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In this (mini?) episode the gang interviews Stephanie’s wife Quinn McEben about their work as a mental health care nurse, and how mental healthcare can better serve the disability community. Also we talk a lot about their wedding.
Full transcript available at: https://www.ndrn.org/resource/ndr-may24/
Jack Rosen:
Can we talk for a minute about how we got on some sort of press release mailing list, and now people keep pitching us on podcast ideas?
Michelle Bishop:
I mean I just think that means we’re winning.
Jack Rosen:
If you are the person who put us on that mailing list, please reach out to me. I don’t mind. I’m not upset by it. I just want to know how this happened.
Michelle Bishop:
And I would just like to tell that person, thank you for your confidence in our podcast. Our listener, my mom, is very excited.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Wait, did your mom put us on those press lists?
Michelle Bishop:
You know what? If she did, that would be hilarious. And I would have to say well-played mom.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Because they are identifying you, specifically. The rest of us are nobodies. You are [inaudible]
Michelle Bishop:
Not only is my mom our only listener, but she’s trolling me through our podcast. I don’t think that’s true. But if it is, diabolical and I respect it, so what can I say?
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
I like it.
Michelle Bishop:
Jack, should we actually start the episode? [music] Welcome back everyone to National Disability Radio. We are so excited to have you back this lovely, gorgeous May. Spring is here. I am Michelle Bishop. I am one-third of your podcast hosting team.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
And I’m Stephanie Flynt McEben, another member of our podcast hosting team. We got in trouble for the one-thirds last time, so I think I’m, is it the one-fourths?
Michelle Bishop:
It’s the one-thirds. I’m still enforcing this. Wait, we’re going to give that name change in a second. Stephanie slipped a little name change in there. So that is two-thirds of your amazing hosting team and our final host, Raquel Rosa will join us later in the episode for the interview. And then of course, as always, our trusty producer.
Jack Rosen:
Thanks, Michelle! That one was actually pretty nice. I appreciate it.
Michelle Bishop:
I want to stress that Jack and I don’t actually hate each other. We just can’t let this go. [laughter]
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Let it go, let it go [inaudible]
Michelle Bishop:
Oh, wait. Do we have the rights to Let It Go?
Jack Rosen:
You can only sing like three seconds of that before we get sued.
Michelle Bishop:
Yeah. Disney, don’t make Disney come for us.
Jack Rosen:
Yes, that goes against my, we can handle any lawsuit rule. Not Disney.
Michelle Bishop:
Not Disney.
Jack Rosen:
That’s with the mouse.
Michelle Bishop:
No Disney. No. We’ll lose that.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Release the mouse.
Michelle Bishop:
So to redirect you from your beautiful vocal styling, Stephanie, tell us about this month’s episode.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
So yeah, my wife is going to actually be our featured speaker on this month’s episode. As many may be aware, May is a Mental Health Awareness Month. And so we are going to be talking about individuals with mental health, disabilities and diagnoses when it comes to getting the care that they need and advocating for the care that they need. So super excited about this and this episode, it’ll be great. And I may or may not be a little biased, but–
Michelle Bishop:
Towards your own wife?
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yeah, kind of.
Michelle Bishop:
I mean, I would expect that, but also before we get into interview, congratulations Stephanie on having a wifey!
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Thank you! Nala was a flower dog.
Michelle Bishop:
Stop.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
She was included.
Michelle Bishop:
Oh, my heart can’t handle that. We’re going to have to see pics.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
I was going to say there’s definitely pictures.
Michelle Bishop:
After we finish this episode everyone has to stay on it. We have to see pictures of Nala, the service dog being in the wedding. But congrats on your wedding and that’s why Stephanie had a sneaky little name change that she put in there with her new last name. And let’s jump to the interview.
Jack Rosen:
But wait, wait, wait. But before we do that, Stephanie, do you want to tell us who your wife is and why she’s on the show?
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yeah, so my wife, Quinn McEben is a mental health care nurse who works with clients who have varying mental health disabilities and varying mental health diagnoses. And so she works with them regarding their general health, their mental health, working with them on advocating for the services and supports that they need in particular in the healthcare space. So they do some really good work and super excited to hear about their perspective regarding this space. It’s going to be great!
Michelle Bishop:
Thank you for agreeing to be on this month’s episode. So I guess we’ll just kind of get right into it. So as individuals who live with disabilities ourselves, I know that we know firsthand some of the trauma that we’ve experienced related to our disability. And so we would love to get a provider’s perspective on different experiences that you’ve kind of worked with, with individuals and how providers and just individuals who are advocates for individuals with disabilities. Just how can folks be supportive and what has your experience with this been during your career as a mental health care nurse?
Quinn McEben:
Yeah, so I can kind of talk about some good things and bad things. So like you mentioned, I am a psychiatric nurse. I manage a lot of physical healthcare for a caseload with people with severe and persistent mental illness. And so I see both of it and both the physical health and the mental health disabilities. And I will say from nursing school on, we weren’t ever, of course we covered psychiatric care, but as far as physical health disabilities, people with blindness or hearing impaired or deafness in wheelchairs, we never talked about any of that or how to address that in a different way.
And so one of the biggest things I see with my particular clients is that it’s just what I would call medical trauma, which I would just describe as providers not being great. And whether that’s one of the things I see a lot is they come to the doctor for a physical health reason, say it’s chronic pain, say it’s diabetes, say it’s high blood pressure while they see their other meds and they see that they’re also diagnosed with schizophrenia, they’re also diagnosed with depression.
And suddenly that chronic pain is all related to the depression.Suddenly that diabetes doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t treat it because it’s just from the meds for schizophrenia. And so people focus in on the mental health side of it and is the somatic providers don’t necessarily focus in on other things. And so what happens then is those same clients don’t want to seek physical healthcare. And so I think the same thing happens in the mental health world, but I think the mental health world is better about just because we see a lot of clients with varying communication levels and just varying ways of looking at the world, which is I think a beautiful thing. But I think we’re kind of better about that. But as far as the physical healthcare, I think there’s a long ways to go. So a lot of my clients and a lot of my job really is advocating for clients and teaching them to advocate for themselves because whether it’s a physical health disability that’s visible or invisible, they get dismissed a lot because of any mental health concerns.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
That is some super helpful information. Thank you so much for sharing that! I know that yesterday you and I were actually talking, specifically yesterday, about just general instances of when individuals, for example, who have mental health diagnoses or mental health disabilities,
Have not been believed by whether it be healthcare providers or whether it be just in different situations because of their disability. Could you talk a little bit more about that and what that’s looked like and how you’ve been able to help folks work through that, whether that be directly or indirectly through your job?
Quinn McEben:
Sure. So I think that looks like I was mentioning going to the doctor for chronic pain. And so something as severe as stomach cancer, right? And so imagine this, you have a client that is having stomach aches. It’s having a stomach ache, it’s getting worse, it’s getting worse, and they keep going to the doctor, but the doctor won’t do imaging because they’re like, oh, it’s stress, it’s anxiety. But they won’t do imaging. They won’t do any follow-up tests and when someone finally believes them it’s cancer that’s advanced to a stage that we can’t treat it. And these are kind of the stories that I unfortunately have seen that’s like I said, a generic example, but I have seen things that are that traumatic. And so things that I recommend to my clients are getting other, they can advocate for themselves and we teach those skills. But if the providers still aren’t believing them, because unfortunately there are some good providers and there are some providers that I think provide competent care that are discriminatory.
So you can switch providers or sometimes if someone else steps in, whether it’s a family member or another professional like myself where there’s a lot of support staff that talks to the physician and is like, “Hey, can we maybe think about running this tests?” And then just getting that outside advocacy, teaching those advocacy skills for the patient and then teaching them how to reach out to other people if they need. Again, it’s really sad that we mean that, but thankfully there are people in positions that are able to help. And then ultimately, if you have a provider that’s not believing you, you need a new provider. And not that we shouldn’t trust our healthcare providers, but I think that there is sometimes a mentality of that healthcare providers know best and we are humans, too. And so it’s about finding the right fit for you. And that healthcare provider might be great for someone who is able-bodied and doesn’t have any mental illness, but they might not be a good fit for someone who is diagnosed with mental illness.
Raquel Rosa:
Quinn, you were talking about self-advocacy resources, and I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit more about what that looks like and what plain language resources look like?
Quinn McEben:
So in my role, it depends on the client. We do it on an individual basis. And so some people are more familiar with different health terms and some aren’t. We have clients in my role that don’t have reading skills, and so we teach them whether they can still search on their phone for YouTube videos and they can hear how to describe their own conditions and they record before they go into the physician, this is what I want to say. And so we role play, what do you want to do when you say get into the physician. Because I think, I know I get nervous when I go into my physician of what am I going to talk about, especially if it’s a new provider. And so role play of what that looks like. And I think plain language I think can look different for different people because it really depends. And so in my role, I fortunately have the access to or the ability to talk to people where they’re at. And so it can look different for different people.
Raquel Rosa:
I really like that. I like that there’s a customized approach. And I think that also touches on trauma-informed approaches because I think people respond better when they feel seen and they feel like their needs are being focused on. So I think that’s really an excellent practice that you’re sharing with us. Thank you.
Quinn McEben:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that’s a lot of mental illness and even physical illness in a way is physical disabilities is rather than just a blanket approach of, okay, this person is a blind person and I met this blind person three years ago and that’s what they wanted. And so I’m sure this new blind person wants the same thing that people are individuals and they need their own individual things.
Raquel Rosa:
Right, yeah. I mean we’re all different people with different needs and to your point of even time, if you met somebody three years ago, it does not mean that those needs are going to be the same. So I think it really takes a lot of humility and relationship building and continuity of relationship to make sure that we’re addressing people’s needs in a thoughtful and powerful way.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely, definitely would retweet. I don’t even know if that’s still a thing anymore. I like the idea of going about it and ensuring that we are approaching where individuals with disabilities are when it comes to the healthcare space because for a lot of individuals, and I will throw myself under the bus here, there are lots of times when I won’t go to doctor’s offices to get certain things checked out because I’ve not been believed before. And so that’s something that I definitely struggle with and definitely can relate to. So Quinn, yeah, thank you so much for sharing today about the things that you guys are doing in order to help individuals to continue to go forward with these types of things, despite the experiences that they may have had prior to that they’re worried are going to be repeated. So yeah, thank you so, so much for talking with us today about this.
Quinn McEben:
Absolutely! And from the healthcare provider side of it, when I’m talking to other healthcare providers who don’t have the privilege of those long-standing relationships like I have with my clients, I always just encourage them to ask the client what they mean. If you’re doing one MRI with this one client, just ask them because the client is going to know what they mean best.
Michelle Bishop:
Well, that was awesome and thanks so much to Quinn for bringing all their expertise to this episode. And also we said it to Stephanie earlier, so I’ll say it to you now, Quinn, congrats on your wedding as well and having your new amazing social justice warrior wife Stephanie, as well as congratulations to all the service dogs involved in the joining of this family. Okay, Stephanie, it’s that time. Do you have a joke for us this month?
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yes and no. It’s more of a story.
Michelle Bishop:
There is more of a story these days. These jokes get more and more elaborate. And I got to say, I respect it, Stephanie.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Oh, thank you, thank you! Thank you. So it’s one of those fun stories. So I don’t know if anybody’s ever told y’all, but, and apparently I’m really new to, clearly I’m new to the party. But all that to be said, individuals told me leading up to the day that something was going to go wrong, something was going to go wrong, something was going to go wrong. And yeah, my ring actually got dropped between the cracks of the gazebo, but don’t worry, it was recovered by ninja skills.
[“Here Comes the Bride” plays in background]
What really went wrong was we were on our way to our reception dinner and I was going down some Baltimore city steps and they were very uneven. One was two inches down and one was four inches down. I’m wearing three-inch heels. You add two, three and four to that and you get a broken ankle. So I quite literally fell for Quinn on my wedding day. And that joke is attributed to Quinn because Quinn is the one who came up with it and now I won’t stop using it and now they’re very annoyed with me. Fine, we’re all fine. And I literally looked up and I was like, well, I guess that’s the one thing that went wrong. And then I found out about the ring in the gazebo. So it was a good day y’all. It really was. I got to marry the love of my life.
Michelle Bishop:
You got married in a ’90s sitcom. They always had the episode with a wedding where everything goes wrong.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yes.
Michelle Bishop:
And Raquel’s not here. Raquel’s name is to live in a ’90s sitcom. Oh, okay. We might have to revisit this next month, but also shout out to you and Quinn for already acting like an old married couple and irritating each other by stealing each other’s jokes.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
I love that.
Michelle Bishop:
[laughter] No, seriously, congrats to everyone involved. That’s another amazing episode in the books. And Jack, do you want to tell the people where they can follow us on social media?
Jack Rosen:
You can follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and now Threads. And you can always email us at [email protected]. Until next time folks.
Stephanie Flynt McEben
Bye. [music]
