We welcome our first guest on the new season of the #TakeGoodCare podcast, Rosa Gynecology’s very own Brittany Bulger, APRN, as she talks about her career journey, how she came to Rosa, and more!
Transcript
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Welcome to Take Good Care podcast, an endeavor that grew out of our love for obstetrics and gynecology. Our aim and mission is to serve as a source of vital information for women of all races, ages, and walks in life. I am Dr. Mironda Williams.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
I am Dr. Deanna Guthrie.
Dr. Karen Greene:
And I am Dr. Karen Greene.
Welcome to our show.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Welcome to our show.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Welcome to our show.
Welcome to this episode of Take Good Care Podcast. I’m Dr. Mironda Williams.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.
Dr. Karen Greene:
And I’m Dr. Karen Greene.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
So, those of you who are checking us out, either on our website or our YouTube channel so you’re getting a video feed, you see that we have a guest in the studio with us today, and we’re going to introduce her in just a little bit. But this is one of the newest members of the Rosa Gynecology family who is about to celebrate just about a year of being with us, and she is continuing in a wonderful tradition that we have in our office of utilizing advanced nurse practitioners to assist us in the care of our patients.
So, even with Dr. Rosemary Schultz, when she first started, she understood and appreciated having a wide variety of providers in the office that only adds to the expertise and the compassion and the ability of us to take care of our patients when we’re there, when we’re not there, because we work in close consultation with our wonderful advanced nurse practitioners. But we’re going to get started talking to Ms. Brittany Bulger, who’s joined us in learning about-
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Mrs.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Oh.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Yes, yes.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Let me not forget, because I do not want her to be getting upset, coming looking for me.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Put it out there.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Mrs. Brittany Bulger. So Karen, kick us off.
Dr. Karen Greene:
So, Mrs. Brittany Bulger, we want people to know who you are. We need a little bit of your backstory. How did you come to Rosa Gynecology, and who are you and where are you from?
Brittany Bulger:
Well, yes, I am Mrs. Bulger, originally from Mississippi, born and raised right outside of the Jackson Metro area. I grew up as an only child for eight glorious years.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Yes, only children are the best.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Until?
Brittany Bulger:
Until a lovely sister came along. But I’ve always had a sense of wanting to help people. Didn’t know what that looked like growing up until I was introduced to nursing. I have no formal nurses in my family, so that’s why I didn’t know anything about it. But just exploring in college and actually getting a push from a chemistry professor. And he told me, he said, “Brittany, what are you going to do with this?” I had a biology major. I said, “I don’t know. I’m just here”. It was my freshman year.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
I just showed up.
Brittany Bulger:
I just showed up. And he said, “Look, you need to go and explore, shadow some people during the summertime to see what you want to do.” And I was able to shadow and I fell in love with nursing. Figured out that it’s a very versatile field, and very grateful that I chose that. And once I got into nursing school, I realized that I was drawn to the OB class, even though it was a little chaotic and hard. I think the hard classes you kind of are drawn to anyway. And so,
Dr. Mironda Williams:
You get the adrenaline going.
Brittany Bulger:
Yeah, get the adrenaline going. And so, I was able to, as a nurse in the hospital, I was able to take care of postpartum women and their babies and grew a love for that. And eventually was like, I need to do this all the time.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Wonderful, wonderful.
Brittany Bulger:
That’s my story.
Dr. Karen Greene:
So, how did you transition from being a nurse to being an advanced nurse practitioner? Because there was definitely, I would assume, some shift in, I guess, mindset of what you want to do or thought you wanted to do and how you ended up doing hospital work to office work, which is essentially what is changing what you do now as to what you were doing in labor and delivery.
Brittany Bulger:
Yeah. So, in nursing school, I was researching, okay, what are the next steps besides being a bedside nurse? And just researching, reviewing all the options. Like, okay, nurse practitioner sounds pretty cool. I can actually take care of people and be more involved in the plan of care. I’m down for it. And so, at that point, I had already picked out my school and I went to the University of Alabama Birmingham, go Blazers. And so, I already picked out my school, I knew exactly where I was going. And then, from that point, it was just, staying focused, working, keeping that goal in mind of, okay, this is what you want to do. You want to be more involved in the plan of care. You want to help young ladies.
So, at the time, I really was interested in my age group as a college student, having more resources available. For me, I don’t feel like the student health was the best place for me. And so, I was like, well, there needs to be other providers or other options that college students can go to or young ladies can go to, or whomever. And so, that’s what really inspired me. And so, I went to school, and for two years I was in that master prepared program and it prepared me very well to where I am today. So, yeah.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Well, we really have enjoyed having Brittany. She has been a quick learner and has really embraced the Rosa Gynecology DNA and how we like to do things. And Deanna, you had some things you wanted to kind of check in with her, how she even found us.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Yeah, I was going to say, how did you, well, first of all, I was going to ask, how long were you a hospital nurse or a bedside nurse, as you said before you went, because you said it sounded like as soon as you started nursing, you started looking for your schools and things like that. So, how long were you a bedside nurse before you started school for advanced practitioner?
Brittany Bulger:
Yes. So, I graduated in May of 2018. I started working in June 2018 in the NICU. And I continued working throughout that time until 2020. Fall of 2020 is when I actually started my program. So, a very scary time, but a very necessary time. So, yeah.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
So, when you think about being an advanced nurse practitioner, you talked about being a part of the plan of care. What do you look forward to doing with this career?
Brittany Bulger:
So, honestly, it’s about connection., Connection with our patients. That’s what I enjoyed as a nurse, and that’s what I enjoy doing today. And kind of building upon that, because in the hospital you may see, take care of three to four patients and then you may never see them again. I look forward to kind of building that relationship, just hearing stories from your patients. “Oh, Dr. Williams delivered my baby in 1997.”
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Really, Brittany? I thought we were friends.
Brittany Bulger:
No, it’s just a testament of how beautiful you guys have been a part of these ladies’ lives, and they still come back and they see you. And that’s what I’m looking forward to, is that longevity of care.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
And we hope that you are with us.
Brittany Bulger:
Yes.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Now, we may not be here.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
No. No, no. And I truly have a special place for nurses. My mom was a registered nurse and she came to the Grady Nursing School and then was in the bedside at Grady. But then similar story, she wanted a little bit more connection. She actually became a school nurse for the Atlanta Public School system until she retired. So, now you found out about us. How did you even… How’d we find out about you, Brittany? Tell the peoples, how did you find out about us?
Brittany Bulger:
So, social media is a great tool, you guys. It is amazing. You can find out a lot of good and bad information.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Very true.
Brittany Bulger:
But social media, for me, especially during the time, I think it was 2023, 2022, and just during and after the pandemic, you can get connected in a lot of different ways. And how I was using social media at the time was for job hunting and searching. And so, I’m actually part of a Atlanta nurse practitioner group on Facebook, and that’s how I got connected with the fellow nurse practitioner on staff here. And so, I think from then on, it just kind of happened once I reached out to her. And from there, it was good.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Well, what do you think has been your biggest challenge since you started with us?
Brittany Bulger:
Challenge, I would say just in general for me, is basically not feeling overwhelmed, because I have to know everything all at once right now.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
You don’t.
Brittany Bulger:
And I remember as a child, my mom talking to me, every start of the new year of school, I would get basically a full list of books for English class. And I would call her and crying and I’m like, “Mom, I have to read all these books. It’s going to be so hard,” because I was in accelerated. And I would always accelerate classes and she would be like, “Brittany, you don’t have to read all the books right now.”
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Today.
Brittany Bulger:
Today. Right? And I’m like, “Oh, no? Okay, then. You can do it.” And so, that’s kind of what I’ve been going through, calming myself down, listening to my mom’s voice and just saying, okay, this is something new. You don’t have to know everything. Take it one day at a time.
Dr. Karen Greene:
You can’t eat the whole elephant at one time. It takes bite by bite by bite by bite.
Brittany Bulger:
Yes.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
And that’s something we really want to highlight because we want to make sure people understand how advanced nurse practitioners function. And the reason why we have found it to be such a successful way to extend and grow our practice is, first of all, you get wonderful, dedicated, driven women in our case, because we’ve had women nurse practitioners in our practice who understand and desire for that connection. But again, we are a team. So, our nurse practitioners work with us. They work in consultation with the physicians. And so, they’re always in communication with their physician, whoever is there, all of us, because she can come to anybody. But you know, we designate physicians who are covering for the week or for the day.
And so, there’s always a physician in consultation with the nurse practitioner as we develop plans of care and as we make sure that everything is occurring that needs to occur so that the patient care is advanced. And so, that is one reason why we’re such a proponent of the advanced nurse practitioner idea of even using that to expand and extend our practice. Because we love seeing our patients, and as Brittany has mentioned, we’ve been here a while, we have a lot of patients. But it’s hard for us to get more patients and see more patients or even be available for the patients we have established because things get busy.
Case in point, at the time of this recording yesterday, I had to leave the office unexpectedly due to a family emergency, but I was not worried. I knew my patients were going to be cared for because I said, well, my nurse practitioner will see the patients for me. My partners are going to cover her so that she’s able to get any consultation that she needs for plan of care so that I was able to go and handle a family emergency. And again, that doesn’t change the level of care that our patients get, the expertise that our patients get in terms of how they’re being cared for, their needs being attended to. Our nurse practitioners function with us. It’s a harmonious collaboration that we afford, and it allows us to see more patients and to even extend our careers in terms of our longevity. What kinds of things, ladies, do you really appreciate about having our nurse practitioners as a part of the team?
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Well, like you said, I think it extends our care to our patients. We have an added opportunity. Like you said, our schedules, we can only see so many patients, but patients can still come in. If a nurse practitioner is seeing one of our patients, but there’s a question that she needs to ask or needs, it can be something from a very simple visit that can be handled, and it affords them a chance to come in. With our busy schedules, if somebody needed a visit right away, this is a way that they can come in and be seen. But again, even if they came in to be seen, if there was a question that needed to be asked or consultation that needed to be done, then we are always available for them. So, that patient may not be on my schedule or Dr. Williams schedule or Dr. Greene’s schedule, but she is still being seen and taken care of by the group.
Dr. Karen Greene:
The one thing that I’ve loved over the years, and I’ve even heard patients say that, well, I’ve seen, because we have had a lot of nurse practitioners.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Wonderful.
Dr. Karen Greene:
I’ve seen this particular, I’ve seen Brittany, and this is what’s going to happen. I’ve seen Brittany for years, and I know that if she ever had a question, she would always ask one of the doctors. And then, if there was something more intensive that needed to be done, she knew how to make the adequate referral, and then they come back to see one of us. And patients actually do really appreciate that. They appreciate the attentiveness of the nurse practitioner and the time that they’re able to spend with them. And back when we were delivering babies, knowing that we weren’t going leave the office. Now we don’t deliver babies, but as we’ve all said, our schedules sometimes can get a little crazy. And it’s nice to know that they will still be seen, that we can still see the patients and give the care and give them the attention that they need.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Or even funnily, people think that if you don’t get to see the doctor, then you see the nurse practitioner. But I’ve walked into a room and I’ve said, and the patient has said to me, “I’m a patient of Mary’s.” And I’m like, “Okay, well I’ll be taking care of you today.” So I was like, “I work with Mary.” So, our nurse practitioners, you will develop their own practice within themselves. They have their own patients that are loyal to them and will come and see them all the time. And then, we help out.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Yeah, yeah. We’re here for you when you need us, Brittany.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Yeah. We’ll fill in when they can’t do it.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
And the other thing I really appreciate, and it came out in a recent leadership team meeting, one of the things, and we’ll ask you about this in a minute, Brittany. This season of the podcast, we’re kind of leaning into a conversation that we started when we appeared on the Portia show about moving from chaos to calm and some of the things that we’ve done in a home life and our work life and our professional life. One of the things that as a practice we really did intentionally was changing the leadership model within our practice. Instead of having just one individual that was considered the practice manager, we really have created a team. And so, we now have what we call leadership team meetings.
So, we have a clinical team leader, we have an administrative team leader. The physicians attend that meeting, and our nurse practitioners also attend that meeting because, again, they’re part of our team, the leader. This is the C-suite, right? This is the executive level group that is making and charting the course for the practice. And so, one of the things I really appreciate by having this collaborative leadership team model and by having the advanced nurse practitioners as part of that team, is that they expand the thought and the options. Because as we’re having conversations and discussing issues in the practice and how we need to modify and change some things, they were coming up with all these great ideas.
And I’m saying, “Why didn’t I think of that? That was a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” And so, having young minds, fresh minds, people who have different perspectives and just a different way of looking at things does nothing but bring more value. Brings more value to our company. As Rosa Gynecology, it brings more value to our patients. In terms of how they’re cared for and the quality of care, the fact that we stay cutting edge, learning new processes and procedures and all the things.
So, they bring such a richness to our practice, like I say, from an administrative organizational structure, as well as with the clinical care of our patients. So, I find that to be invaluable even more and more as they continue to grow in their practice. So, again, as we look at this whole concept of going from chaos to calm, what do you think about that, Brittany? Or what kinds of things either, whether it’s in your professional day working with your patients or at home as a new wife and all the things that are occurring and about all the things that are happening in your life, exciting, what kinds of thoughts do you have about that?
Brittany Bulger:
So, for me, going from chaos to calm looks like taking 10 seconds, not actually counting to 10, but actually taking 10 seconds just to evaluate what’s going on, what do I need, what do I already have?, And how can I get to the point where I need to be my goal? And so, that’s both professionally and personally as well. Personally, I’ve had to take 10 just to figure out, am I going to say this correctly or is this going to come off wrong? Or let me choose the right words to communicate this in the best way, right? But professionally, if I’m overwhelmed, I’ve learned over time with either inpatient, you’re juggling multiple things at the same time and you have an admission and a discharge and someone’s waiting on you, taking the time just to figure out all the things. And then, moving forward. And if I don’t have all the things, who is my resource right now? Who can I lean on? Whether that’s a tech in a hospital or that’s someone, a leader.
And that’s how I’ve continued to kind of move forward professionally here. Okay, what do I need right now? Can I ask a physician or can I ask someone else? And moving forward with that. And I think it’s helped so far.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
I think that’s great. Taking 10.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Taking 10.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
We have a new phrase.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Not just counting to 10.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
No.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Taking 10.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Taking 10. You better talk Brittany. So, yes, I love it. I love it. So, you now see why we love our Brittany. We think that she is an amazing, an amazing person, an amazing practitioner, provider for our patients. We trust her, we trust her judgment. As she says, she knows when to ask for assistance, to ask for clarification, to say, “I can handle this and this, but let me get you in to see one of my doctors so they can handle that.” So, that is what we need, right? And so, we appreciate that. So, we wanted to take the time and we’ll be highlighting our other wonderful nurses as well. But we really wanted to make sure our social media audience, as well as our patients who also listen to these podcasts, have a little time to really get to meet Ms. Brittany, Mrs. Mrs. Brittany, I don’t want any husbands looking for me.
Whenever you’re calling and you need to get in and they say, “Hey, we have an opening with Brittany Bulger, our wonderful nurse practitioner,” we want you to feel confident that you are going to be cared for in a compassionate and very competent way. And that I could say, the Rosa Gynecology way. So, we are so glad that Brittany, we made her come.
Dr. Karen Greene:
She saw us, she liked us, and she’s here.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
And we’re going to keep her.
Dr. Karen Greene:
We’re going to keep her.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
We tell everyone, this is like Hotel California. You can check in, but you can’t check out. So, you’re in now. So, you’re going to keep these. So, thank you so much for Brittany and for all she brings to our practice.
Brittany Bulger:
Thank you.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Look forward to more conversations with our nurse practitioners as we go forward. This has been an excellent episode of Take Good Care podcast. Please continue to share us with all of your friends and family on all of our social media platforms, YouTube, Facebook, our website at rosagynecologycom. And if you need a good healthcare provider for your gynecology needs, take a look at Brittany Bulger. Once again, I’m Dr. Mironda Williams.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.
Dr. Karen Greene:
And I’m Dr. Karen Greene. Take good care.