Calli Cook, NP, DNP, APRN, FNP-C is the Specialty Director for the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner program at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. In this episode Calli talks about her journey as a nurse, exploring various specialties (e.g., ICU, mental health) until finding that working in a neurology practice was a good fit. Calli talks about how important her experiences in various leadership roles from when she was an undergraduate student through nursing training until now as an NP educator helped her become the servant leader that she is. Her words of wisdom include "I think patience is really important. I mentioned that as soon as I graduated, I wanted to hit the ground running, being a leader, but each role prepared me for the next role. So knowing that your first leadership role is not going to be your last and it is a preparation for the next, and to be patient as you go through each of those roles, and to take something with you, and to really pause and enjoy each moment." and "Remember that it's progress, it's not perfection. It takes a life to learn how to live. It takes a career to learn how to be an excellent educator. Each step is a step to becoming a better version of yourself as an educator. So learn from your mistakes and move forward, innovate, and inspire the next generation of healthcare providers."

Resources

• English Teacher Weekly substack
• American Academy of Neurology: Neurology Resources | AAN

Hello listeners, welcome to Educational Landscapes: Lessons from Leaders. On today's episode, we're going to learn from Calli Cook. Welcome to the show, Calli.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here and get to talk with you today. This is going to be so much fun.

It will and we are delighted to have you. So to get us going, what is your educational leadership title or titles?

So currently I am the specialty director for the adult-gero primary care NP program at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. I have been involved in education locally and nationally. A few years ago, I served as the chair and then past chair of the Consortium of Neurology Advanced Practice Providers. And that role allowed me to serve as the co-director for the APP Pre-conference, that is a part of the American Academy of Neurology's fall conference. So I've done a lot of education post-graduation of APPs, and then in my vocation, my current role as an educator in the pre-graduation, I would say.

That is amazing, that beauty of getting to see them across the continuum from when they are like what have I entered to look at us now.

Yes, it truly is because I teach advanced physiology and pathophysiology. So I see them their first semester when they come into our APRN program and really trying to get their bearings and so eager and ready to learn. And then to see them go through their program and how much growth and the provider that they have really become, it is amazing to see that whole process.

That is amazing. So I know I already jumped a little into what do you do in your roles, but can you tell us a bit more? So there's the educating the incoming, but what else do you do?

So I do educate nurse practitioners and I do lead our program. So that means that I am looking for a clinical site. So if anyone wants to precept adult-gero primary care nurse practitioner students, please email me, call me. We would love to have you. But working on to make sure they have robust clinical rotations, working with our course coordinators to make sure their didactic learning is robust. And we have excellent faculty in this program that deliver dynamic content. So these students are really well-equipped as they enter clinical and then as they graduate. So that's one facet of my job.

I also love quality improvement. I have a DNP, or a doctorate of nursing practice, and my focus was on quality improvement, how do we improve healthcare quality. So a big part of my job is looking at quality improvement in the care of patients with migraine and other primary headache syndrome. So I kind of fluctuate between those two things. And then I do see patients in clinic.

So what I'm hearing is I need to see you at some point. Off-topic, but I was like migraine, noted. Sorry if we're detracting, we'll come back.

No, about 40 million Americans have migraines, so it is something that we really want to make sure patients have access to excellent care and that they're talking with their providers. Because now we have very specific migraine therapies that can be so helpful. So yes, call me. Call our team.

Will do. Will do. Thank you. See, I always learn something in these sessions. So thinking about the range of things that you do as an educator and education leader, what skills would you say you use the most in your roles?

I think you have to have a good foundation of what your leadership style is going to be. And my leadership style, I'm a nurse and sometimes I feel like as a nurse we may overuse this, but I am a servant leader. That was one of the reasons that I became a nurse. I wanted to serve my patients. So as I transitioned into a leadership role, it made logical sense that I was going to maintain this service leadership kind of methodology in the way I work and I take care of people and serve people. So that leadership philosophy has been key.

The other thing is community building. I think that that's a big part of my job is to make sure that we have a robust network of folks to help support our students and that our students have a robust network with one another and with faculty so that they feel this peer support as well as kind of a coach support or a mentor support. So community building is a huge part of my job.

Indeed, indeed. So important. Especially when I think about the level of community that you've got to do, especially if they're going out to rotations, and where are they, and who's supporting them. Very important. Thank you. So I recognize you didn't just start off where you're at, so I would love to hear what was your journey that led to these current roles?

That's a great question and I have a lot to say about this. When I was looking at the questions, this was the one that I was so passionate about because I'm an oldest child, so I feel like I was a leader from birth. I always had an active and attentive audience in my sister, and that kind of made me want to be a leader. And I've always had this passion for leadership.

So I encountered some great people who really helped me and I learned a lot about my personality and what it means to be a leader and how to kind of almost balance the virtue and the vice. Grow the virtue, pull back the vice of some of my impulsivity. So that took time and refinement and it really took growth through each role I've had to the national role to kind of, I think, refine that more.

And as an educator, I learn every day. I am passionate about learning. So in leadership and in teaching, I am constantly learning, constantly refining my philosophy to become better. And I really like the idea of we're all becoming. It takes a life to learn how to live. We're not really at that final point yet, so I see this as a constant progression.

But one thing I'll say is early in my career I really am glad that I had so many opportunities to lead because sometimes I wonder if I didn't have those opportunities, if I would've given up. Sometimes I don't believe we identify early talent soon enough and those people aren't given leadership opportunities and then life gets crazy. My life is much crazier now than it was when I began practice. So I'm so thankful that someone really fed into me and allowed me the opportunity to lead because now it's a part of my career, where if I was just now learning to lead with all the other responsibilities I have, that would be much more challenging.

Indeed. So now I'm curious, because that is an important thing, did you find you got the opportunity to lead soon after starting as a nurse practitioner or even earlier?

So I luckily had always been involved even when I was an undergraduate with honor council and with the university senate and things like that. So when I moved to Emory, I was also part of the university senate as a student, part of the honor council again. So I'd always had these leadership opportunities.

And then when I first became a nurse practitioner, I really wanted to lead, but I encountered some resistance just because I had a lack of experience in the role, which made perfect sense. However, on the national level, they needed someone to really community build. And even though I didn't have the needed management experience, I can community build. I had a proven track record of being able to create community. And that was essential to that role, which really blossomed into other roles and was a launch pad for my career.

That's amazing. Thank you. So as you think about that and your different type of leadership roles, what do you wish you knew before stepping into those types of roles?

At first, I didn't understand the value of being that servant leader and that you really have to take a step back to allow people to flourish. Early in my leadership career, I kind of thought, "Well, I know the right thing to do and people should follow my lead because I know the correct thing to do." But as I've grown, I've realized that I don't actually know the correct thing to do for each individual. I can tell you what the objectives are to learn, what I need from you, but I can't prescribe how you learn or how you practice. And we need to work together so that we're meeting your needs and I'm actually supporting you in that servant leadership role to help you grow and flourish. So that's been a change and something that I continue to work on as a leader is to serve others and really meet them where they are so that we can create pathways for their success.

Thank you, thank you. So thinking about those pathways to success, what continuing professional development do you do in order to keep up with the needs of your roles?

Yeah, so I of course subscribe to several education blogs and Substacks and things like that to read what's going on in education, especially higher education throughout the country. I also am engaged in groups within my national organization to look at different learning modalities from micro-learning to what we do with CME. So being involved in those groups gives me a robust understanding of what people are doing throughout the country and what works and what may not work as well.

And then when I go to any type of conference or listen to a podcast, I'm interested in the education piece. How are we teaching, and how are our learners learning, and how can we make that better and more innovative for them, especially as we transition kind of post-pandemic but more accessibility with technology? How do we use technology to really facilitate those learning outcomes?

Absolutely. So for any listeners who are like, "Oh wait, what podcast? Substack stuff?" Any suggestions for folks to listen to?

Oh gosh, that is a really good question and I'll have to think about that because I listened to a bunch of them, so I'll have to get back to you on that. Right now the only one that I can think of actually, and it's more of an English, it's more of a teaching philosophy, but I've actually used, it's called English Teacher Weekly, and I've actually used his philosophy was how to teach Shakespeare and move that into how do we teach physiology from this. How do we make physiology more engaging and not just about these specific cell structures, but create a narrative about the cell.

I love that. And it's so interesting you bring it up because I was in a session with students and that was actually what they were complaining about. They're like physiology, physiology needs to be taught in different ways.

It really does. I was lamenting with a colleague the other day about the indirect and direct pathway in the basal ganglia, and we were all like, "This is so challenging. How do we make this better? How do we look to make this easier to learn?" So anytime I think you can weave story into it and you make it as a process, and this leads to this, and it's all interconnected and you get more of a narrative to it, I think it makes it easier to learn or at least it does for me. And good pictures, we need good illustrations.

I know. We love a good picture. Thank you, thank you, thank you. See? Another nugget for me to learn. So thinking about what you've done so far, what advice would you give someone interested in doing the same types of leadership roles you've had?

Sure. That's a great question. I think patience is really important. I mentioned that as soon as I graduated, I wanted to hit the ground running, being a leader, but each role prepared me for the next role. So knowing that your first leadership role is not going to be your last and it is a preparation for the next, and to be patient as you go through each of those roles, and to take something with you, and to really pause and enjoy each moment. Because there are sometimes I feel like I just rush through everything to get to the next thing, and I didn't really stop and smell the roses. And there were lots of roses that needed to be smelled. So being patient, taking your time.

My mantra is slow down to speed up. I don't know if you've ever found yourself doing this, but when you're rushing to send an email, the sentence doesn't make sense because half the thought is missing or you misspelled someone's name or these very basic mistakes because you are too quick. Or even around the house, you'll probably spill your coffee if you're running through the house versus just slowing down. And then it takes so much time to go back and address the mistake or clean up the coffee. So slow down, speed up.

I feel like you were watching me this week because I totally did that with an email. I was so sure I had sent it correctly and then the person came back and was like, "That part was incorrect." And I knew and I know better. But yes, so slow down is really important. Thank you.

You're welcome. Yes, I'm with you, Ulemu. I'm like, "Girlfriend, you are going to wreck your house if you don't take a chill pill."

Exactly. We will get it together. We will slow down. We will slow down. Thank you.

Yeah, glad to help.

So as you think about the stuff that you're continuing to do, how do you support or expand education in your profession or through your roles?

So I really want to know what my students want to do. I think first it's kind of that idea of coaching. I had really good coaches throughout my life. And my best coaches knew what I was very talented at doing and helped me to kind of grow in that talent and become a better athlete. I think about the same thing with our students as scholars. What do they want to do and how can I help them to become a better scholar, a better nurse practitioner, a better educator? So one thing I think is we have to ask the question is where do you see yourself? What do you want to do? When someone tells me they want to be an educator, I take that very seriously, especially in nursing because we need more nursing faculty. So I really want to support anyone who says, "I want to be nursing faculty and I want to learn about education."

So at Emory, we have something called the NEST program, which is a program that helps students to be successful throughout their time, whether with coursework, with just life, with wellness, all types of things to really help them in a very challenging time with a very demanding curriculum. And embedded in that program, we have graduate teaching fellows. And those students are folks who are very interested in education. So supporting them and then giving them the opportunity to lead sessions where they are the teacher, they're creating PowerPoints, they're creating skill and drill assessments where they're doing practice questions and things like that. And they're really getting to get their toes wet in what it's like to be an educator. So I love that kind of try before you buy approach and that these students are actively engaged in the education process, so hopefully we can retain them as faculty in the future.

That is amazing and so important, as you highlighted. So important. Thank you. So I'm now curious what contributed to your biggest successes thus far?

People, my community. I have so many mentors and just people who have helped me on this journey. I can't say enough wonderful things about Greg Esper and Carolyn Clevenger who are my biggest cheerleaders and support me so much. And outside of that, other people like Kim Jones and Nick Giordano who have supported me so much in trying to find a research center and what it means to look at what it looks like for me as a clinician to study migraine and things like that and really giving me a foundation there. So it's the people and the wonderful people at Emory who have really been great mentors, great coaches, and just great friends to help me through this process.

That is wonderful. And I have a question about, because I've heard a lot of people talk about the importance of mentors. When you think back, how did you go about that? Did you stumble into your mentors? Did you actively find mentors? What was your process?

So Greg and I were kind of squished together in clinics. That just happened because that was the way things worked out. And I knew Carolyn for a long time, but I directly sought her out and asked her, "Will you mentor me?" With Kim and Nick, they both knew that I had this very, very strong interest in pain research and they're excellent in that area. So it was just they welcomed me as a part of their group and helped me learn all the things and still support me so much with any question I have. "Is this a good idea? Is this not?" That's really what you need because you want that support to know am I going after the right thing or should I turn my direction because you're still kind of a novice. So I see these people as really helping me on my path and saying, "Oh no, stay the course." Or, "No, you should divert a different direction."

Thank you. And I love the range of ways that you've found your mentors because I think that's an important thing for people to recognize is there isn't a one size fits all way to go about finding mentors.

No. No, there's not. I think the thing is you want accountability. As the mentee, you want to be prepared and be helpful and be engaged. And then as the mentor, you want to know how the relationship's going to work and each of those relationships are associated with different outcomes, and I think that's very important. I don't think you have one mentor that's the end all be all.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So we've been talking about being educators means being constant learners. So what would you say are your biggest growth opportunities right now?

Biggest growth opportunities. I'm always looking for new ways to deliver challenging content. So I'm always looking for how to make complex things simple and to deliver that in this simple way to where it's easily understandable and we're taking these very complex things and making them, just breaking them down so that we can absorb that information. So that's something I'm constantly working on. Also, again, I continue to work on team building. How do I be a better leader for this program? How do I create a better team? Or not a better team, that's not what I meant to say, but how do I create a better relationship throughout the team to enhance that inter-team relationship? Because I have a great team. We don't need to improve on the people that are part of the team. They're excellent. It's me and how do I make it better for all of them?

Yeah, absolutely. How big is your team?

So it's rather small. The adult-gero primary care program is kind of midway of the specialty programs. So there are three to four faculty that I work with, plus we have our sim coordinator and our sim team that work with us. And we're really wanting to grow the program. And I'm interested in students that want to work with an adult population because our scope of practice starts from 13 and it's throughout the rest of the lifespan. So if you know anyone who wants to be an adult-gero nurse practitioner and work with that group of people, they can call me too. I'm more than happy to talk.

Go listeners. You heard her. Reach out.

Yes.

I am curious, because you've mentioned about the ... How did you end up picking that as your specialization in nursing?

So I had the opportunity to see a lot of different clinical sites when I was in nursing school. And I had a real passion to be a psych mental health nurse practitioner. But I kind of felt this pressure. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I'll say that's one thing that I continue to work with is not being a perfectionist and being authentic to who I am and realizing that I do make mistakes. But at that time in my life, I really felt like to be a real nurse, I needed to practice in the ICU.

So I did an externship in the ICU and I was just like, "How quickly can I get out of here? This is not for me. This isn't what I want to do." And I then went into, I'm actually by training a family nurse practitioner, so it was throughout the lifespan. And at that time when I went to school, it was a long time ago, so the adult-gero NP program hadn't been created yet. They were still two different programs.

So I am actually an FNP, but I've always practiced with adults. So I've never practiced with children. So in clinic, I am working in the Department of Neurology and I see only adult patients, and that's been my population of patients that I've seen.

So started in the ICU, went to mental health. And loved mental health, and then had this family nurse practitioner certification, was like, "What am I going to do with it?" And I was working in a primary care clinic. Again, that was kind of like the ICU, I was like, "This just isn't working for me. I don't feel like this is a good fit." And one of the students, one of my friends and colleagues was working in a neurology practice and she was like, "I really think you should come and check this out. You have such a strong interest in brain health." And it was a good fit. It was a good transition with all the experience I had as a mental health nurse and understanding what healthy brains, what we need to have a healthy brain, mental health. And then now, looking at the medical kind of side of brain health, it was really important. And now I can kind of tie those things together and really hopefully help patients as they seek care for neurologic conditions.

Thank you. That is so inspiring. And I think one of the things that I appreciate, because sometimes I feel like people always seem to know what they want to do, and then there are those of us who are like, "Try that? No, okay. Next thing, try that. Okay, no." It's like it's okay. The paths are both very useful to get you to where you want to go.

Exactly. And don't feel like you're only a real nurse if you go to the ICU. That's the thing. You're a nurse no matter where you practice. And I wish someone would've told me that because it would've saved me a lot of very challenging nights to realize that that's not for me and that's okay because we need people to take care of a variety of patient types.

Indeed, indeed. Thank you so much for sharing. So I would love to know, and I feel like I have a hint as to what your answer's going to be, but what do you love most about your work and what you do right now?

The people. Without a doubt, the people. The fact that I get to talk to students, I get to be with learners all the time, and then I work with these amazing faculty and taking care of patients and being in clinic, it is the people everywhere I go, and they inspire me and make me want to do better. So I just love being able to be around folks and work in the variety of settings that I do and with the amazing people that practice and work at Emory because it is such a great place to be.

That's amazing. So I'm getting towards the end, so last two questions. And I want you to do a bit of a zooming out, and as you think about your experiences to date, what would you say your passions around education are right now or what is your current educational philosophy?

So this is a tough question, Ulemu. This is really tough. I am realizing that learning takes experience with the didactic. We can teach so much in the classroom, but that is not solidified until the learner has that personalized experience.

I remember the first time I took care of a patient who had acute stroke. I knew what the NIHSS was, I knew when I needed to, my recommendations for TPA, CT, all of those things. But the experience solidified those guidelines for me. So it's matching this robust didactic education with what we do in the experience and then making that a whole. And creating these experiences with our content and layering them so that we get this complete provider that's able to do a variety of things. And that doesn't stop. That doesn't end at graduation. That continues throughout the career.

Continuing education.

Exactly.

It's a requirement of your profession, right?

Exactly.

Thank you. So I know I've spent a lot of time asking you about work, but you are more than what you do. So what are some things you do outside of work to maintain joy in life and practice?

I love that because you're so right. I am a lot more than what I do during the week and sometimes on the weekends. So outside of work, and I really think my hobbies inspire me to go to work. I really believe the play allows us to go back with this fresh creative sense.

So first, I have two greyhounds. I have a six-month-old puppy and a ten-year-old greyhound. And I walk every day, rain or shine. We get so much inspiration on our walks. I'm always looking for birds. I am a big fan of heron, so anytime I'm always on my runs or my walks, I'm looking for heron. But then we also have lots of red tail hawks around where we live. So looking for those bird watching. And I run too, so I'm outside a good bit, and that's where I find a lot of my peace and I really feel grounded.

And on top of that, on the bird nature theme, I really enjoy photography and oil painting. And I kind of vacillate with taking photos, then creating some type of piece that is either abstract or representational of the photo. So having the photo and the painting. So I enjoy that. So I try to be very creative outside of work and it just feels very grounding to me. And then I have a wonderful husband who supports all of these hobbies. And he's my best friend. And if I'm running, he's my champion. He'll come up behind me on a bicycle with a jelly sandwich and I'm like, "Yes, thank you. I really wanted that instead of a gel."

I love that. Yes. Everyone needs that support person who's like, "I won't run with you, but I will look after you."

Yes, I will feed you. And that is very important. If we're sad, most of the time it means we need a snack.

Yes, I get hangry and I've finally come to own that. I used to be like, "No, I don't." I do. I do.

Yes, definitely. Definitely.

Well, Calli, thank you so much for your time. This has been so eye-opening and I have things to follow up with you on. But before I let you go, any last words of wisdom to share with aspiring educators or education leaders?

Remember that it's progress, it's not perfection. It takes a life to learn how to live. It takes a career to learn how to be an excellent educator. Each step is a step to becoming a better version of yourself as an educator. So learn from your mistakes and move forward, innovate, and inspire the next generation of healthcare providers.

Such amazing words to end on. Thank you so much, Calli.

Thank you. It was a pleasure.