Ep10 – Welcome to Advancing Wound Care

Welcome to the Tour Kidney Podcast from Advancing Wound Care, an online education platform for clinicians.

You're with Monica and Donna, two advanced practice nurses with decades of experience in hard to heal wounds burrowing into prickly conversations.

So, welcome Back to episode 10 of our Prickly Podcast.

Hasn't a lot happened since between episode one and ten?

A lot has happened and we're really thankful for all of our faithful followers.

We're now at over a thousand downloads.

Mom.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

So we're just so wrapped with that and it really inspires us to keep going.

Yeah.

And go ahead, break the news.

Well, it doesn't have to be made, but you will have heard in the intro notes just there, we've had a bit of a name tweak.

Not a complete change, but we have very much evolved into Advancing Wound Care.

This is still going to be a prickly podcast.

It's going to still be our TUA Kidney podcast because we are Australian and we are prickly, so we can't get away from the TUA Kidney.

But we're now coming under the umbrella of Advancing Wound Care.

And we wanted to devote this episode to telling you all about our new venture of Advancing Wound Care.

Yeah.

And it really started, I suppose it's really evolved without the relationship we've had over the years, always.

And this is how the podcast started.

We start talking to each other and ra controversial topics or topics that really bugged us as it's progressed.

What's led us to this is that we were in the process of starting something new.

And in the meantime, you'd already had your business, Good Wound care.

Yes.

And then my role lost its funding.

So that put me in what I think is now a brilliant position where I can venture out into a different space.

And the other thing too that's been happening on my side is my socials have been growing wonderfully and we get so much positive feedback, but I'm really busy in my private practice.

As that natural evolution has come along, we come together to form Advancing Wound Care, which will be an online platform for wound care education for clinicians.

Yeah.

I was put in a position where I no longer was in my publicly funded role.

And it put me in a position to think about where I wanted to go in the future.

And we'd already started working on this new venture, so now it's sort of escalated to the point where up to podcast 10 and telling you all about our new business.

So we both are still doing things in the background, but coming together is a Real formal way for us to get more knowledge out to the people who really need it, because we've had so much feedback and this is happening in our clinical practice as well as online, that where can we go for more education that's like this.

And we feel as though we have a unique style of delivering education.

We do.

And I think we've also set about working out where the gaps are in wound education because at the moment it's really, you know nothing about wounds to 100, you become a wound expert and whatever that means.

But we want to fill that gap where people may not necessarily want to become wound experts, wound consultants.

And we can't use the word wound specialist.

That's another prickly topic.

Well, not in Australia we can't.

And we want to fill that gap where people clearly have to work with people with wounds, but they may not know what to do, lack confidence.

These people often have symptoms of pain, odorous wounds, and people are feeling helpless out there.

And so what may happen is when you come on this journey with us, you may end up wanting to learn more and advance your practice.

And that's why we're calling we're part of a continuum.

You know, it doesn't matter where you start off, you can end up being very advanced or you may stop midline and say, well, I'm happy with what I know about wounds at this point in time.

It makes me a much more confident clinician.

Or it may engender peak an interest in developing your knowledge and expertise further.

So we're here to offer to anyone on that continuum, really anything that they want.

And you can hop on and hop off whenever you want.

Yes, absolutely.

And I feel as though this would be a good point to talk about our branding and our logo and our website, because we would love everyone right now, now to go over and jump on our website, which is advancingwoundcare.com don't forget the AU.

We are in Australia.

It's certainly open to anyone outside of Australia, though.

Oh, yes, as will our online education be.

So please keep following along.

We know we have a large Australian contingent, but we also know we have a large non Australian contingent.

So, you know, everyone's welcome here and the content will be generic and relevant to everyone as well.

But please do hop on our website.

We'll talk about our logo development because we feel as though that's a good way to also describe why we're here more than Mon has, similar to what Mon has said just now as well.

But while you're on the website, Please.

If you would like to get updates from us, we will be going down the path of sending newsletters and to get.

We don't have online education available right now.

This is still in development.

So jump on there and you will certainly get on that.

And let's talk about the branding, because I initially thought it was a little bit wanky, but I'm actually really excited about it because a lot of thought has gone into this.

Do you want to talk further to.

That about the head, the heart, the.

Little star and the little arrow or the big arrow?

Absolutely.

So our branding is based on the words advancing wound care.

But you'll notice because wound people are details people.

It's all in the details.

There's some little nuances in the wording.

So the first thing I'll point out is the little arrow that's in the capital A of advancing wound care for us, that arrow is about advancing and mon eluded further.

That could be advancing whether you're an early career nurse mid or later.

And you want really true, truly advanced.

But everyone's advancing at some point on that continuum.

So the arrow in the A speaks to the growth that happens when you feel supported right.

Where you are to advance your knowledge, whatever that happens to be at the starting point.

So we're really happy to lead with the A. Yeah.

And the advancing of knowledge.

Let's talk about the star over the I.

And that represents excellence, not perfection.

And sometimes even the term excellence can appear a bit.

Well, you said wanky.

Yeah, wanky or pretentious.

But really what it means, it comes from real practice and continued learning and practical application of the tips that you're given.

Not when you go to a conference, have all these aspirations to learn from the conference, come back, bring it back to your practice.

But I remember a speaker at the last Wounds Australia conference said that only about 3% of knowledge gained in a conference setting is actually translated into clinical practice.

That's scary.

I know.

And so we're in a position where maybe we're one of those.

One of the 3 percenters that come back and really try and help translate what we've picked up in all these environments and then condense it down to something that you can really apply to your practice and improve your clinical excellence.

That's a really good description.

It leads me to the next part in our logo, the picture of the face inside the O of wound.

And it's very Good that it's inside the word of wound.

Because there is always a person behind every wound, whether that's the wounded person, their family or the clinician as well.

So it's not just, you know, a task oriented, dry, clinical thing.

It's about people.

Yeah.

Delivering that wound care, that wound management.

And we really wanted to.

We really want to make the online education about the people who are learning and that's why your feedback's so important.

And that's really driven us to this point.

Yeah.

And.

And I remember, remember all the symbols we tried to put into the zero like a brain.

That was a bit funny.

A light.

We had a few.

Do we have a microscope or a Bunsen burner or something like that as well?

We're trying to.

Then we settled on the person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the heart.

I think that reflects what we know to be true and that's the people who seek out this work genuinely care.

And it's often it's.

Yes, it's about the wound and yes, we know people want to know what dressing to put on it.

But I think underlying it all is often these people are in pain or they have severe itch or the wound smells or it's exudating and often that's lymphorrhea.

But anyway, another topic.

Yes.

So.

Yes.

So that's what the C stands for.

So that's our logo.

We're pretty proud of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, it really is ours and probably maybe other people out there don't care.

But hopefully when people look at our logo logo, they'll try and do a Where's Wally?

And try and find those symbols within the logo.

Absolutely.

It look for us, it really helped clarify by why we're here in the first place and what we're going to deliver.

So whether you're that early career clinician, doesn't have to be a nurse, whether you're already that go to person in your team or you feel as though you lack confidence in decision making.

And confidence is one of those things we have talked about in all our previous episodes.

Gee, I think if we did a word search we'd find the word, you know, confidence come up a lot.

And we're often talking about it's okay to be unconfident.

Yeah.

Be confident to be unconfident.

But we want to grow your confidence no matter where on that learning continuum you are, so that your clinical impact will be better.

And we want you to avoid being caught in the middle, you know, and.

Not knowing, that's a lot.

A lot of people struggle with that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And expected to know without being taught.

Well, that's a huge ask.

So hopefully we can narrow that gap and particularly around all the tips and tricks and hopefully with the To a Kidney podcast you can see where we're coming from.

Hopefully we've provided you with some tips already, but there's so much more that we want to offer.

But we're really hamstrung with some of the work that I was doing as well.

But now because I'm a free agent, definitely I can add more to our new.

This new venture for sure.

Absolutely.

And it will slightly change my socials as well.

And I have a lot of followers on TikTok.

I'm about up to 26k or something like that.

I think that is so cool, Donna.

One of the big groups of people I have on there.

I will still keep delivering content, but it will morph a little bit as we develop up advancing wound care and keep this podcast.

We will do a lot more on social.

So I really want people to keep following me on TikTok.

But we will have an advancing wound care social.

We will have Instagram, Facebook, we will still have YouTube.

We may have LinkedIn later.

We've discussed all of those possibilities.

But on my socials, I have many, many early career or student nurses follow me and they are saying all the time how unprepared they are feeling.

Almost fearful.

People putting out posts help me.

I'm doing my first shift, you know, in aged care, on the wall.

I feel completely unprepared.

I don't know anything about dressings.

I'm really uncertain about what.

When I'm scared.

So we absolutely understand all of those issues.

And these are people in our clinical practice, in our own practices, in the various roles we've had, that we have dealt with all the time.

So we do get it.

Yeah.

And we still have.

I have a profound memory.

I don't know whether I've spoken to it previously on a podcast, but I remember a patient that I had had a sacral pressure injury.

And this is when hydrocolloids were first developed.

And I put on a hydrocolloid.

Yes.

And I put that hydrocolloid on that sacral wound.

And when I went home, I could not sleep.

I was worried about had I caused harm?

Was I going well?

Not well.

Yeah.

Because it was in such a risk averse environment.

Now am I going to get in trouble?

You know, I was so worried about it and now I'm thinking Oh, wow.

That was such displaced anxiety.

Anxiety.

And hopefully again, once you come with us on this journey, you'll feel a lot more confident and probably laugh earlier about some of, some of the things that you were anxious about in your earlier stages of your career.

I really do.

I do too.

And we.

So we have been that clinician and we constantly have people coming to us with.

I have the same thing.

I was awake all night worried about which way I put the silver on or did I overlap the wound edges or did I get that pressure injury stage.

Actually, was it iad?

Yeah.

And even those people who are caught in the middle, I have a lot of feedback on that as well.

And I have been that person.

Where there's.

There may be not one single lead clinician or maybe don't have access to a lead clinician, like a nurse practitioner or consultant or a clinical nurse specialist, where someone's using zinc cream, someone wants to use another type of barrier and something else, and you're caught in the middle.

How do you navigate those real world problems at the bedside when.

And I think it's, it's a bit like a moral injury for a lot of clinicians when we see others perhaps not doing what we think is perhaps not the right best practice, but we don't know how to step in, advocate, and even just properly communicate to improve the practice.

Yeah.

And maybe people don't have access to a lot of contemporary products either.

There's all of these issues that affect decisions about management plans, not just the dressings.

But even at our level, we still have so many questions.

You know, we were talking about IAD and the barriers that we use.

There's still no evidence out there to say whether you can use medicated creams under a barrier or over a barrier.

And so some companies say you can't use our barrier products when there's a coexisting infection.

Well, we know, a lot of us do like.

We do.

They really, really do.

Yeah.

And then one company has said to me, we've got evidence that, that you can use our product, medicated creams under or over.

When I talk about medicated creams, I'm talking about antifungals and topical corticosteroids.

Yes.

And one company has sent me a letter once saying, we've got evidence.

And I've asked them for evidence and it's been a one page or half a four page testimony from a dermatologist in the US saying, yes, you can use these over and under the barrier product.

I'm saying, well, that's not evidence.

And so we've still got these questions.

And so then this is where you and I can talk when we're going to have a session on or a podcast on IAD specifically.

There's something coming up very soon about in one instances, do we maybe put it under or over the product?

So yeah, yes, we'll unpack all of that.

So there's lots of different directions we can go.

Also with topics.

I'm sure people will be wondering what we're going to lead with and what format.

And there'll be a few different formats of the education.

All that will become clearer in time as we develop up the website.

I'm wondering if it's worth recounting a few of the other topics we've talked about that potentially we'll be looking at earlier on.

One of the things we were discussing or planning recently was talking about the use of topical antimicrobial.

Even the term is controversial.

Antimicrobial dressings, what does that mean?

When to use them, when not to use them?

What are the controversies there?

How does that impact the clinical decisions that different levels of clinicians are going to make around topical antimicrobials?

I find that's a very popular topic on my socials.

It can be a bit polarizing when to use antimicrobials as well.

So that's something we want to look at.

We were talking also previously about the determination of aetiology of ulcerations on the foot between diabetic foot pressure injuries.

When are those aetiologies ascribed?

What do the different guidelines say about that?

Because there's a few different ones as well, and it's not altogether clear, we feel.

So that's a big area in clinical practice.

And so even this morning, what we were doing, we were looking at all the topics that over the year, wherever we've been either together or apart or when we've happened to ring each other, we'll start yabba, yabba, yabba, yabba.

And next thing.

Great podcast topic.

So what we've done is every time that thought bubble appeared, we'd put it into a spreadsheet or whatever, a document.

So today we set about looking at all the topics that we've got planned.

And I mean, I haven't counted them, but I think they're about 200 topics.

Oh, we're fine for years.

Yeah, we've got a lot.

And that that's where we need you to keep giving us the feedback because the more that you ask for certain topics, the higher that's going to get on our list.

We have a fair idea of what we want to deliver, but we are absolutely going to rely on your feedback because that's where we're going to develop up what the sector is telling us they want.

And also I'm doing other things regarding research as well.

In a.

Well, in a few weeks time I'm heading off to a university to do some statistical analysis on some of the work that doing with some collaborators and so that's really exciting.

And that's in the spa, in the space of circulation.

Can I say that will be very exciting.

We're watching.

That's a teaser participation.

Yes.

And have submitted a number of abstracts for different conferences so hopefully at least some of them will get accepted.

And also, I don't know whether I. Oh, I forgot to announce this.

I'm now a board member on the Australasian Lymphology Association.

Huge congratulations.

Yeah, but I forgot.

That's great.

There's so much happening.

That's great.

One of the things we realized when we were developing up our website and working out which direction we were going to go was that between us, Donna Nyah and Monica Samalik have over 50 years of experience in wound consulting and clinical leadership and yet we feel as though we are very well grounded in the realities of clinical practice.

But when we looked at those figures on paper, 50 years is a phenomenal amount of time and we feel as though there is strength in this strength in us coming together to deliver online education.

And you know what I think is so unique, not so unique, but one thing that we can add value to is that we have maintained our clinical practice.

So we've you and your business now and also in your previous role, but we've both had experience at a macro level working across numerous health services, numerous organisational cultures, even from my perspective, across state borders, so different jurisdictions and the complexities around procurement, very, very complex.

But despite all that macro level view and strategic responsibilities, we've still maintained our clinical practice.

So.

And that I think gives us a legitimacy.

It really, really does.

We've got a breadth of different things we have done previously and are currently doing.

And just on reflecting and you saying that I do a lot of telehealth consultations interstate, my private practice is to a geographical area, but there's a lot of industry consultation as well.

I'll say too much about some of the things I'm doing this year, but yes, we're always doing things in the background with probably both of us working more than full time.

Yeah.

With our hands, with people.

It's.

It's the people in the business and with people who have wounds.

And we bring different skill sets to.

To this business.

And I think, again, even though they're different skill sets, we just think so similarly on so many topics.

We will continue to disagree on things.

We will continue to be prickly, but that's okay.

That's how.

That's the realities of wound management.

Yeah, I wanted to pick up on that comment.

That was really great, Monica, when you said we've got such a vast, you know, differing levels of experience and we can bring that together.

I wanted to pick up, because we've mentioned this so much in our previous episodes.

One of the things that we are the same in is that we are both accredited lymphedema practitioners.

That's with the Australasian Lymphology Association.

We've got links to that previously and there'll be more of that coming because that is something we are quite.

I can use the word passionate because we really, really are.

You will know that if you're following us.

Compression.

Assessing chronic edema, lymphedema, lymphorrhea, leaky leg and how that interfaces with wounds is right up our alley.

And we will be developing up in our suite of education components of chronic oedema and how clinicians can advance their knowledge to help the wound care.

We find that's a really big gap and that's also what people are reporting back to us.

There's a separation between, I think the lymphedema, chronic edema world.

I'm going to be a bit prickly here, and the wound world.

I think there are a lot of bodies coming together to shorten that gap.

But clinically, where people are at the bedside, no matter what sector that is in there is.

There is a gap that exists there.

I think.

Yeah.

Is that reasonable?

Oh, geez.

Yeah.

And I think the.

So I think from a practical term, I think that wound clinicians who have not done further education in lymphoedema, chronic oedema, or don't have a really good grounding think that lymphoedema stops at the distal patella.

Yes.

And I think that time and time again becomes a tripping point for us clinically.

And so, yes, we may compress below the knee.

And I think people have heard me say this before, but then the wound recurs and I think it's because we haven't really addressed the more proximal aetiologies for lymphoedema.

And I think the assumption from our wound colleagues is that it just basically stops at the knee.

And I used to be that clinician, I have to say.

Yeah.

I was accepting of when people got knee swelling and I was compressing below the knee.

Oh, well, that means that it's working.

Yeah, not necessarily.

But do you know how many times I was responsible for stuffing up the shape, the conical shape of a leg.

Hugely same.

It's quite embarrassing to think about those things, actually.

And maybe the reason why there isn't a proper term for the term muffin toppings.

When you've compressed the lower leg and then you've got swelling above your compression, people don't stop and think, oh, well, shouldn't I be compressing higher?

Or shouldn't I at least be working out what else is causing the swelling higher up?

Or is it just more advanced stages of lymphedema, chronic edema?

And where do I go to get that help and that knowledge and those resources to manage it, you know?

So we will absolutely be including a lot in our suite of managing chronic oedema.

So that's exciting for us.

So thank you for listening to our episode 10, which is our first Advancing Wound Care episode.

We will still be two echidnae just under the banner of Advancing Wound Care.

Keep the feedback coming, as we've said.

Are there any last words you would like to share?

Monica?

It's been great to finally introduce this.

I have to say, I'm just so excited.

I've been waiting for this after so long.

We really, really have.

And I have to say we have been doing this for over a year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But now we're going to consolidate and start this new venture where hopefully.

Well, not hopefully, it's going to fill a gap.

I.

It's clearly going to fill a gap that.

Fantastic.

So, yes.

So thank you to our followers and.

And in anticipation, future followers and we.

Hope to see you on our Advancing Wound Care page.

And all our contact details are on there.

Yeah.

And links to all our socials.

If you can't find us.

That is one thing that we've had a little bit with the TUA Kidney name.

It is still there, but typing in Advancing Wound Care will certainly get us.

Or heading to their website.

Link her in the show notes.

We'll link you to all of our places that we hang out.

Yeah, no, that's great trivia.

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, Monica.

And thank you, Donna.

Bye bye.

At Advancing Wound Care we're proud to stand alongside clinicians who lead with heart, curiosity and a deep commitment to doing right by the people in their care.

We are so grateful to have this opportunity to share our learning and challenges with you.

Hopefully this episode has inspired you to keep burrowing down to issues that bug you.

If you liked today's episode, follow and subscribe to the Toakidney Podcast on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.

If we were too prickly, we'd also like to know.

Reach out to us on our advancing wound care socials where you'll also find hints, tips and resources.

And for more value, join our mailing list on our website website for our newsletter and to be the first to hear about online education opportunities.

All our contact details and links we've mentioned are in the show notes below.

We will see you in the next episode and in the meantime, go forth, be curious and burrow into some ant nests.

But would you do what I do Take around to cover you but what you do what I do.