're seeing in our clinics?
Speaker 2:And that is public health? It's thinking about root causes. It's thinking about health. It's thinking about root causes, thinking about population. It's thinking about the drivers of some of these things, is it, you know, what we call social determinants of health, and that's kind of a very jargony way of talking about. How does poverty, how does education? How does housing? How do all of these things interlink to create some of the factors that lead towards certain health outcomes? And so, as you're thinking about this as a clinician, you're also thinking about this on a larger level and sometimes you might think, oh my goodness. Well, what would happen if I actually went into a community and talked to them about diabetes? Would that prevent people from going into some of these, you know, having some of the impacts that it has had on their bodies, right? And so just kind of giving you a framework of what is public health, because I went to a comedy show one time and they invited me on stage and they're like, what do you do? And I said public health. And it was just like everybody, like nobody knew what that meant. Granted, this was before COVID, so I think a lot of people started to become a little bit more understanding about public health when COVID hit. But public health is a lot bigger than just infectious diseases and combating that.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, giving you a little bit of a history about, or just like a little bit of a background about, what public health is, and so my journey actually started there. I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to serve patients and I was working in a rural community and every single day I was seeing the exact same thing over and over I was seeing gastritis, I was seeing diabetes, I was seeing hypertension and we just, you know, I was an intern, so we were just giving the same medicine every day. And I thought what would it look like to be able to go into this community and actually teach them about healthy habits, movement, you know, eating well? And my mom looked at me and she said that is public health. And so I pivoted really quickly actually, instead of going into medical school or clinical education, and I decided I was going to go into public health. And so maybe I'll stop there, as like that was my entry into public health and why I decided to go into public health.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's quite a journey and it's interesting to hear that. I mean, would you say and probably not many of our listeners actually know that we grew up out of the country, so that might be something that we touch on a little bit too. Do you feel like the way that we were brought up and the exposure in the way that we lived has shaped kind of you where you're at professionally?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, I think that growing up we were seeing our father work in healthcare settings, cause he's an engineer and he was working on the electrical design and the electrical equipment that was in hospitals, and that was what I thought was, you know, serving, serving people, serving the community and so that's how I got into you know, serving, serving people, serving the community and so that's how I got into you know, let's serve the community by outreach on their health, and I think that's how you kind of got into that as well Serving underserved populations, vulnerable populations and so we got that in Ecuador and in Kenya, when, when we were there, and then also on some of the trips that um dad took around the world and he would come back with stories right, he came back with stories from um bangladesh, and I think that's where you got interested in prosthetics and what that could look like to serve a community and make people whole, um, by providing them a way of getting a limb that they lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but going back to your side of things, so you, that's something that you wanted to get into and make a difference, and really we're talking about some of the basic essentials of health really around the world and how to be healthy essentials of health really around the world and how to be healthy. Take us a little bit on your journey, like countries to countries. What did you actually do? And then I think it's really interesting how you embrace the cultures as you've gone, like you've dove right in and I think so I'd love to hear some of those stories too, because you know, it's not just Spanish speaking. We were around Spanish speaking, but you were in many other places that are different cultures than, like, south American culture, Central American culture, where thoughts are different, news is different, all that. So I'd love to hear some point to point with where you've been and then kind of how it's come full circle now at the end.
Speaker 2:So I started out doing internships, as I mentioned, and trying to figure out what I was going to do. So I did an internship, actually moving back to Ecuador to work with a public health nurse that we knew growing up, and I thought this will be a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about public health. And that's when I was introduced to working with HIV patients and learning that it's a lifelong disease, learning that it is a huge impact on not just the individual but the community. And so from those internships I got a master's in public health. You may have heard of it an MPH. There's a lot more schools that are providing this education right now.
Speaker 2:It's a two-year degree and in the middle of that I did an internship in China because I thought, you know, I've done Africa, I've done South America, let's go to Asia. And so that was a completely different culture and got to work in Western China and was working with them in their aid center and just got to experience a very different side of the HIV epidemic in Asia. From there I finished up my degree and I applied to a lot of fellowships and if you are thinking about public health, fellowships are the way to go, or internships just to get your foot in the door. It's just a great way to get exposure in a lot of different ways. So, out of the I don't know 30 fellowships that I applied for, I got one and they gave me 24 hours to decide. I was on a vacation with Aunt Becky, actually, and they called me and they said you have 24 hours to decide if you're going to Vietnam for this public health fellowship with the CDC. And I was like, absolutely not, that's crazy, I'm not going there. And I remember dad calling and saying you are going. And I thought no, I don't want to go, I want to stay in North Carolina, I want to work for one of the organizations here. And dad was like, no, you need to experience something totally different. You need to go, chase your dreams. And that's a pivotal moment actually just having that encouragement from family friends. So I did it and that was the 2008 and started my journey on working on the PEPFAR program, and PEPFAR stands for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It's the biggest public health endeavor that the United States has provided for one disease across the world and, as of right now, just as a plug for that, 7.8 million people's lives have been impacted by PEPFAR. And so I started in Vietnam and I started working there and I was there for four years.
Speaker 2:I learned Vietnamese to the degree that I could order, I could travel, I could read some, I could interact with people, and Vietnamese is not an easy language to pronounce but the grammar is actually fairly I wouldn't say simple, but easy. And, just you know, just got into that culture a little bit more and then from there I went to Kazakhstan and that is in Central Asia. And if you're wondering where that is, it is literally in Central Asia if you look, and it's just like right in the Asia. And if you're wondering where that is, it is literally in Central Asia If you look, and it's just like right in the middle. It's the ninth largest country in the world. And so I covered the region of Central Asia with Kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, uzbekistan, turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, and there I learned Russian because I just like talking to people, so I and it's easier to pronounce the language, but it's actually the grammar is very, very difficult, but fell in love with that region. It is a wide open, you know outdoor space, and just loved climbing the mountains and experiencing very cold winters, experiencing very hot summers, but there I got exposure to a very different environment for public health. The social determinants, as I mentioned before, are very different. Their culture is very different, the things that they care about and the way that they live is very different, but they care so deeply about their families, they care so deeply about their health and so you know, working on a diplomatic level with them to respond to the HIV epidemic there, which is primarily driven by people who inject drugs, which is a vulnerable group and it's a stigmatized group. So working on that got me a little bit closer to understanding you know what is important in public health and how do you address kind of root causes of public health.
Speaker 2:From there I went to Ukraine and I worked there for a year and I worked on health reform. I took a break from HIV, started working on some health reforms and working with the government on primary care and secondary care and looking at policies. What does it look like to create policies at a national level to promote health, to identify these root causes of health issues that they're facing and try to work with the primary care to have better access for these people to come and get treatment. From there I went to Guatemala and in Guatemala I was there for five years and just recently returned from Guatemala. I was continuing to work on HIV. But if you can remember, four years back we did have a COVID epidemic and that's where I was when COVID hit. And because I was covering all of Central America, I was working on the COVID epidemic and providing modeling and epidemiology and advice for the governments there. We did a laboratory, you know, providing laboratory tests, and provided again the epidemiology around the modeling of the epidemics and it was very interesting to see how globally, what was happening with the COVID epidemic and we were able to model that out and kind of predict what might be in Central America or coming up in Central America.
Speaker 2:But for the majority of the time that I was there, I was working on HIV and working with the governments in Central America on issues like migration and how does health impact or how is health impacted during migration? How is health impacted by? You know, actually, you know some of the climate change issues that are happening and whatnot too. So that's been my journey and after 16 years I said I am ready to return to the United States and be closer to my family. So I worked really hard and got a job at headquarters in Atlanta CDC and I'm working there now covering five countries in Africa as kind of a overall regional associate director there. So now I have a whole new portfolio in Africa and learning Portuguese and French now, so that is going to be a whole new adventure.
Speaker 1:So I mean, that's quite the tour, and it's a lot of languages, so let's see you touched so obviously English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, a little bit of Ukrainian, Ukrainian. Um, what's in Kazakhstan? Russian? Okay, Russian.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't learn any.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't, yeah, I don't. I did not learn Kazakh.
Speaker 1:So now, now it's Portuguese and French.
Speaker 2:Now it's Portuguese and French Now it's Portuguese and French.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a lot of languages. That's cool, though. So, food-wise, it really runs the gamut of good food. Where, would you say, has been the best food that you've experienced?
Speaker 2:I love Vietnamese food. Vietnamese food is unbelievable. It's very light, there's a lot of salad, there's a lot of different flavors and for meat eaters I'm actually a pescatarian, so for meat eaters there's a lot of different types of meat. There as well, they use the entire animal. So lots of adventures in that. In Central Asia there's what's called shashlik, which is a barbecue, and people love that. And you know, in Ukraine they had a conglomeration of a lot of the different foods across the post-Soviet Union and I will say Georgian food from Georgia, the country of Georgia, not the state, is bar none the best food, I think, in the world. So not the peaches.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Not that one. Okay, and I will say, when I got to Guatemala I thought we're going to have some tacos. It's right next to Mexico, but let me tell you, when that border hits, there are no tacos. There are some, but it's a very different than a Mexican taco and the spices that they have in Mexico.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, interestingly enough, I've never had Vietnamese food, so we're going to have to go get some Vietnamese food.
Speaker 1:OK, they have meat there. I'm not a pescatarian.
Speaker 2:They definitely have meat there. Yeah, Lots of lots of pork.
Speaker 1:Well, very cool. Well, let's um, I'd love to hear some of the, you know, kind of the highlights of how public health and the, the programs that you've been involved with, have like what you've seen, like, uh, the way people live or or give them a better quality of life, and then, uh, and then I'll ask another question after that. I have another question in mind, but I'd like to. I'd like to hear that part.
Speaker 2:So working on HIV is, again, it's a lifelong. It's a lifelong disease that people need to take um, um, uh, a medication for right now, every single day and so, but in the United States right now, and some of the Western countries, they have some injectables which is, you know, every other week or every other month, or you know, it's not as much as every day. The reason why I'm saying this is what we have strived to do in a lot of the programming that we are doing now is there's really really good medication for HIV. There's very good prevention biomedical prevention for HIV as well and so it's getting access for people in the community or where they live versus coming to the clinics. And so my whole thing is demedicalization of HIV as a chronic disease, and so it destigmatizes it a little bit more and it provides a better quality of health or a quality of life. Why? Because people aren't going to have to constantly be taking a medication every single day or going to the clinic every single month for the rest of their lives. So I think one of the things that I've seen is, as we've worked with ministries of health and governments on policies around demedicalization of a very, very highly complicated what was a very complicated disease is changing people's lives. They're more adherent to the treatment is changing people's lives. They're more adherent to the treatment, they're more willing to live their lives in the communities, because once you have a suppressed viral load I know that's kind of a technical way of saying it but once you don't have an undetectable amount of the virus in your body which we can test for, you don't transmit HIV, and so people are much more confident in their lives and they're able to live a normal, happy life with those medications. And I would say that's probably the biggest thing on a larger scale. Once people experience that in their lives, they're able to live their lives.
Speaker 2:Because when you get HIV, it's not only you know. Some people think of it as this death sentence essentially I'm going to die and that's what it used to be before there was medication. Now there's not a cure for HIV, but there are these medications that are very, very effective and have minimal side effects. At this point, I think, on another level as well, of people that you know are impacted by HIV, a lot of people don't find out until much later, when they start getting some of the infectious diseases that are associated with a lower immune system, which is what happens when you have advanced, more advanced in the HIV disease. And so, you know, some people have lived, you know, five, seven, eight years with this disease without knowing it, and so one of the things that we've tried to do is get more access to testing for HIV. So then it impacts, you know, people taking more preventative care of their own lives and those around them, and that reduces the impact of HIV in a community. Impact of HIV in a community.
Speaker 1:And such, and we were actually just starting before the technical difficulties talking about the demedicalization Is that the words you used Of HIV and I wanted you to share some of the stories from what you have heard. And so one of my favorite stories is when you have gone in to some of these clinics and such and you hug on the patients, love on the patients and it takes people back a little bit. There is a stigma to having HIV and you have kind of helped ease that stigma some and then bring an education into that. So I'd love for you to share a little bit of those stories as well.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know, one of the things that stands out to me is we started a project in Columbia working among migrants, and a lot of them are impacted by HIV and a lot of them are impacted by HIV. Just the nature of migration and whatnot causes a lot of vulnerability among patients, and so I remember one of the first times we sat there and we had kind of a focus group where we had five to seven migrants sitting with us talking about their experience working with the doctor and the nurses in the clinic and just hearing them, listening to them, understanding what they had been through, understanding what their challenges were and giving them value, just by listening and asking good questions. And you know we asked them. You know, do you have any questions for us? Do you have any recommendations for improving our clinic and our services? And you know, I think that's part of it is bringing the patients in to design what we call a person-centered approach to service delivery. And they were able to give us really good ideas about how to improve the access by having the clinics open later, having the clinic open on Saturday, having a private area where they can get counseling, having a time where they can bring their families in and help them understand what they're going through in terms of education, and so I think that helped.
Speaker 2:Even the you know, the clinical staff at the site think about wow, how can we make this a better environment for people to come to and that they would want to bring their friends to and whatnot, because it is a very vulnerable time in their lives when they find out that they're HIV positive. So I think that comes to mind. I mean it was very impactful time their lives when they find out that they're HIV positive. So I think that comes to mind. I mean it was a very impactful time. We spent like two or three hours with them just listening to their stories. And maybe one thing I'll just add on that is it's important to listen to their stories as their stories and not my story, and not projecting what I would feel or what I would think or what I would do in that situation. It's not necessarily disconnection. It's connecting by giving them the dignity of what their own experience has been, what their own journey has been to get them to where they are, and giving value and dignity to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think that's really interesting and I think it plays into some of the stuff that we do with the prosthetic and orthotic stuff in the clinic. There's also a stigma of having a limb that is lost or gone and being there, hearing that story, also being around other people that have had that, has been so impactful, and I think that's one of the things I think just healthcare in general is we forget the aspect of the human behind anything that's going on, and I think that's also a very important part of any of this, whether it's the HIV stuff, whether it's any of the myriad of sicknesses that you follow, but also things like people that have had an amputation, people with diabetes, any of those other things. There's a human behind that and I think, more than anything, that is the most important and I think that's what that sort of empathy also breeds success ultimately in the end.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we talk about public health as kind of a triad and there's actually a fourth part of that that we've started adding in but it's quality, cost and access. And so when we think about how do we improve access, how do we improve quality and decrease cost that's like the triad of public health, and I think what you're talking about is access. The person behind the issue being able to access services, being able to not just have to go two days on foot to go find a clinic, but have the clinic come to them or whatnot. So and these are some of the trade-offs that we manage in public health is, you know how much good can we get out of the resources that we have and bringing those services to the patients. But when they recognize how much effort is going into providing them services, there's a gratefulness behind it. There's a thankfulness behind it. I mean just thinking about the humanity of it.
Speaker 2:When COVID was happening, I remember when I got COVID and the nurse asked me you know, over the last five days, who have you interacted with?
Speaker 2:We need to tell those people that you have COVID.
Speaker 2:I just remember being devastated by that, that potentially that I was infecting them, you know, and that gave a lot of humanity and empathy and understanding for what people are going through when they find out that they have HIV or when they find out that they have an infectious disease and having to disclose to their partners, or having to disclose to their community or not, right. So it's just kind of that discussion and those are really really tricky discussions that we have to have with the patients and being there to not provide judgment, do it in a very neutral way, do it in a way that gives dignity to them, to their family members and to their partners, is a way that we can hard on the stigma and the shame around disease or around illnesses is something that really is an access barrier. The first part of public health or the first part of clinical health is really access, and so if you're breaking down some of these barriers from a human centered perspective and a patient centered perspective, you'll have a lot more success in your service delivery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's a good point I'd love for you to just share, you know, obviously it's not HIV but then your interaction just from a public health level with the and we'll narrow it down to, let's say, the amputee population or somebody that has had an amputation. What do you see? And you've been to a lot of different countries and there's need everywhere. How does that tie in to delivery of, say, prosthetic and orthotic care?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think a lot of the countries that I've worked in, lived in, you know, disabilities is a really tricky part of the conversation because there's so many other diseases that are impacting and there's so many other people that are, you know, that have amputations or that need support in that area. It's really daunting, right, Because even if you get a prosthetic limb or if you get an orthotic, you're still having to navigate some of these, you know, stairs or uneven terrain and stuff like that. And so you don't realize I was on crutches cause I broke my pinky toe, um, and I was even in my office and I was trying to figure out how to get into my office because I was on crutches and it's a push door and I thought how am I going to get into this office? Um, and this is just one example of something that people have to live with every single day that there is not that community level commitment to providing people with disabilities or are other abled with accommodations that would allow them to function as somebody else might.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think that's an interesting point and I think one of the things that I've found interesting and probably you have now, with the crutches and all that is accessibility is a big deal and this world is not accessible, even here in the United States. I mean, I use the example when I went up and had to get dad because he had fallen at the airport and went into the airport bathroom and they had no handicapped stalls. Like it was a handicapped family stall, one of them on some hallway in newark and it's just crazy. And you know these ramps that go down and I mean they don't. When you're walking them, you know not a big deal, but when you're on something with wheels, that's something else. So I think that's uh, that's also very interesting.
Speaker 2:Um, well, and just maybe to that point, I think, from a public health perspective, it'd be looking at what does it look like to impact policy in development of buildings, cities, communities, in order to consider some of the disabilities and you know the abilities of other people, and so that's where you have.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily market driven per se, but it's definitely something that, from a government perspective, you need to consider and you need to put those policies in place to protect the vulnerable in your community. And those are people you know, at CDC or at the national or the state level, that those are the people deciding on what the code is in construction. Those are the people that are pushing for something that might be a little bit more expensive in building because you have to build bigger stalls or you have to build, you know, ramps or whatnot, but those are the protections that public health considers and thinks about in terms of a population level. So that's why you have, in new construction, you have wider doors, you have ramps or you have elevators that are bigger, wider, whatnot, to accommodate some of those things, Not necessarily because it's more efficient or effective in terms of cost, but because it provides the ability for access for people that have disabilities or are other abled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's great and I think it's super important and knowing that, hey, there is potentially going to be a cost of that somewhere, it has to be borne by somebody. A lot of times that's where a government does step in, or some regulations around it, especially if it's a net zero type of thing. I'd like to go into just a little bit more on the professional side of things and some of your development and that sort of thing. I think this is, you know, it's more near and dear to my heart because I have a younger daughter Well, I guess she's a teenager now, but you know you have I don't know if pioneered is the right word, because there's definitely been people that have gone before you but you have blazed your own trail by diving in as a, you know, female in the workplace professional doctor, education, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:What would you say to young female professionals getting into the field? And the other reason why I think this is super important, specifically for the orthotic and prosthetic field, because it's been dominated by males, but there's a significant amount more females coming into the field than ever before, which I think is fantastic. I think the care is also getting better because of that. But there are always barriers, right, and you have essentially noted the barriers, but you've never made an excuse not to level up, I guess because you're a female and not that it even matters and it shouldn't matter, which is kind of crazy that we're having the discussion, but I think it's important for professionals that are female to know some of the ways that you've gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really hard to know where to start. On that I would say this is a time in history where there are so many opportunities. There are so many opportunities for men, women, and there's more opportunities for men to go into what they call a pink collar job, like nursing, or for women to go into a more blue collar field like, maybe, orthotics and prosthetics. There's just every single year you see more and more people kind of diversifying what they're going into because they're passionate about it, of diversifying what they're going into because they're passionate about it. And I think the thing that I recognized the most when I thought you know, I don't think a lot about me being a woman in a professional setting, quite frankly, that much. But I do remember one moment where I was in a meeting with mostly men that were a decade, two decades older than me and I was looking around and I was feeling very insecure about it and kind of not confident. And I looked around and I looked at their faces and none of them cared. They didn't care, they just didn't care. They didn't care that I was younger, they didn't care that I was a woman, they didn't care, they just wanted somebody competent. And that's when I just realized, like these are all people too, and when I was comparing myself or thinking that they deserve this more than I do, it's kind of this like I mean not to get into like too much, like woo-woo or whatever, but like shame, right. Like shame is this, like very low state of being, and it reduces and removes all of your power. And so when you do have that and it creates this victim mentality of like well, because I'm this, because I'm this, because I'm this, I don't have this and it's just not the case, and so maybe I'm crazy, but every single day I wake up and I say I have all the resources available to me, I have what it takes to get to here, and that's not just for women, it's for men too.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's a lot of young professionals that have insecurities as well, you know, across the board, and so I think, if you, I just had to step into my power. I had to step into what does this mean? That I have the resources available, I have the knowledge, I have the competence, I have trained in these areas, and I think that people respect that, and I recognize that we've had to come far. I've seen the movies. We've been in those situations where you know you're kind of, you know people interact with you based on their own experiences with somebody who might look like you or whatnot, and then you change their experience by being confident, by being warm, by being competent, and then they start to sort of shift their mentality around some of these things. And that's not our job is to change people's minds, but it does give them a different experience.
Speaker 2:And so I would say to the women out there that are interested in prosthetics and orthotics don't worry about it, get into it, do your job, know how to do your job well and be good at it, and there will be plenty of opportunities to go out there and do that work. And I'm not saying that there's not differences between men and women and how they work, but it's kind of just recognizing that we all come with something. We all come with some sort of insecurity about, you know, maybe, our background or whatnot, our gender issues, our differences, our racial differences, our professional differences, even our educational differences. And recognizing that, you know, in this day and age you have YouTube, you have all the resources that you need to gain the impact or the insight and the education that you need to get to where you are. And so, yeah, to those young professionals out there I would just say, like, know your power, know where you can make a difference, train well, work hard and Go in confident.
Speaker 2:I think people respond to confidence and they respond to people who want to have the same value. I do think that it's really tricky when you go in with a little bit of a victim mentality because people don't know how to interact with you. It's a little bit nerve wracking, right, because they're like, well, do I have to, like, help you overcome your victim mentality? Do I have to be your hero? Do I have to be your guy? You know some of these things, and so I think that once you go in with that confidence, or once you go in with a you know, like you know your stuff, they don't have to manage that you know. So it's not very well thought out for some of the things that I'm thinking about right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, no, I think that's good and I mean, it sounds like you've been in some professional like situations where people it's it's great that you have been in and it's like, hey, you're the competent one in the room, you're going to do this, doesn't matter your gender, age, what have you. Sometimes that's not the case, but what you're saying is that the audience doesn't matter. Like you know, you've got all the resources, you're confident, you go in. It's not your job to help them figure out whether you're qualified. It's like I'm qualified here, I am, I'm off to the races, exactly so I think that's great and I think that there's probably people in your life that have helped you along the way too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean men, women, have helped me along the way. This is maybe one thing that I would offer to the young professionals out there as well. I think a lot of times we think about this is just something that's been on my heart a little bit about. You know our supervisors, our mentors, our champions are. You know the people that are kind of helping us go from one place to the next and maybe just like a little bit of coaching out here is, you have to know who these people are.
Speaker 2:Your supervisor can't be all of these things for you. If you want to progress in your career, you have to find these people, all of these people, a mentor, somebody that's one more step ahead of you, that you can ask questions to. Take 20 minutes. Ask them. Hey, can I get some advice from you on X, y, z? People love to give advice, love to talk about themselves and love to give suggestions. So those are your mentors, your coaches. Coaches are people that are going to ask you questions to bring the best out in you. So those aren't necessarily people that are going to give advice all the time, but they're going to pull out the best in you. You have to find those people as well, who are going to who, who's going to ask you tough questions, who's going to help you get really honest, and some of those people are going to pay as a coach and some of those people are just going to be naturally in your life or colleagues or peers, and I think that you know your supervisor can be some of those people or those roles, but not everything. And I would say this is my biggest advice for people Network network network. This is my biggest advice for people Network network network.
Speaker 2:Think about those people who you know where you want to go in your career and go make relationships with them, those decision makers, about people who can hire. It's okay to go, you know, around the organization and just ask for a 20 minute, you know informational interview with them about their job, what their day to day life is, if you want that job, or you know asking, you know just showing up in the office and interacting with them in the break room or whatnot. So that's like networking, right. And I think the one thing that I didn't recognize until just recently is the champion. The one thing that I didn't recognize until just recently is the champion.
Speaker 2:Who is the champion in your life, and that's going to be the person that, when you're sitting around the table deciding who's going to get the next job, they're at that table and they're going to vouch for you and you have to figure out who in the organization are those people right? And then you make a relationship with them and, in different ways, you can ask them to be your champion. They're not necessarily your mentor, they're not necessarily your coach or your supervisor, but they're the person that has recognized your value to the organization or to the work or the effort that you're doing, and they're going to, as we say, take your papers in and vouch for you. And those are the people that you really need to start making relationships as well. When you and those are the people that you really need to start making relationships as well.
Speaker 2:When I realized that these are the people that I need in my life to progress in my career men, women, professional diversity, all these things I expanded all of my relationships, I pursued different relationships, I got exposure. I got, I got to speak in front of a lot of people, because I wanted to make sure that all of these people were in my life and that I could then, you know, tap on them when I not needed to, but like as I progressed in my professional career. So it's not necessarily enough to do a good job, you have to get exposure and you have to have the right people see your good work, to progress you forward.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really good point and you touch on the speaking side of things and how important communication is. So even if you're good, if you're a poor communicator, people may not see you as good, right? So a lot of people that are good communicators that maybe not be good at their job there's plenty of those too, and they have a lot of opportunities. So if you're truly good at your job and you can work on your communication, it sounds like the world is wide open.
Speaker 2:I think if you can define with clarity what is the problem that you solve for them, for the organization, you will get far, and I think that takes the person out of it. You know, if people are like I get so nervous in an interview and I'm like, but you're literally offering them in an interview, you are offering them a solution to their problem, and then it takes away the nerves, right, because it's so important that they clarify or that they solve their problem and that you are there to solve their problem. And that's what I say. Go into an interview thinking how can I solve their problem, how can I be the product that solves their problem or that solves the problem of the organization?
Speaker 2:If you don't know their problem, if you don't know the organization's problem, you're going to have a very bad interview because it's going to be all about you. People don't want to hire you. They want to hire a solution to their problem, and so that's why communication is really important. Anything that you do in your work, how do you tie it back to I'm solving a problem for the organization, I'm solving a problem for my supervisor, for leadership or whatnot, because then you are seen as a problem solver and people want to hire problem solvers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. Tell me about some of the the speaking stuff that you have done. I mean you, was it a TEDx thing that you did, or what was so that? And then you had the opportunity to actually speak at headquarters too before. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think this is in any industry. You look at where are people gathering to hear what people are saying, and so I I mean our, our annual conference at CDC uh, for the global health programs, I thought let's do it. You know so we. Um, you know, when the announcement came out for people to health programs, I thought let's do it. You know, so we, you know, when the announcement came out for people to sign up for speaking, I signed up for as much as I could and I got as many speaking opportunities as I could. So a couple of them were TED talks and so there were five to seven minutes, and then a few of them were more professional, academic topics.
Speaker 2:Just this year I went to the Global Health Security Conference in Australia and did a speaking engagement for working with migration issues in Latin America, and so it's just kind of going after it, you know, looking at where are those opportunities to go speak, signing up for them, learning what the audience wants to hear and, again, solving their problems. You know, by giving of your experience. But you're also guiding them to apply your experience to their work and what they're doing, and that then helps them engage with what you're saying and the that then helps them engage with what you're saying in the content, because kind of nobody really wants to hear about you. They want to hear about how what you are providing helps them in their lives. Either it's entertaining or it's going to help them solve, you know, an issue professionally or personally in their lives. I wish I did more speaking events.
Speaker 1:Quite frankly, I'm so passionate about getting the word out about the prosthetic and orthotic field is because it is important, it's, it's life-changing. There's not a lot of people out there communicating about that, and so I think that's that's important. Let's let's reminisce a little bit about some funny stuff, I guess with childhood stuff. So, for those that don't know, this is my sister, Janelle. We grew up in Ecuador, spent a short amount of time in Kenya and then we moved back to the United States when I was 14 and you were 12, I guess, Moved back to North Carolina, and so if you know anything about missionary kids, you know we're not necessarily known as the most stylish people.
Speaker 1:Coming back to the United States was a little bit of a shock to the system. The good thing is where we landed, which was Boone, North Carolina. They seemed to accept everybody, including the guy that shows up in rayon shirts and Wranglers and Converse high tops, reacts at the time. But I mean, I think one of the things that's neat is it's definitely shaped who we are, and so what are what are kind of some some childhood memories, that, um, that you remember vividly, and it could be about you know us or what has shaped you as the person you are today.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was just thinking of some funny stories, um, very interesting. Well, one of the things we grew up on which we thought was totally normal was on this compound, I don't know how many acres, I don't know, it's huge, and it had antennas on it because my dad worked on as a radio engineer. So I don't, I don't really know how all of that works, but there was antennas and there were wires between the antennas and then there was a you know a place where he worked on all of these things Right, place where he worked on all of these things Right. But during the day when the radio, you know, was happening, we could hear some of the radio inside the house on, like light bulbs or the microwave, I don't remember, but it was like all kinds of weird Right, and we just thought that like every electronic in our house could talk or whatever.
Speaker 2:And when you're a kid you have no idea what you think is normal is definitely not normal. And you know, we grew up being able to run outside, go wherever there were you know no security issues because it was all fenced in. So we kind of had the run of the place and we built forts and we played hide and go seek, and we, you know, played all day outside, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things where so the our only communication so to to be able to call my grandparents, my dad had a ham radio and he had a friend in the same city as my grandparents so we had this kind of standing time, which was Sunday at some time, and so my dad's friend would get my grandparents on the phone and patch it through his ham radio so we could talk to them, and that was just pretty wild. But some other funny stuff Email happened right when we were leaving, and so I remember having our Zios or whatever the computer was, and my dad got his first email and that was just wild and so that was fun. But yeah, I mean we left in the morning and didn't come back until the dinner bell when we were playing, and I mean what a really cool way to um grow up. Uh, definitely a little bit different than the way my kids have it right now. Um for sure. But in the same way there were some difficulties with that. We moved a lot, which made it difficult because we didn't have long-term, long-standing relationships really until we got back to the US, and that's where I credit my parents for having the forethought to bring us back to the United States, to make sure that we spent our whole time in school at one high school, and I think that's definitely made a big difference, and it was not the move that I wanted to make. I remember being heartbroken when we got the news that we were moving back to the United States, but it was absolutely the right move.
Speaker 1:So one funny story that I remember, though, is we were at. So Janelle is a twin, she has a twin sister named Carrie, and they look very much alike as close to identical as as you can get, probably and I remember being at some like big, big group thing. Where it was. It wasn't a concert, but it was like a gathering, and I remember you had like a purple hoodie on or something like that, and mom was like, hey, we got to go.
Speaker 1:And you know, being the good brother, I would always like, hey, we got to go. And I'd give a quick tug to your, to the hood of your hoodie. It's like, hey, let's go. And so I saw this purple hoodie and I, you know, tug it really hard, let's go. And it wasn't you or Carrie, but you know you have brown hair and uh. So, anyway, that was one of my very embarrassing moments. I forget what, uh, when that was, but then, uh, I also remember mom and dad. Uh, I love to negotiate and so when we would have guests in town, they would just send the guests with me to go to the market and, um, so that was fun. That's a different way.
Speaker 2:It's kind of hard to think like, hey, caitlin, just go ahead and Well, the reason why he's such a good negotiator is that he's very calm about it. So he'll give a price and then make it super awkward as everybody waits for another offer to be made, but he just doesn't. He has a very long tolerance for awkward silences and people will react very quickly to bring down prices. So he was really good at that. He's just like, oh man, it's just not going to work. So he's a good negotiator.
Speaker 2:I think one of the other things that I remember about Brent is that, um, I think he just grew up driving, like I think before he even started walking, he was driving, um, and driving anything and everything on the compound. My dad had tractors, there were pickup trucks, they were everything, and he was motorcycles everything. He was driving it at five years old, six years old, 70. I just thought, like kids drove, that's what I thought was normal. And so, yeah, my dad had Brent driving everywhere. He would help him with stuff, pulling stuff, you know. So it was not necessarily your normal, uh, childhood in that respect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and so a couple things. Um, I know that you're not supposed to be superstitious, but I still get superstitious. On friday the 13th, because there was one friday the 13th so true we were, we had gone and visited, like, um, we had to go get our water in these five gallon jugs and, and we would I don't know, we had three or four of them, um, and the organization that my dad worked for, they had a specific filtered water spout. So we would, you know, get those five gallon jugs and then bring them back home and that's what we would drink on for a few days. I mean, that was just the way it was. No, we could boil water and that sort of thing, but, like, this is before bottled water and all that stuff, like, yeah, they would have thought you were crazy about bottling water back then. So that's that's.
Speaker 1:Uh, so we had done that. We were coming back home, I think we got a flat tire this was Friday the 13th and then we had to um do it. Uh, we called it a dump run where we got all our trash together and I was the one that would drive, and it was on the compound, not on the public streets. But I was. I was the one that would drive, my dad would be on the tailgate with the trash and this was a big um F 100 truck and I was, uh, heading out in the field and they moved the dump site hadn't covered it up yet and I remember driving and just drove one of the tires right into the.
Speaker 1:Oh, the uh, the dump sites before they had covered it up. And so, uh, that was, that was wild, 12 years old or whatever. It was, with my dad on the back and that was a quite a jolt and so, but he was calm collecting. We jacked that thing up, put a two by four or whatever under it and got the truck out and was on our merry way and he had me keep on driving. It was like dust it off and keep going. So that was, that was interesting.
Speaker 1:Oh, one other so dad is um, he had shipped his jeep down there. It was a yellow cj5, and so we lived around 10 000 elevation, 10 000 feet, and he would go to a place that had the hydroelectric plant. That was about 12,000. And it was. I mean, it was probably not distance-wise far away, but it took forever to get there because it was windy roads and such. And I remember one time driving back and there was a. You know, the roads are like a lane and a quarter, and the roads are like a lane and a quarter, so if another car is coming you've got to get way off to the side, let them go by, and then you're on your merry way and I remember driving home and there's a big car coming up and you always give that car the right-of-way, the one that was coming up, and you always give that car the right of way, the one that was coming up and so my dad pulled over to the right side, which was essentially a cliff, and when I looked out we were literally. One of the tires was in a tree that had grown up the side of the mountain. I think we had to winch out as well from that, but those are just. You know, there was no cell phones, no, anything it was. I mean, it's really amazing that we uh, survived really this far and are kind of normal, other than the twitch and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I remember is our rides to school. So we went to a small missionary kids' school Maybe it wasn't that small, but we lived about an hour away and so there would be 12 or 13 of us that would pack into a van and we'd go to go to school every day. That was just the way it was. Yep, through the mountains. That's crazy. So those are some of the oh yeah, this is. This is one of the. So when we were in Africa, I remember this vividly In Africa. I remember this vividly. So my mom, I forget how it happened, but we loved Starburst, like Starburst were.
Speaker 2:Awesome, amazing, delicious America.
Speaker 1:But I remember she had put Starburst underneath our pillows as a surprise, and so I ate mine and then I ate yours, and I then said I didn't do it.
Speaker 2:We're just fighting about that, about, about that, right now. No, I got in trouble. Oh OK, I don't remember.
Speaker 1:You know, what's funny, though, is when I talk about the Africa stuff and people that. So I was in Kenya and I don't even know what part of Kenya we were in, but I told somebody where we were at is Tenwick or something like that. Um, they're like that is out there, that's, that's in the bush. And yeah, I remember like all my friends lived in huts and, um, we were just told not to go down by the river because you'd get eaten by hippopotamus.
Speaker 2:And it happens, people lose arms, legs and such I mean, I think what's interesting is that there's three of us, right, and all three of us have kind of interacted with our past in a different way, right. So you know, as adults, I have done the overseas thing. I did it for 16 years and did a lot of, you know, and I felt very comfortable actually moving around. And you know, it was a different environment because what I was working in is an embassy environment, not a missionary environment, but in some ways it's a little bit similar in that it's very transient. People are mission driven, people are, you know, very focused on, you know, how their life is impacted by the where they live, you work and you live and you play with the same people. And so, you know, I think, because I grew up in an environment where that was just the case and that was normal, I was able to, you know, integrate into that community fairly easily.
Speaker 2:Versus, you know, you know, carrie starting out, our sister. She started out as a traveling nurse, so she was traveling around the United States and so she was transient as well before she moved and settled down in North Carolina. Versus my brother who has kind of worked, lived, got married, settled in Raleigh, north Carolina, and has lived pretty much his adult life here but has been serving short term in Guatemala every six to nine months and kind of living out that international perspective that way. So it's just kind of different how you know third culture we call them third culture kids, any kid that grows up in a third culture and how they kind of interact with the experience that they have and how normal it is. I think the difference now is that you know third culture kids have access to all the Internet. They have access to all the things that are going on pop culture. We had none of that.
Speaker 2:I remember going into a grocery store and I saw somebody that had come back from America. They had a Dr Pepper and I was just like wow, that's amazing, you know America and versus now you have access to a lot of these things where you live overseas, and obviously the Internet and just access to instant, instant messaging and instant communication with your family, and that was just different. We did not have that when my parents took us to Ecuador. They left their family, they left my grandparents and I can imagine that was a huge sacrifice and a huge step to take to engage in that.
Speaker 2:But I think it's interesting how three kids who grew up in the same environment, with the same you know, with the same parents, with the same kind of background, and how we've perceived that childhood in different ways. But we are all in medical, in the medical field, in different ways, trying to support people, trying to support our communities, impacting where we can. And I think that that is a testimony, you know, to the work that we saw when we were kids and how impactful that was when we were kids to see that and to kind of continue that in our adult life in very different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the my favorite things, like when I interact with some people that are older and they're like man. I remember when milk was delivered to our house and I was like me too.
Speaker 2:Oh, do I? We would get the milk and then we would let it set and then we would get the cream off the top of it for ice cream, and it was the most delicious milk in the entire. Oh my god, so delicious yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we did that. We had to make our own peanut butter, because you couldn't go to the store to buy peanut butter, so we would actually roast our own peanuts. We'd have to shell the peanuts, grind them to get our peanut butter. So those were some.
Speaker 2:Lots of everything from scratch.
Speaker 1:Everything from scratch.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I don't know how mom actually made some of that stuff edible.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because supposedly that meat was super hard but Coca-Cola breaks it down. This was before the trendiness of Greek yogurt breaking down some of that, whatever. But yeah, we had some, some good food. But I mean I would say, like you're pretty adventurous on the on the food journey, I'm not really adventurous at all on that. I like I don't mind going and like especially like our stuff with the Guatemala going in and going and doing some things, but I'm not like super interested in Well, everybody has their thing about what's adventurous or what's not, and I don't think you have to be and there's no.
Speaker 1:I mean, I wouldn't mind eating pizza off the volcano, like what you did, though that was very cool, that's very cool, so anyway, well, thanks for coming on. This was been, this has been very fun. We'll release the whole thing out as well, and luckily we didn't say anything. That's just like blackmail.
Speaker 2:Although there was a confession, which is great.
Speaker 1:Oh man, yes, there was. But yes, thanks for joining us. Us and this has been another episode of the prosthetics orthotics podcast. Have a great new year happy new year.
