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 Mentors of the Month
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Past
H.E.R.E. Newsletters
Past Mentors
November 2004
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Sara Swanson
Children's Hospital
and Regional Medical Center
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Sara Swanson is a health educator at
Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, a position she considered a dream job when she was studying health education in college. She started out in nursing school, but discovered a passion for health, not sickness, and realized she wanted to teach. She changed majors and earned a degree in Community Health Education from Central Washington University in 1983, and her CHES credentials in 1991.
Sara began her career in Spokane with the American Lung Association, giving community presentations on air pollution and choking prevention, and running their first asthma camp. She moved to Seattle and was the Director of the Lung Disease Program for 10 years. The focus of her current job at Children’s Hospital is the Health and Patient Education Materials web site. "I am continually learning to stretch my mind to keep up with computer technology," she said, and chuckled, “for someone who could barely figure out how to operate her home DVD player, now I can encode a VHS videotape to digital MPEG 2, write brochures in html, and enable databases to work in a SQL environment.”
Another educational technology Sara mastered is the closed circuit, on-demand television system at Children’s. Patients using the system can chose patient education programming on a wide range of topics, including asthma,
ostomy care, breastfeeding, diabetes, safety and parenting. These programs reinforce staff education and give patients an opportunity to learn at their own convenience.
The Children’s clinical staff rely on Sara for advice on the best ways to reach patients. She works to ensure that there are staff trainings on the patient learning process, with topics like motivational interviewing and age-appropriate teaching strategies. Sara also edits patient education handouts, putting the drafts written by nurses and doctors into clear, family-friendly language. She built and maintains a database of patient education materials, so staff can easily order brochures. In
addition to clinical staff, she communicates with and relies on a variety of programs, including engineering, Family Support Services, shipping and receiving, and the Web Team. “Health education in a hospital setting cannot occur in a vacuum,” she said.
One of her great passions is speaking on behalf of patients and families to ensure they get clear messages and instructions they can follow. Sara loves “passing on knowledge and seeing a child’s reaction when she first feels her inhaler work correctly or the smile when you’ve just taught him how to wear his helmet so it protects all those brains in his forehead!”
Sara wishes a mentor had advised her years ago to “take that stats class and learn your health education theories, because they really ARE used every day in this field!” She can offer advice on writing and editing health education materials, childhood asthma education, database and cataloging systems, educational approaches with closed circuit TV, and teaching school health education. Now that her sons are teens, she has more time to pursue her love of playing soccer, walking her chocolate lab, and knitting on rainy days. You can reach Sara by email at
sara.swanson@seattlechildrens.org |
The H.E.R.E. Newsletter suspended
publication from February 2004 through October 2004 as the web site
underwent technical upgrades.
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January 2004 |
Tony Gomez
Public Health Seattle
& King
County
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Tony Gomez is the Manager of the
Injury and Violence Prevention Program for Public Health - Seattle and King
County (PHSKC.) He also is a Clinical Faculty Instructor for the University of
Washington,
School of Public Health and Community Medicine. He received a Bachelor of
Science degree in Environmental Health from the University of Washington.
The 20 years Tony has worked at PHSKC have included 14 years in the
Environmental Health Division and six in the Prevention Division. He has worked
in "just about all the Environmental Health programs," including food, illegal
drug labs, sanitary survey work, local hazardous waste and solid waste, as well
as programs for safety, schools, and tobacco control. Some professional
highlights include founding the Seattle King County Drowning Prevention
Coalition in 1991 and the King County Traffic Safety Coalition in 1998. Tony was
the health department's lead staff worker on the recently passed Seattle/King
County ordinance that requires all bike riders to wear helmets.
Tony is a strong advocate for drawing on the ideas and expertise that are
available in a community. "We can address significant public health issues by
working with the great people who represent this region's well-regarded
institutions, such as Children's Hospital, Harborview Injury Prevention, the
Department of Health, University of Washington, the Washington Traffic Safety
Commission, and the countless outstanding nonprofit organizations," Tony said.
"It's been wonderful to learn from some of the world's best folks in trying to
accomplish injury and violence prevention and to advance public health."
Twenty years ago, Tony wished that someone had advised him "public health
will become a very dynamic and stressful field, so plan on being flexible,
patient and resilient. The security and reasonable work load that you and your
supervisors and coworkers now enjoy will become a thing of the past, so consider
this as you enter the profession."
An immediate challenge, Tony believes, is the funding structure for public
health statewide, including both educational institutions and health agencies.
"One of the quiet tragedies of the citizen tax cutting initiatives, the economic
downturn, and general lack of legislative respect for public health is that some
of our best doctors, nurses, health educators, environmental health staff and
others have left public health. These staff wanted to work in the profession but
have been forced to move elsewhere, work in the private sector or retire early.
They're no longer available to help teach the newer staff and to take on the
work of the next big outbreak or prevention effort. Hopefully this session, the
legislature will make some serious progress on this issue."
In his leisure time, Tony enjoys skiing, snowboarding, fishing and boating
with his son Ryan, fiancée Theresa and daughter Sarah. Tony doesn't stop there
though... he plays tennis, and coaches and plays baseball for an over 30 team in
Seattle. His baseball team won the National Hardball Championship in 2000. Tony
also volunteers at his son's school.
Enacting policy change, coalition development, water safety prevention,
traffic safety, bike helmet use, safe storage of firearms, and environmental
health issues are areas that Tony can provide advice on. He can be reached by
phone at 206-296-4205.
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