Transcript: SAWC Difference Makers Podcast
Episode 1 Meet the Hosts: The Stories Behind SAWC Difference Makers
Hosts: Robert Kirsner, MD, PhD, and Dot Weir, RN, CWON, CWS
Robert Kirsner:
Dot, it is so exciting to be here with you talking about wound care, and I am really thrilled that we get to do this together.
Dot Weir:
Me too.
Robert Kirsner:
Welcome to the SAWC Difference Makers Podcast, where we share stories that inspire, mentorship that equips, and the evidence behind innovations improving wound care. I’m Robert Kirsner.
Dot Weir:
And I’m Dot Weir.
Both:
And this is the SAWC Difference Makers Podcast.
Robert Kirsner:
Since this is our first episode, I thought it would be great for us to introduce ourselves, share how we got into wound care, and talk a little about what we do so we can begin building a relationship with our listeners. Dot, why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about how you got into wound care and your journey?
Dot Weir:
I’m happy to. It has been a great journey. I have been a nurse for a very long time. To give you a hint, I am just finishing my fifth decade as a nurse. Very early in my nursing career, only about four years in, I had the opportunity to go to a conference where I learned more about ostomy care, and that really started my journey. I earned my WOC credential—it was ET nursing back then—and while I still did some ostomy care in the early 1980s, that was probably when I transitioned to doing more wound care.
I have had a great career path. I have worked in acute care, done consulting in long-term care, and worked in home care for eight years. I also spent a couple of years in industry, which gave me a real understanding of the business side of wound care, but I terribly missed clinical practice. So in 2001, I moved into outpatient wound care, and that is where I have been ever since.
I spent most of my career in Orlando, Florida, then moved to New York following the love of my life, and now we are in Holland, Michigan. I work part-time at a hospital in Holland and still do a great deal of education and consulting.
Wound care has been the driving force behind my desire to continue working. I am at an age when most of my friends are retired, but wound care still drives me. It still makes me think, and it has been a passion throughout my entire career.
I was speaking to a group recently and said that people who go into cardiology or the ICU have that same kind of passion, but what makes wound care different is how visual it is. You can really see what is going on when we are making an impact—not only on the wound, but on the patient and how the patient changes. It has just been a wonderfully fulfilling career.
As I grew in the field, I also became very involved more broadly. I went to my first SAWC—Symposium on Advanced Wound Care—in 1988. It was the very first meeting, led by Yvonne Fowler, and I have attended every one since. I joined you as co-chair, I believe, in 2009, and it has been wonderful not only to be your co-chair, but also to see how the meeting itself has grown. Even though it is a big meeting, it still feels like a small meeting because wound care people are collaborators, and they love to connect. I think it is such a welcoming environment when people come to our meeting. So that is my story.
Robert Kirsner:
Wow, Dot, you have done a lot, and you have had a really substantial impact. Over the course of your career, what do you think has been your greatest impact on the field?
Dot Weir:
I really think it has been the education I have been blessed to provide. I feel like I am a real nurse’s nurse. I am not an academic at all, but I try to encourage people and talk with them when they want to learn about wound care in a way that makes it usable—because I do it every day just like they do.
I have been involved in a lot of things, but I think my greatest impact has been my ability to talk to people about wound care in a way that makes them feel energized about it and welcomed into it, especially when they come to the meeting, but mostly in teaching the everyday basics of wound care that we all do every single day.
Robert Kirsner:
Fantastic. Let me tell our audience a little bit about my own journey and backstory.
I am a dermatologist by training, but actually I trained in wound care before I trained in dermatology. I am at the University of Miami, where I currently serve as chair of the Department of Dermatology. I also direct the wound center at the University of Miami, a multidisciplinary wound center, and I conduct translational research.
My story starts many years ago. After medical school, our Department of Dermatology here at the University of Miami was already fairly well known for wound care. Because of that strength, I decided to get involved. I completed a two-year clinical and laboratory fellowship in wound healing with Bill Eaglstein and Vince Falanga.
From there, I went on to a dermatology residency, joined the faculty at the University of Miami, and have remained on faculty ever since. Because of that wound healing fellowship, I developed both laboratory and clinical research interests. I started a clinical research team and grew our division of wound healing in the department into what is probably the largest group in the world dedicated to wound healing. We have close to 20 faculty members who touch wound healing in some way, shape, or form in our department—laboratory scientists, clinicians, pediatric specialists, dermatopathologists, and others across the board.
I got involved in SAWC in 1994, when I became co-chair with Yvonne. It has been a wonderful journey to see not only how the meeting has evolved, but also how the field itself has evolved.
Dot Weir:
Rob, that is fascinating. We have known each other for so long, but I had never heard you talk in that much detail about the research piece. That is remarkable. Congratulations on building that team, because so much research comes out of the University of Miami, and the work you and your colleagues do—and the way that message gets translated into the kind of care I provide—has been a huge contribution.
So listeners may be thinking, “We like wound healing, but why should we listen to this podcast?” What is your vision for what we are going to try to do over the course of these episodes?
Robert Kirsner:
I think one of the key goals is to bring guests on who can share not only their expertise, but also their journeys. From my standpoint—since we will be doing some of these episodes separately—it is about bringing in clinicians and leaders who can help people understand how to use their talents in wound care, how to overcome obstacles, and how to navigate the realities of practice.
I also think listeners are going to hear new information, perhaps learn about innovations and products from time to time, and hear about things that enhance the delivery of wound care and wound healing. That is going to matter whether someone practices in acute care, home care, long-term care, or outpatient wound care.
And I think they are going to want to listen because they will hear from people they admire—people they have read, heard lecture, and seen speak at meetings.
Dot Weir:
I think the idea of hearing the stories behind the education, behind the innovation, and behind the discoveries is going to be very compelling. It gives people an anchor for what they learn and read about, because they will remember hearing someone share how that innovation happened. I think that part of it will be so interesting and so important.
We are going to have people on who really have been difference makers, but this is not just going to be theoretical. We want it to be practical. We want to talk about the bedside component of all of this.
And as I think more about it, I also see it as a form of mentorship. We all need mentors, and we all have mentors who have impacted our careers. Yvonne Fowler is still one of my greatest mentors on many levels.
I feel like this podcast can become a form of mentorship where someone can feel a connection with us. We have a lot of experience, and we will have guests on with a great deal of experience too. So we can use this as a way to mentor listeners. We hear questions all the time: How do I get started in this field? How do I learn to speak? How do I grow professionally? These are all things we can help with.
People can make a difference in their local communities and then begin to make an impact more broadly. And let’s face it—many of us are going to be retiring in the coming years, so we need to bring people along who have the energy, the new ideas, and the excitement that has sustained me for so many years. I think this podcast can cast a wide net and help a lot of people in a lot of different ways.
Robert Kirsner:
Your enthusiasm really reminds me that it is the love of the field and your passion that are so contagious. I think one of the things this podcast will do is let us tap into our guests’ passion, love, and enthusiasm and transmit that to the listener. Because if we can have engaged providers, engaged researchers, and engaged educators, that will really drive the field forward in ways we probably cannot even imagine.
So I am really hoping that we can capture not only the stories, but also the passion our guests bring.
Dot Weir:
I agree. As I think about it and start planning these episodes, I want each one to be a combination of those things: meaningful education, because people always want to learn—and they can do that while driving down the road or going about their day—but also the story behind how that person got to where they are.
There are very few people in wound care who stay in it if they are bored by it. Most everyone who follows the wound care path has a certain level of excitement. We all have stories that come back to the patient: “I had a patient who…” and then what happened next. We always circle it back to the patient, and that is what drives us. That is what keeps us going, because we see that we are making a difference in the lives of the people we care for.
Robert Kirsner:
You mentioned Yvonne Fowler earlier. She is someone who has always been tremendously passionate about wound care and about what she did, and she took that passion and created SAWC. Maybe you could talk a little bit about how SAWC has evolved from those early days—when it was a group of like-minded nurses—to what it has become today.
Dot Weir:
That is such a great history. There are still pictures circulating of the very first host committee or planning committee sitting, I believe, in Yvonne Fowler’s kitchen. For those who have not met Yvonne, she truly is an icon. When you talk about someone being passionate, that is Yvonne Fowler. She has always been an advocate not only for patients and for the specialty, but also for people—for nurses, and for bringing people along.
SAWC started as Yvonne’s idea, along with a couple of people from the original Health Management Publications team. They held that first meeting in 1988, and I was there. I met some of them, and even then the meeting felt collaborative and welcoming. I was very shy at that point in my career, and they were so welcoming that I felt I got to know them right from the very beginning.
By 1990, I had become more involved. Back then, we literally sat around after the meeting with stacks of paper evaluations, reading what people had to say so we could improve the next meeting. Do you remember that, Rob?
So the meeting has grown from what felt almost like a local meeting—but on a national level—to something much larger, with more days, more attendees, and broader reach. What may have started with a couple hundred people now brings in 2,000 to 3,000 attendees. They come from all over the United States and often from 30 or 40 different countries. It has been such a wonderful progression that it still sometimes feels like a small local meeting, just on a very large national stage. It has been absolutely exciting to watch that growth.
Robert Kirsner:
Dot, I remember the first SAWC I attended. Yvonne was at the podium and said, “Good morning,” and in unison several hundred nurses replied, “Good morning.” Coming from a medical background, that was so striking to me. I realized very quickly that I was in a different kind of culture than the one I had grown up in through medical school and training.
At the time, the University of Miami also had a meeting called the Medical Research Forum, and a decision was made to combine SAWC with that forum. The contrast was remarkable. On one side was a meeting where nurses responded in unison when someone said good morning; on the other were small, dark rooms where people were presenting research plots and high science.
It was obvious to me right away that those two worlds needed to be bridged: the clinical, hands-on world of people in the trenches trying to deliver outstanding care, and the research world of people doing high-level science and wanting it to translate into patient care. I think the merging of those two cultures has really been central to the success of SAWC. Science, evidence, best practice, and clinical care all drive what clinicians are trying to do in practice.
In some ways, that is also what we hope to emulate in this podcast. We want to continue bridging the divide between the difference makers—our guests, who have done wonderful things—and the audience that carries those advances into day-to-day practice.
Dot Weir:
I had actually forgotten that it used to be called the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care and Medical Research Forum. But I am curious—is the Medical Research Forum where the Wound Healing Society developed, or is that something separate?
Robert Kirsner:
The Wound Healing Society has been around about as long as SAWC. It started in the 1980s, primarily through a group of wound healing researchers and research-oriented clinicians. But as the groups came together—the Wound Healing Society and SAWC—it became clear that the Medical Research Forum was no longer necessary in its original form. We decided to let the Wound Healing Society take over the part of the meeting that focused on research and high science, and that was really for the greater good.
Looking back, it was definitely the right decision: to have this outstanding research organization, the Wound Healing Society, merge with this outstanding clinically oriented meeting, SAWC. It has been quite a journey. And of course, you joining as co-chair in 2009 only added to the strength of the meeting. I think Yvonne would agree that the transition has been wonderful.
Dot Weir:
Thinking about that history reminds me of when I was working for a pharmaceutical company that had a drug intended for topical wounds, and I went to my first Wound Healing Society meeting. At that time, the room signs outside the sessions were literally written on flip charts. I remember standing there staring at a word that said “apoptosis”—or at least that is how I said it then—and thinking, “I have no idea what that is.”
But that is the beauty of our meeting. Even if you are a clinician, if you see a topic in the Wound Healing Society program that captures your curiosity, you can step in and begin to learn the science. That takes your education as a clinician to the next level. One of my mentors, Diane Cooper, once told me that I needed to stop thinking so much about wound care and begin learning more about wound healing. I think SAWC offers exactly that opportunity—not only to learn how to take better care of patients, but also to deepen your understanding of wound healing itself. It is a great combination.
Robert Kirsner:
It sounds like you are as excited about this podcast as you are about the field, and I know I am. This will be a great opportunity not only to spend time with you—we enjoy working together so much on the meeting—but also, as you pointed out, to get to know our guests even better and to help our audience get to know them, their work, and what that work means to them and to patients.
I am truly excited about how these episodes will unfold and what we will all learn through the process.
Dot Weir:
I completely agree. We look forward to having you join us for future episodes.
Robert Kirsner:
The SAWC Difference Makers Podcast is brought to you by the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care, one of the leading forums for advancing wound care education, research, and collaboration—
Dot Weir:
—and Wounds, the official journal of SAWC.