Heidi: Okay. Martha, welcome to the Fluent in Floridian podcast. I'm so excited to have you on our show today.

Martha: Well, as a person who absolutely loves Florida, I am thrilled to be here and have this conversation.

Heidi: Yeah. So let's talk about how you got to Florida. So where did you grow up? And then what brought you into Florida?

Martha: So I grew up in a farming community just north of where we are today and knew at an early age that I wanted to have a career working with children. So I actually went to nursing school, loved my pediatric rotation, so I knew I had found the calling of my life, and started working at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. I was there for a number of years while we brought the three children's hospitals together. And then had an opportunity to relocate to Miami.

Heidi: Miami?

Martha: Yes, where I did relocate, and I lived there for five years, raising my children, grew to love the community, and could see how important that children's hospital is there to that community, but also the opportunity to make a big difference.

Heidi: Yeah. So when you were growing up in Georgia and you said, "I want to work with children," what sparked that?

Martha: Growing up in a farming community, one of the things you learn early on is that strong sense of community and helping your fellow man. But I'm not sure exactly what sparked it. I grew up in Sunday school and I would always help and volunteer out with the youngest children, and it made my heart happy. And so once I was in nursing school and I did my pediatric rotation, I knew that I had found the love of my life.

Heidi: I love that. So when you started your career as a pediatric nurse, what drew you to that specialty and what lessons from that time still guide you today?

Martha: I think I was drawn to that specialty because I had a heart for children as I continue to today. Children are voiceless. They don't vote. They don't always have the ability to reach out when they're in need. But also, on the other side, they're very joyful and resilient, and it doesn't take much to make a child happy.

So I think what I learned from the days of a bedside nurse to now today while I'm a president of a children's hospital is really the importance of walking a mile in the shoes of those who are at the bedside.

Heidi: Yeah.

Martha: Really understanding what their day is, kind of day in and day out. It's hard being a nurse. It's hard walking those floors and dealing with some of the saddest and hardest conversations and situations that person may ever deal with. And you do that day in and day out. But yet there's also the magic that happens at children's hospitals. I tell parents all the time, "Don't be discouraged. Miracles come out of children's hospitals."

Heidi: Yeah. I believe that. I believe that. So you're the president of Central Florida region of Nemours. You're serving thousands of patients each year. You're running a hospital. The network is a huge responsibility for you. So how do you balance managing the day-to-day operations with laying the groundwork for this long-term growth? Because you all are growing significantly.

Martha: We are growing. I think first and foremost, surround yourself with a brilliant team. Hire the smartest people that you can find that have a heart for the children and the mission that we're about, improving the wellbeing of Florida's children. And I've been very blessed and fortunate to have a great team around me that really care deeply about the mission. I tell everyone, the best people on earth work at children's hospitals. God's people work at Nemours Children's Health.

And it is true. Every single person you meet walking down the halls or walking into an office, they care deeply about the mission and have for many years. You decide to be a pediatric physician, for example. You have to go to school longer, you have to train longer, and you make less money. So if you're going to be a pediatric provider, you generally have a heart for it. And so that makes my job a whole lot easier.

The other thing I'll say is that in addition to surrounding yourself with the best and brightest, making sure that you're able to feel comfortable delegating and understanding that the day-to-day is going to be taken care of. It's the balance between the urgent and the important. The urgent is the day-to-day. You know, what's going to happen that I'm going to have to put a fire out. I have a team that's working on that.

The important is making sure that we have a strategic vision that's going to guide us to a place of sustainability. There's 4.4 million children in Florida, yet there's not a top-ranked children's hospital in Florida. Nemours has put a flag in the ground, and this has become our battle cry. We will become that top ranked children's healthcare system for Florida's children.

Heidi: I believe that. I believe that's going to happen. So tell me about some of the projects that you're doing to actually help you achieve that.

Martha: So program by program, we're developing in the depth and breadth of our core clinical programs: orthopedics, neurosciences, cardiology, cardiac services, hematology, oncology, and mother baby.

And we're investing... And I'll just give you a great example with our orthopedic team. We just hired, maybe about a year ago, this physician, his name is Shawn Standard. Shawn and I had an opportunity to meet his sister who is a practicing nurse, and she described him as the Picasso of bones, and he is exactly that.

Heidi: Really?

Martha: Dr. Standard can take a child who's born with a deformed limb and make it well again. And it's truly miraculous the work that Dr. Standard is doing. He has patients coming to see him now at Nemours from all over the world.

So what does this do? It shines a bright light on our entire orthopedic program. Nemours started in the '40s in Delaware. So Mr. DuPont's resources were to support the children in his two home states, Delaware and Florida. So we started as a crippled children's hospital. So our history as an orthopedic health system is very long and very strong. Shawn is complimenting that work.

In fact, I met a young lady... So once a month, I have a birthday party for anybody whose birthday is that month. And there was this young woman who came to my most recent birthday party, and I said, "Everybody, you introduce yourself. What do you do? What's interesting that you're working on?"

And she said, "I work for Dr. Shawn Standard. I'm his social media resource."

So once a month... once a week, rather, he does a podcast, and he is interacting with kind of putting himself out there as a resource globally, to the worldwide web, for people who have a child that may need his services. But this young woman, she knew him because she has skeletal dysplasia, and she knew exactly the great work that Shawn was doing. But she helped Shawn. She said, "You've done so much to transform my life. I'm going to help you reach more and more children across the globe."

And so that's just a great example of the great work that I get to see every day and be in the presence of. It's really extraordinary.

Heidi: Yeah. I mean, I feel very emotional based on what you just said. And I wonder how do you balance being a leader, but then also the emotion that comes with families that are coming in with children that may have these illnesses and the role that you play in that?

Martha: I think the most important thing is never lose your empathy. It is emotional and it's okay to be emotional, but yet you also have to be able to keep your head about you, have a calm presence, and step away from the emotions at the moment and see clearly this is the opportunity, this is the challenge, and this is the path forward.

And I will share with you, my own daughter was in an automobile accident five years ago and it broke her back. And now she is in Miami, at the Miami Project to cure paralysis, walking, learning to walk again. And we remain hopeful that she will. She's made great progress. But I tell people, after Megan's accident, every child I saw was Megan. Every parent I saw was me.

Heidi: As a mom.

Martha: And I walk into the lobby of that hospital, and we care for so many very, very complex, very sick children, and just to see how hard it is just to get that child up, get them out of bed, get them dressed, get them to their doctor's appointment, you want to do the best job possible, because they're here and they're present, and our children deserve that.

Heidi: Yeah. I'm sorry. What a remarkable story. Thank you for sharing that with us. How do you attract the best talent like a Dr. Standard? How do you do that? I mean, he's out there showcasing that he's there and he wants to help not only in Florida, but globally. How do you bring in more doctors like that?

Martha: I think it's kind of program by program. Our orthopedic physician chief is John Lovejoy. Dr. Lovejoy is brilliant. And he brought the opportunity forward to myself and Dr. Podberesky, who's our chief medical officer. He said, "I want to hire this doctor. Can we put together a recruitment package that has time for him to do his clinical work, time for him to do his research, and then the resources surrounding him? Because it takes a village to have a program successfully stood up like this."

And we said, "Yes. Our children deserve this program. We're going to figure out how to make it happen." And our team did. So I'm very grateful.

Heidi: That's remarkable. So what else are you doing to improve access to pediatric care in your work, and how do you ensure that even underserved families get the care that they need?

Martha: So Nemours cares for every child, regardless of ability to pay. 68% of our children so far this year that have been admitted to our hospital are covered by Florida Medicaid. We care percentage-wise for more patients on Medicaid than any pediatric or any adult hospital in Florida.

Heidi: Wow.

Martha: We took Mr. DuPont's wishes very seriously. He left his resources and said, "It is within everybody's ability to do everything we can to alleviate human suffering." And we do that.

Now, we are challenged with the amount of Medicaid we have. There's no doubt because we have to get to a place of financial sustainability so that we are here for Florida's 4.4 million children. And so we work closely with our elected officials to close that Medicaid gap.

Heidi: Yeah. How have you leveraged partnerships to kind of help fill some of these gaps and other initiatives that you have?

Martha: Sure. So Mr. Ginsburg a few years ago, who's a philanthropist here in our state of Florida and brilliant businessman, he gave us a $25 million donation, and it was to be seed money, to spark interest of others.

So we recently just had our third annual Ginsburg meeting where people come together from many organizations throughout Central Florida, but well beyond Central Florida, and with one common purpose, how do we bring all of our resources together? How do we bring our best thinking, I would also say, to make sure that we're collecting as many touch points as we can so that we're not duplicating services, but that we're complimenting services to bring forward to Florida's children and families?

Heidi:Now, if anyone is listening or watching this and they would like to support, what's the best way for them to get involved?

Martha: Go on our website. We have opportunities for giving. We have opportunities for volunteering. Some of our volunteers become our best employees. And we're here. We have all sorts of opportunities. We have a pet therapy program where individuals through our volunteer services department come in with their pets and they just walk from floor to floor. And you can see, they walk down a patient floor, they walk in the emergency room with these children, they just beam in the minute they see that puppy coming down the floor with them.

But we're here for our community, and our community has put their arms around us and are loving us back, and we're very grateful for that.

Heidi: Have you had anyone bring any unusual pets in like pigs or anything like that?

Martha: Oh, my goodness.

Heidi: Or do you have to have like a...

Martha: I don't have a pig story, but I'm sure there's probably one out there.

Heidi: There one out there. Okay, thank you. So you all recently received support to explore innovative treatments such as using the Zika virus in pediatric cancer research. Can you tell me more about this kind of work that you're doing to bring these outcomes to kids that are kind of unusual in this sense?

Martha: They're very unusual, and they're groundbreaking. So Dr. Tammy Westmoreland, who is one of our pediatric surgeons, and Dr. Ken Alexander, who is an infectious disease doctor, are both working diligently in their labs with mice, and they've been able to demonstrate different types of cancer using the Zika virus as a vector. It's actually curative.

Heidi: Wow.

Martha: And it's a form of neuroblastoma, which is a type of cancer that previously had no treatment and no cures, so if you were diagnosed with that, it was a death sentence. And so we're hoping to move, I just heard this morning, to clinical human trials within the next 18 months. This is life changing, and I'm so just privileged to get to work with such brilliant people.

Heidi: That is so remarkable. So looking ahead, what are some other things that you all are working on to help children and families that you serve?

Martha: Another program I would like to highlight -- probably there's two more at least; there's so many -- is our neurosciences program. Nemours now employees the largest group of pediatric neurologists and neurosurgeons in the state of Florida. We have a robust program throughout Central Florida, Jacksonville market and beyond, and we're reaching more and more children. And I'm very excited. Our goal isn't to be the best in Florida. It's to be the best in the U.S. with regards to that.

Our most recent hire in the neurosurgery division was Dr. Myron Rolle. A lot of people know Myron -

Heidi: Yes!

Martha: ... because Myron is a legend from his time at FSU, in the NFL, Rhodes Scholar, his training at Harvard, and his fellowship at Hopkins. But Myron, he came to us. We actually have the opportunity, the privilege, I would say, to work with Myron and his brother Mordecai.

And so they're bringing forward opportunities. Not only is Myron important because he's in the operating room saving lives doing brain surgery, he and his brother are also helping us connect to the community in various ways so that we are uplifting our community and the children that we serve.

But he's out there. And he has his own podcast. But you know, bike safety, helmet safety, gun safety, those things. Let's get them before they end up in the operating room.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. So out of all the things that you do, all the people you engage with, what is like those favorite moments of yours when you're working within the hospital?

Martha: I think it's to see greatness. Most recently, an area that I like to... When I'm stressed or just kind of getting bogged down in something where I feel like maybe I'm busy but not as productive as I want to be, is I'll get up and I'll walk to one of our clinical units. But I really enjoy going to our cardiac intensive care unit.

Dr. Pete Wearden is our chair of pediatric cardiac surgery, and he has a team that's in Central Florida and Jacksonville and by far the largest group of pediatric cardiologists in our state, reaching far and wide to serve our children. But not only does he have the largest program, he has the best outcomes by far. So the best cardiac surgical outcomes by far of any program in our state and among the best in the nation. And you think about Dr. Wearden and the work that he does. He does surgery on a baby's heart the size of a walnut.

Heidi: Really?

Martha: And can even reform and reshape and reprogram a heart that's maybe malformed and isn't going to be viable for that baby to one that is. And not only does he do the surgery on them, these babies, they don't just live, they thrive.

Heidi: Oh my gosh.

Martha: And I can walk by their door and I can look in their room and I see all these IDs and all this equipment they're hooked to, and I see hope, because I know that that baby's going to come out and that baby's going to do great in life.

Heidi: Yeah. Oh my God, what a remarkable life you live.

Martha: I am very privileged. I know that every day. At my last birthday party for my teammates, I said, "Well, they tell you if you find your calling, you'll never work a day in your life. And I'm not going to lie. Some days it does feel like work, but I'm very blessed and I know that."

Heidi: Yeah. So at the end of the day, when you're reflecting, what are you most proud of?

Martha: I think that we're here and our heart and soul is here. We're not here to see another patient. We're here to make a difference. And for that, I'm very grateful. I work with a team that also shares that passion and the hope for tomorrow, the promise. Our sickest children today and with some diagnoses are having to leave the state for care. Florida's children deserve better than that.

Heidi: Yeah.

Martha: So as I said earlier, this is our battle cry. We're creating better. Better is possible. Just try harder.

Heidi: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the Fluent in Floridian podcast. I have learned so much, and I hope that our listeners and our viewers see the gem that we have here and they support you in every way possible. So thank you for coming today. We really appreciate it.

Martha: Heidi, it's been my pleasure. Loved getting to know you and the great work that you and your team here at Fluent in Florida are doing. So I'm very grateful for this opportunity. Thank you.

Heidi: Thank you.

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