Conquering the Overwhelm of Parenting
Updated: Nov 29, 2021
Who Am I?
My name is Dakota Felckowski and I am a Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. I have been a nurse since 2014 and a Nurse Practitioner for about 2.5 years. I currently work in Pediatric Primary Care. Since the beginning, even in nursing school, I knew I wanted to be an Advanced Practice Provider and that I would eventually go back to school. I knew that I wanted to be more autonomous and the one to diagnose and treat rather than carry out orders. I started my nursing journey in the adult world of Emergency Medicine and made the transition to pediatrics in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. This is where my love for pediatrics began. Working with kids is such an amazing experience, whether they are healthy or sick. I obviously love seeing them in their healthy state, but it is also so special to be involved in their care when they are sick.
Working in the Pediatric ICU did open my eyes to the fact that I wanted to be in more of the primary care setting as a Nurse Practitioner. I wanted to be on the outpatient side of care where we are preventing illness in addition to teaching and educating. I liked the idea of dealing with the everyday things of childhood. During my education for Nurse Practitioner I did gain additional experience in the Pediatric Operating Room and spent a short time doing Pediatric Transport Team. This all culminated into what I am doing today. Each step of this journey gave me valuable experiences that I can take forward and apply to my patients.
What do I do currently?
As I mentioned previously, I currently work in a Pediatric Primary Care office where I have been for the last two and a half years. I work alongside a physician. I am seeing kids for regular well child visits in addition to sick visits. The nice thing is that we each have our own schedules and so I am working in a role very similar to the physician.
Why a podcast?
Through my time in primary care, I have really come to realize what parents are needing and the concerns that they have in addition to popular questions. This sparked the idea of, “Why not start a podcast?”. I am the host of another podcast called The Nightingal Podcast that I so the podcast world is not a new area for me. The Nightingal Podcast is a podcast designed for nurses and future nurses or anyone interested in the nursing profession. I talk about the different areas of the profession and interview guests to give others ideas of what they can do with their degree, since it took me quite a few areas to find my niche that I love. If you are in healthcare you should definitely check it out. This is where I really began to enjoy podcasting. This world is so fun because I literally googled “how to start a podcast” and did my research and started it up. It gives you the ability to provide free education. It’s amazing in that you don’t know how far your reach is going to go. I love the education aspect of my job in primary care, so why not marriage that with my love of podcasting.
But why a podcast for parents?
I realized there are a lot of questions that parents have about the everyday things of their child’s life. I often get the same questions asked on a regular basis. I also have a lot of friends and family that are frequently reaching out to me and asking me questions about their child’s health. I love educating parents, but I don’t love that parents feel that their child’s health is out of their control. I really wanted to start this podcast to empower parents. This podcast is a place where I can talk about a wide variety of health topics and answer some of those questions that I commonly get in these episodes. You have the power. You are perfectly unprepared for this. I am a new mom myself to a 10 month old son and I have questions too! We are not prepared for parenthood. Parenthood is one of those learn as you go kind of things. There is no manual for parenthood and so it comes to finding the best place to find information and you have to seek that out. This is what I love about my job as a pediatric Nurse Practitioner. The goal of the podcast is that I can answer those questions or provide information to educate you so that when something comes up you can think back to something you learned and you can feel like you can handle it. This podcast is in no way meant to replace the expertise or relationship that you have with your child’s provider. The podcast is purely educational. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s health you should go to your trusted medical professional.
What can you expect in future episodes?
This podcast is for you! I want to do podcast episodes on things I see every day but also on anything that you want to learn about. I’m thinking episodes on sleep, diet, emotional health, bowel habits and everything in between. I want to talk about specific illnesses and what you can expect as well as some basic management. Podcasting is all about the listener and I just want to show up and provide quality education.
Wrap Up
When I first started working in pediatrics I thought “how in the world can I educate parents when I am not a parent myself”. I quickly learned that you do not have to be a parent to be in the role that I am in. However, becoming a parent has made me a much better provider. I do feel that I did a good job before, but everything changes when you become a parent. My connection to the children and other parents just feels stronger now and how I think of things has greatly changed. The biggest thing that made me realize the need for this podcast is when I am making the diagnosis of RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) in the clinic. When I make this diagnosis, the majority of the time parents just start crying. Most of the time I feel like their child is actually doing very well, but unfortunately there is so much fear surrounding these three letters R.S.V.. Parents automatically think the worst and unfortunately social media has created a lot of fear and there is a lot of misinformation out there regarding this virus. I want to be a good informational resource so that when your child is diagnosed with something you can react with knowledge and preparedness.
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