Empowering Nurses, from Academia to Functional Medicine with Kerry Johnson
Kerry Johnson has worn many hats in her time as a nurse: bedside nurse, FNP, and Functional Medicine NP. What better person than her to teach the new nurses coming into the profession. Listen today to hear how Kerry got into education and how her passion for health turned her to functional medicine.
ABOUT KERRY
Kerry Johnson had been working as a nurse for several years when she decided to get her family nurse practitioner certification. Once she received that degree and was seeing patient’s in the clinic, she noticed how she wasn’t preventing disease, but just treating it. Patients were getting sicker and the healthcare system in which she was working just didn’t seem right to her. So she decided it was time to help patients in a different way and became certified in functional medicine. With that new knowledge and passion, she also decided it was time to teach others how to prevent disease, for their health and the health of their patients.
Kerry is now seeing patients her way by getting to the root of the problem and finding a way to help them get better, without just band-aiding the issues. I know firsthand how Kerry can help with many ailments and can’t speak highly enough of her compassion and knowledge for helping others. She is a great educator, for her patients and her students.
LINKS
Kerry’s website www.drkimwellness.org
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Beth Quaas
Welcome to Don't Eat Your Young. I'm your host, Beth cross. I am so excited today to have Carrie Johnson on the show. She is a family nurse practitioner, certified in functional medicine, and she teaches in a doctoral program at a university in Minnesota. Soda. I am so excited to have her to talk about the trials and tribulations in academia as nurses, the lack of training that we get in education. And then we're also going to talk about her flourishing practice in functional medicine and how she has really come to love. That portion of her clinical job. So we're going to unpack a lot today, but I hope you enjoy the show today with Carrie Johnson. Carrie Johnson, it is so amazing to have you here today. Thanks for being on the show.
Kerry Johnson
Yeah. Thank you.
Beth Quaas
Tell us a. Little bit about yourself and your nursing journey.
Kerry Johnson
Well, I am a family nurse practitioner and I started out in 1999 as a Med surgeon, nurse, and a cardiac intensive care and ER nurse and went back and got my masters degree in family nurse practitioner. Certification and then I worked in the emergency Room, family medicine, OB, GYN and all over the place. Then also got my D&P in 2011 and shortly after that started teaching at. University level and now I'm at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN. I'm the DMP program director and Department Co chair and. I teach in the DMP family nurse. Practitioner program here as well so.
Beth Quaas
You did years at the bedside, and then what meat was in your DNP program that you decided you wanted to move into education or what? What made you choose that path?
Kerry Johnson
Yes, it was the DMP. So the terminal degree that really led me to wanting to teach and move to a joint type of practice where I could practice and teach both. So that was the catalyst. Yeah.
Beth Quaas
Was it? Was it a hard transition?
Kerry Johnson
It was a hard transition because there really wasn't a lot of formal education in the doctoral program on education. It's a as a as a clinical. Practice degree terminal degree. But it does allow for you to teach and in family nurse practitioner programs you need to have faculty that are a family nurse practitioner prepared to be able to lead or be the director for those programs and to teach in those programs.
Beth Quaas
Hmm.
Kerry Johnson
So you you comment to academia and you feel like you are a brand new. And new grad fish out of water very easily have imposter syndrome and feel like you don't know what you're doing, and it has taken me a good fight. I probably felt like I started to get a handle on things at. About Year 5. And I'm. On here for.
Beth Quaas
Me and there is hope. So just for the listeners that may not be aware, can you just do a quick description of the difference between a DNP and a PhD in nursing?
Kerry Johnson
Sure. So a PhD in nursing is a research terminal degree, so their focus of that whole doctoral dissertation and program is very research based where the DNP is a clinical. Doctoral degree. So it's practice based the terminal degrees of practice based and the hope was that all a PRN programs it was supposed to happen in 2016, but they were all supposed to be DNP as the. Terminal degree and entry into practice, but we know how that's gone with making BSM entry to practice for our EDS, which they've been saying since I was in school in 1995. They're like, Yep, it'll change. It'll be all BSN in. A few years. Though I think that process to be able to switch takes quite a bit of time, I am really impressed with the COA and the C RNA organization that they just kind of said. You're doing it. Just do it like this is not that hard to implement, it's you know, and just put that cut off in there. And I'm not going to say like it's best one way or the other, but making a decision to me is a good thing. Rather than stringing things out and having so many multiple, different things going on that people in our own profession don't even understand sometimes what is happening because we have so many different. Yes, you can have a masters and you could do the same. Exact job, but you couldn't go to a DMP program and you're going to do the exact same job. You know it's. I think we make it so much more difficult than it really ever needed to be. If somebody could make a decision and then just stick with it, like, Yep, we just have to do it or we're not going to do it like one or the other. So that's where I feel we are.
Beth Quaas
Yeah, I agree. Cerny programs are now all doctorate level programs, but that comes with, you know, at the expense of having enough. Faculty and I I'm not sure how nationwide if our numbers of applicants went down because of that, it's now a longer program, a more expensive program. So I agree. I don't know if one way is the better than the other, but it is what it is and hopefully we're. Just going to move.
Kerry Johnson
Forward. Right.
Beth Quaas
Go back to when you talk about academia and imposter syndrome and the lack of education for nurses moving into education. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Kerry Johnson
So what I see now is that if you are a a parent. And you get and. Ed, like an educational doctorate that could be really helpful for teaching, but 90% of even I I wouldn't even have a great statistic on that. But I would say I don't know any that are a. CNA or NP or a CNS that have an education doctorate? They all have PhD or DNP, and neither of those. When you look at curriculum. Prepare you to understand pedagogy words like pedagogy. I didn't even know what pedagogy meant when I first started. And they're like, yeah. Don't you follow blooms? Taxonomy for pedagogy with your objectives. And I was like. I'm in a different country. Like, are we speaking in the same language a
Speaker
So.
Kerry Johnson
I realized I needed to do a lot of self education and self enrolling in different courses and program educational opportunities that I found to teach me how to teach better. Was what I had to do to kind of self teach to be able to teach at this level or be good at teaching at this level. So I think we hire and we throw people into it and they don't have any of that, maybe expertise and it takes a while to develop it. And that's where you get into who is your mentor when you become. You know, involved or hired in academia. In my age. Group. So we'll say I'm still in my 40s. We'll just, we'll say that and the the age group is there's a pretty big gap between. A lot of those younger and then there's a lot of the older academias. So they're in their 50s, sixties, 70s and even in their 70s. And you will say when I came into this role, I was early 40s, you know, just kind of entering into that. Decade and the mentorship was excellent from other APRN faculty. But what I have found and I think from other colleagues that I have that have taught at other universities, experienced the same thing that I did. Is there still is? This hierarchy of faculty were that were once our ends as well still and and it's an older group. It's not the younger group, they still have this. Each you're young and not all of them. Some of them are. You know, there's always some that are absolutely wonderful, but there still are. Were a lot that were not supportive that did have this. I'm better than you. You don't know anything. You are, you know, not qualified to teach because you have D&P. And I am much more. Prepared because I have a pH. D and or some kind of chip like there's just some kind of chip that's there that is this top down. I don't hope you succeed feeling like right. You know in. And I think that I felt that I saw that when I was a new grad RN working in the ICU. That was a really tough crowd because you had nurses that were there for 20-30 years, that were the expert ICU nurse. I know every institution has these same ones. And if you learn on their good side. They tore you to pieces, you know, made people cry like. I fortunately could always hold my own. Gave it right back. You know, earned a little respect from them. You shouldn't have to do that, right? You shouldn't have to have that type of a work environment. But here also in academia, I felt the same thing. So I felt that same. I'm brand new. I don't know what I'm doing. I could use some mentorship and some help. And the people that had the most teach. Experience and knowledge were the most hand. *****, I call. Them old hands and I know that's not nice. But it is like being packed by this old man that is like your new. You're not qualified. I don't care that you have this degree no support. And then there were the ones that were. Or like hey, I want to mentor you. I'd like to provide you some feedback and support in a nice way. And so it's still here and what I when I talk to other colleagues that teach at other universities, it's a lot worse. At other universities than it is here, so I don't have a lot to complain about here, and especially as now I've grown. In. In my role and obviously now having responsibilities as department chair and program Director. I'm. In a different position now, but I still feel a little bit of that. I'm older than you and somebody younger than me is telling me what to do and I don't like that like. It's a. It's a. It's a chip that I feel where when I look at the younger colleagues that I might have, I don't and I hope like I hope I don't. Yeah. Project that feeling as I want them to succeed and to be happy and to enjoy it and to like support them in. Whatever way I can, rather than having a, I'm looking down on you. Because now I'm 10 years older than you are type of. What I'm having them like see all I guess.
Beth Quaas
Yeah, and academia is hard. I'm here to tell you it's not. It's not an easy job. We're trying to make students successful. So they can get out there. You're right. Most often without mentorship, we oftentimes imposter syndrome is exactly what I feel some days and felt for sure when I was newer at Eugene. And then there's the whole pay disparity between out. Practicing clinically versus what you make in academia and when you're creating content. Hint it sucks every minute of your lifeout of you while you're getting the courses ready and you make about $0.99 an hour.
Speaker
And.
Beth Quaas
That's what it feels like and without someone to show you the ropes and mentorship, it's it's hard. It's hard most days.
Kerry Johnson
Yeah, that. And you brought up a really good point on why it's hard to attract faculty. I had to take a 50% pay cut on what I could be making clinically to come work. Faculty and work really hard, and it was actually harder because it's a whole new thing again, where I could just go to work in family practice and it was easy for me because I was good at it. I had a lot of experience. I I loved being a preceptor. And mentoring students. And I thought, you know, the faculty would be something that I could give back to the profession. And ultimately, I think was always my goal. Even when I started nursing school a long time ago, was that I wanted to to.
Speaker
Which?
Kerry Johnson
Maybe that's what brought me into nursing to begin with was the the teaching aspect of we're always teaching patients. Although teaching patients is one thing and teaching in an academic setting, you realize soon is so different and you have to. Deal with things like feedback from students. At such a. Was worst instructor ever. Like, this person doesn't know anything, you know, or this person is this instructor is intimidating and. Like and you're thinking like I just put together like what I thought was going to be the most fun game to learn concepts, and I spent, like, two weeks on it trying to perfect jeopardy. And then the students were like, that was dumb. Like, so you you have all these ideas of what? You'd think would work and. It's just really difficult because you get feedback that you realize you can't make everybody happy. And all the students have a different learning style. Then you throw in the whole added. Thing that is becoming much more prevalent is the accommodations that students need, which it adds just a different complexity to teaching. With accommodations and with multiple students with accommodations, then that gets to be that adds a lot more work. Earn and and you want them to be successful and you want to support them and it it does. It sucks out a ton of your time, even though you might only be teaching that. Face to face class. 4 hours 8 hours in a week. You've spent weeks to get that content ready. The site organized, answering hundreds of emails. And and then you teach. You know, the the small part that is presented. But it's it's worth it when I. See the difference? We can make in our students lives. And when they tell you, you know, they get to graduation or they're struggling in the program and somehow something you said helps them. And and something that you did and they give you feedback that says, you know, I'm so thankful. For you and I would have never made it without you, even though you know it's them. Like. Yes, you made it because. You persisted and you kept going, but you know they thank you and like that. That makes me feel good. And if they're out there providing, you know, really good. Care and safe care and. I would want these students. I would want to feel comfortable sending my family or friends to students that I'm preparing. That's that's kind of our goal, right is to. To create that type of a provider and one that cares about not just medical issues but little big picture community, the social determinants of health, the the big things that also go into our practice. And our profession. With HealthEquity and caring for underserved and places that have less access to care. All of those things are wrapped up into to academia and how we. Teach students and and what we're promoting so that. The outcome kind of the domino effect then, is that that carries on and somehow you're shaping and changing lots of people's lives that you you don't you'll never know about. Because of the providers you've put out in this and same with the surgical world, I assume. With, you know when you guys have. Three that sometimes 3000 clinical hours, I'm like. I'm actually like really happy because. I feel like when they are out there taking care of me, my family, friends or everybody probably has a surgical experience in their life. You want them to be.
Speaker
The.
Kerry Johnson
Trained, safe, empathetic, kind but knowledgeable. Students. Right, right.
Beth Quaas
And I think we. We do turn out great. Practitioners in all of our programs were held to high standards and we hold our students to high standards in, you know, in nursing and a PRN in Sierra and a in. Nurse. Midway. We all have standards to hold uphold and I think in academia we do have to be the ones to make sure those students get by and it's hard and we're not always very popular. And when you talk about student feedback, the first couple of years. Those were Dings on my soul. I took it all to heart. I took it all personal. And then I realized you're right, not every student. Learns the same way. What I'm doing may not be helping one person, but I know that it's helping a few others and you just have to learn how to change that up and. And get through those first few years. But it's very hard. One question I have for you, I I teach, but I don't teach in a tenure track position and. Do you think that adds any? Difference to maybe the eating your young is it? Is it competitive?
Kerry Johnson
I think that other universities may have more of a competitive. Nature in that process and a little bit of unfairness. So there are some big universities here in Minnesota that don't allow. Aprns that are clinical. So you're an FMP with a DNP and you're teaching in a FMP program as a clinical professor. They don't allow them to have tenure. You have to have a pH. D to get tenure, which I think is really unfortunate and I disagree with wholeheartedly as 10 year and that at Metro State is not a policy so. If you are in a. In your probationary tract, as long as you have a terminal degree. Actually. I think that you can even get tenured without. You can be in a clinical track in the pre licensure and be tenured as well. So but there's tenure tracks for faculty and. Overall, what I've experienced here is that everybody has been very supportive and. And what I've seen is them supportive of other faculty too, who are working for 10 year, and there's a whole variety of options that we have to to reach 10 year. The evidence that we have to show in five different categories and you know whether that's taking on leadership roles. And scholarship and showing how you're improving your teaching and and showing how you are volunteering in the community or at the university level? It did take up a significant portion of my. First four years. As I was really focused on that. And then once I. Was able to. Obtain tenure status. Then my focus has been more about. Supporting the department and growing a better department, growing a better program. You know, making all the the changes that I have seen over the last eight years that needed to be done trying to implement those, keeping up with the changing world of now telehealth, you know there's always the things to update. The new A CNN essentials. The you know, NTF criteria, trying to make sure your programs get accredited. We just went through our national accreditation this last year. And so we are accredited now for another 10 years with all of our programs, which is fantastic. But that was a whole year actually even more than a year of work preparing for that. It's just a big process that was new for me to go through.
Beth Quaas
Yeah, there's beyond. Just teaching, there's a lot to do in academia. It's not just going into the classroom, there's a lot more that goes on. Have you ever heard those that can't do teach? People heard that saying so it's like, oh, if you can't handle it out in the clinical world, those people go into teaching.
Kerry Johnson
Oh.
Beth Quaas
I've heard that said many times throughout my career and I used to think, oh, maybe so. Now that I'm in that world. No way.
Kerry Johnson
Wow.
Beth Quaas
No hard job, this is harder. Go home at the end of the day and not think about it.
Speaker
Right.
Kerry Johnson
This is harder so me out in the clinical world is easy. Like agreed. That is easy like you give me 40 patients a day in urgent care. Handling chest pain. What? Whatever it is, I'm going to. Do it well. I'm gonna be busy and I'll like it, but that is easy to me. Teaching, although it's a slower pace, I'm not handling anybody coding. I'm not like, you know, there's no set schedule, so it is a lot of self driven. Really difficult stuff that. You weren't taught right, so it, and and then you're trying to teach and and you're still working. So all we are all still working in practice and that's required of a parents to work. It's not required of pre licensure. Faculty, so I don't think you have to keep working to keep your RN license. But you do have to, at least with A&P certification, you do have to work as an AP RN to keep your that's in my case, FNP license or certification for you CNA certification and that's a balance because you are practicing and. Teaching and it keeps you in the. The profession. Right. You're not just academia, where you're forgetting how real life works with practice. And I do think that's a benefit of a PRN programs and whether you know whether it's D&P or. Masters level. And that the faculty are working. And. I. So that's where I don't see that.
Speaker
That.
Kerry Johnson
Correlation that if you can't do, then you teach, you know, because you're still doing and you're to be able to teach. You need to be really good at what you're doing. In my opinion, like. I wouldn't. Want somebody that can't do real life? To be teaching me.
Beth Quaas
Right.
Kerry Johnson
What is real life, you know and. But I do see where that could have been a thing. In. Another era like in another. Mindset. Era because there were many professors that chose to just do academia and stop working altogether, and I feel like they lost a little bit of the profession. When when that happens but RN work shift work is hard.
Beth Quaas
Like, yeah.
Kerry Johnson
That was really hard work. It wasn't, and it was just as hard mentally because you're just as responsible. For patients, lives and even more in an acute kind of way, oftentimes, like in a hospital. And so that work is hard work. But you know, I do feel that. Even teaching. I taught some pre licensure classes when I first started at Metro and those were actually. So hard for me to teach because I hadn't practiced as an RN. In over 16 years.
Beth Quaas
M.
Kerry Johnson
And I honestly couldn't remember. What to share with them? Like I I was stuck with. I don't know what you don't know. And so now I'm I'm wondering where to start and I can't remember. All the things that I needed to know as an RN versus what I know now, so I couldn't separate the 2 and so I think I was a little intimidating to some of those students coming in because I I could only I teach much better at the APR level because it's what I'm doing. And. My iron experience now is so far removed. That I don't feel I could even work. As an RN.
Speaker
Right.
Kerry Johnson
I just don't feel like I could function in that same mode. I can't like I know people do that but. I don't understand how you can just not. Do what your license to do, if that makes sense, like I don't know how to go back to a a limited.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Kerry Johnson
A whole different it's like a whole different profession, both founded, founded in nursing. Both. You know the nursing is the core. But completely different, you know, completely different. Profession now and it's.
Beth Quaas
Yeah. Sorry. And I say you know. Nurses out on the floor are so much smarter than me on any of that because. They're so much different and the equipment is different and the monitoring is somewhat different. And yeah, I I would have a hard time. I would need a whole. Year's orientation is back to that.
Kerry Johnson
Right. Right. Even. Yeah. What? What do they, the whole everything. Like, I feel like is now different.
Beth Quaas
Yeah.
Kerry Johnson
And that's a hard thing to teach. It's hard to teach in that. For me and other professors may feel different about that. May find it easy to teach in a pre licensure class, but for me personally I found that the most challenging and. That's probably why I. Was so challenged. Those first two years of academia because. Because I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. Like, I'm trying to teach them pharmacology. I'm trying to teach them pathophysiology. Like, I don't remember pathophysiology to that level. Totally. Like, yes, it's all there somewhere and it all makes sense in the big picture of. How you understand disease processes and that you know it's all there, but to be able to, like, teach it at the, the the education level is a whole different thing than passing a class in it and applying it in your practice so. I did really well on teaching like an application of. You know, applied pathophysiology, there's my thing right now. I can apply it, but now you want me to go back and try to teach what the Krebs cycle was or the, you know, I'm like, OK, I need like. Four or five weeks to re educate myself and then feel like I'm educated enough to be able to present it in a way that the students aren't going to be like. Are you just reading from a book like you're do not really know this? So yeah, that can be a challenge with education too, because that's.
Beth Quaas
Absolutely. I had been out for, you know, 20 years before I came back to teach. A lot had changed in those twenty years. And clinically you're right, that was the easy part. I could do that no problem teaching so that someone can pass boards. That's a totally different mindset. And it's it takes a while to get there.
Kerry Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. And that's probably why we have faculty shortages, but because.
Beth Quaas
If 100% agree with. That.
Kerry Johnson
The pay the the stress or the complexity and the. Stress of it.
Beth Quaas
The. Hours that you have hours, you know. Yeah, I worked a lot of weekends trying to create content. So you are a rock star and now at academia and your rock star FNP. And now I want to touch on your functional medicine because that was something I didn't know a whole lot about. And I've learned a lot from you already. But it is. An area I think that's growing, do you? Agree with that.
Kerry Johnson
Yeah, absolutely.
Beth Quaas
Yeah. Talk to us. About how you got into that and what you find is different between your standard nurse practitioner role.
Kerry Johnson
Yeah. So how I got into it was you always use yourself as like a case space, right? So I was. I was tired of seeing in clinic patients with chronic disease and lots of different issues that they were having that I didn't have answers for. You know, the stuff where they know they're not feeling good, you do all the labs and you say everything looks normal. I'm feeling like this with. My cat right now. But they know something's wrong. And either I was, you know, Western medicine was just focused on. It's pretty much Band-Aid fixes. It's a medication for everything and then some lip service on. Go home, eat healthy, try to exercise, lose some weight, no. Real direction on. Diet and diet is different. There's some general things that are good, but then you know everybody is an individual with different situations, different circumstances, different stress level. You know, all these different things going on in their life and I felt I had 15 minutes. With them to try and just get them there. Prescription for diabetes. I did not have time to dive into what's the root cause of this and can we reverse it? So when I started teaching, I had a colleague that was really kind of starting to get into the Institute for Functional Medicine, shared some resources with me and she was like, why don't you just take like these intro classes? These are free. You can learn about it and I took a couple of the intro classes and I was like, this is what I've been missing. This is how I want to practice. And that prompted me to do a certification in functional medicine, so it that took me another two years to complete that certification. And by the time I was done with all of that, I was thinking. I this is so opposite of what I was taught in Western medicine. It's going to take a complete shift. In my practice, and at the time I was working urgent care. And that's almost even more impossible to. Influence with functional medicine because people need that instant fix for the UTI, for the for the bronchitis. It's all secondary stuff rather than working on any prevention issues, so I ended up in a small clinic that was really open to. Functional medicine, which was fantastic. So I really got to. Use my knowledge real life with patients and then my colleague and I actually she started an online functional medicine clinic called Doctor Kim's Wellness. It's. Doctor Kim, Virtual Wellness Clinic, and she hired me on with her as an another MP that works there. And from there I have been able to really. Dive in with patients individually and if I want to spend an hour with them, if I want to spend 2 hours with like I control my own schedule, we have transparent pricing. We have, it's all virtual. So we were able to keep our costs really low. I can counsel patients in depth on diet or exercise or what. I really, really enjoy doing most is the investigation or the puzzling of why do you have this autoimmune disorder? Why do you have diabetes and how do we fix it? How do we fix? What is happening in your life from every angle and functional medicine is really. A systems biology based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of illnesses. So. That takes specialized testing that we don't often do in Western medicine at all. And then the treatments for those are often pretty complex and take a good amount of patient effort to. Address the things that need to be addressed because it's it's holistic. It's sleep, diet, stress, the water you're drinking to, you know, not diet in even just what foods, but the the types of foods or chemicals you're exposed to. The toxins that you're exposed to through just stuff that you don't even think about every day, how that influences the body and. And a lot of the testing that I do is more on the microbiome, the the GI, because most of the roots of our illnesses are in the gut, in the microbiome. So the patients that I usually see are ones that have GI issues. So GI issues is kind of my, my favorite thing to focus on and I feel like starting there is like is perfect because once that is. Is optimal. Then you can start fixing the rest of the things like the API access problems like with stress and cortisone, adrenals or hormones or. Mood or chronic pain, right? If you don't address that first piece, the big piece that's running all those systems, you're just kind of surfacing, trying to fix things again and. I'm really good at fixing the gut and working with somebody to to make that happen so they can eat cheese again or they can not have bloating or diarrhea or Constipation or not have flares of their autoimmune disorder like ulcerative colitis or Crohn's. And. There are patients that are willing and wanting to do this type of work so that they have a. Just the optimal Wellness. Instead of just kind of that chronic disease Rd. that's like one thing after another. And this Med now caused this and now we suppress your immune system. So now you've got this issue and now we gave you like a like a PPI. So now you don't absorb zinc, magnesium or iron or vitamin D so then that's going to mess up all the other, you know, other systems are going to start to fail and the your mitochondria and there's. All of that is like. Functional medicine and in a nutshell, and I absolutely love it and I was not taught any of it, and my FNP journey, so it's it's definitely something that actually brings me joy now to be able to help people. In that root of physical or mental illness and. See the difference? So not just. Here's a medicine that you're going to be on. Here's an antidepressant that you're going to be on for the rest of your life. You know, they might need one temporarily. They might need different prescription medicines for different things, but if we can start to reverse some of that stuff, that is what I focus on. I also really like anti aging so there's a lot of people that are my age, your age even older. I have a patient in his probably upper 70s, maybe early 80s. That is a bio optimizer, right? Wants to do everything then he can. Or she can to really be well like that and age well. And yeah, that's that's what I do. So people can make appointments with me online through our website and it it just works wonderfull
Beth Quaas
Well, and I I am close to someone that is a success. Story of yours? He had a lot of GI issues for years and came and saw you and you did get to the root of the issue and that person is just doing phenomenally well and. I can't stress enough how important it is to find the root cause and not just throw medications at it every day, all day long. And when you talk about the gut Biome we all have heard in nursing of the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, but now I.
Kerry Johnson
M.
Beth Quaas
Found out in the last couple of years, there's the enteric nervous system, which is all gut, and you've probably thought about that for a long time.
Kerry Johnson
From.
Beth Quaas
It's probably just coming up now into mainstream education of people that that is a huge part of our body systems and how they work.
Kerry Johnson
In something that we missed, you know, I remember hearing about the mind body got the mind gut connection even back when I was working at. Male long time ago there were people there that were way ahead of us, right? That were really getting into the gut and the mind connection. And then how that influenced everything from obesity to mood to hormone stress response. And then. How do things that have happened in your past? You know, like stressors, big events, stressors, how did that then rewire your brain in a, you know, there's, like, so many different things that we know now. With medicine and it even genomics is fascinating to me. I use genomics in my functional medicine practice too, because it's all it's precision medicine, right? It's individual. Things for each person that makes the biggest difference, because when we try to put everybody into a box and say you have high cholesterol, so you need this cholesterol lowering medication because that's what this study showed that they gave it to people. This. Couple 100 people and it worked for them to lower their cholesterol, so therefore everybody should be on this cholesterol medication. Uh. Like that is something I just can't do anymore. I can't. Buy into that anymore and I think that as many physicians that are being certified at the Institute for Functional Medicine to PA's to NPC's, to. Even are and educators can be certified in functional medicine. So many more people are starting to understand. That it's so much bigger. And better to start with that gut. And then go for and and go from there for issues. And you know, natural paths and other people may have known about this stuff for many, many years. And slowly I I feel like there's a shift happening where the floor providers of all different sorts. So they could be MD's, MP's, doesn't matter, would kind of make. None of you if you said, oh, I think this person has leaky guts and their intestinal permeability has been altered and this has caused. You know a set of reactions to happen, and it probably was from SIBO or a overgrowth of bacteria because they had all these antibiotics for since the time they were born and and their parents probably had antibiotics. And that changed your mom's microbiome. Which then she passed on to you. And there's this passing on I was. Microbiome. There's passing on of epigenetics. And even trauma and other things that get passed on that lesser medicine really never could got a hold of. Understanding and now I feel like as I mentioned, leaky gut. Or some of these other things that people would have laughed at me 10 years ago. I think they're more like, oh, oh, I've heard of that. Not. Oh, that's some random term that somebody made-up of something that's not real. So and I think patients felt like that they got treated like that too if they went to a natural provider or a functional medicine provider. And we're told, you know, here's actually some of your real issues that are going on in your body. And then they went back to primary care Western medicine and said, yeah, I've got. This and this, and I'm doing these changes. They'd be like, no, that's not real. Uh, so I I am hoping and the more and I get a lot of patients that are referred from other patients. So I don't even do any significant advertising or. Trying to attract patients, I like my small practice, but I love seeing people so I'm always open to seeing people, but they are my best. Kind of hey, this worked for me. You're having an issue. Why don't you try seeing this provider and? I really, really enjoy it and I try to bring a little bit of functional medicine into education. Because I think it's important that the new generation of practitioners knows about it. But I don't get to teach a lot of it, and I say that in a my own way. Like nobody's preventing me. I'm preventing me from teaching it in detail because it would be hard to pass their certification board if we know and. And I'm telling them in Western medicine you treat acid reflux with an acid block.
Speaker
OK.
Kerry Johnson
And then I say, but here's how I treat acid reflux. I give people acid because oftentimes it's. The roots issue is much, much different than what you're thinking. It's not that they have too much acid, that's actually they don't have enough, and that created these bacteria that produce gas, which pushes the gastric contents up. But so you can treat it by giving apple cider vinegar or some, you know, tablets. Or there's acid tablets that you can actually prescribe and you know it's just two complete opposite. Thought patterns there and if you want to pass your certification boards. You better know that a PPI and an acid reducer is how you treat heartburn. So there's some things I don't want to mess them up with right away because it is important to have the basics.
Speaker
Of.
Kerry Johnson
Medical, medical. Modern western medicine down because you got to know that as well and you have to understand that to be able to understand the other. Why you would do it a different way? Because when you do talk to when I talk to patients, I explain both. And I explained that both are. Are going to do something. One is going to be a Band-Aid and it's not going to really fix much for you, but it it does get rid of the the symptoms right? So. You can definitely try it if you want to try something else and you have to trust me on this because it sounds counterintuitive. Ah. That I want to give you more acid because I think your hypo. You're missing acid, so it depends on that relationship you have with the patient on. Do they trust? Your recommendations? Yeah, I think I digressed on the education piece of that, but.
Beth Quaas
You are the real deal because I've seen the success stories in what you do in functional medicine, and I know you're the real deal in academia because you have been a mentor of mine and I can't say enough the good job that you do. So I appreciate that. I think that we need another episode just to talk about functional medicine, because I would love to have you come back and talk to the listeners more about what you do because I think it is so important. And if you would love to do that, I. Would love to have you.
Kerry Johnson
Oh, absolutely. And I think that my partner. Doctor young fuel. She would be an another wonderful functional medicine person to have on as she. Really focuses on exercise and diet and other, you know in different aspects as well as but every functional medicine person will have their their niche because there is so much with it. You can't be an expert at everything in the field. You have to pick your niches. With it, and it's nice to to know who to go to for each thing
Beth Quaas
Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing everything that you've shared with us today. Do you have any advice, let's say, for the students that are coming out, the nursing students? What advice do you have for them?
Kerry Johnson
So I would advise them to really treat each other. Kindly and to work on breaking that cycle of disrespecting the younger people that are coming in and just focus on growing them, mentoring them, how you wish you would have been treated because at some point there has to be. Just like with abuse. Just like with any other thing that perpetuates in kind of a circle, there has to be somebody that breaks that. That pattern, and I think that it is the millennials that could be the ones that stop the. That. You know, just because I was treated that way does not mean. I need to treat. The my younger generation like that. So when they get out there to really. Treat each other well, and then when you go back to school because you want to pursue something different like a PRN level type practice that you really pick a university that is going to prepare you. For really important things beyond just the the practice, but also that has like I love our partnership with MSA, Metro State and MSA, it's just it's been fantastic with your team, Beth. And we really love working with you as well. And I think it's important that students. Take a little time to pick the right education program. And learn a little bit about them rather than just a name. You.
Beth Quaas
Know I couldn't agree more with that. I thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate your time and I know that we will be talking to you. Again.
Kerry Johnson
Thank you back. Bye bye.