The UMB Pulse Podcast
The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is working to strengthen social impact and galvanize innovation. This season of “The UMB Pulse” podcast is featuring stories about how UMB is taking creative action to overcome barriers and solve social problems. Be sure to tune in – new episodes drop on the FIRST FRIDAY of the month! “The UMB Pulse” is produced by the UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Co-hosted by Charles Schelle, lead social media specialist and Dana Rampolla, director of integrated marketing.
The UMB Pulse Podcast
Veteran Insight: General Peggy Wilmoth's Journey in Nursing and Military Leadership
In this episode of the UMB Pulse podcast, co-hosts Charles Schelle and Dana Rampolla interview Ret. Maj. Gen. Margaret "Peggy" Chamberlain Wilmoth, PhD, MSS, MS’ 79, BSN ‘75, FAAN, a distinguished alumna of the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She is currently a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.
Known as Peggy, she shares her inspiring journey as the first U.S. Army nurse to command a medical brigade and her dual career in nursing and military service. Peggy discusses her experiences, challenges, and accomplishments, including policy development and research contributions. She emphasizes the significance of mentorship, the importance of inclusiveness in the military, and her passion for psychosocial oncology.
00:00 Introduction
00:05 Discussing Veterans Day and "The Women"
01:28 Introducing General Margaret Chamberlain Wilmoth
03:55 General Wilmoth's Early Life and Career
09:34 Balancing Military and Academic Careers
12:12 Leadership and Policy Contributions
20:08 Challenges and Research in Military Health
26:51 Inclusivity and Psychosocial Oncology
35:29 Advice for Future Generations
41:56 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Hi, Charles. How are you today?
Charles Schelle:Great, Dana. How are you doing?
Dana Rampolla:I'm good. I'm good. So it is November. This is the month that we celebrate Veterans Day. And I wanted to ask you, have you ever read the new book? It came out earlier this year. It's a historical fiction book written by Kristin Hannah. It's called"The Women."
Charles Schelle:Can't say that I have.
Dana Rampolla:No? It's a great book. I recommend reading it. I. I actually learned a lot. That's what I like about historical fiction is it's a good story, but you can learn a lot with it. And so this particular book talks about women who were nurses during Vietnam. And it tells the specific story of 1 woman and the challenges she faced, not only with being in Vietnam period, because she was on the front line, and it was very traumatic, but also how she was in a male dominated environment working as a nurse, assuming tremendous amounts of responsibility that women nurses at that time may not have experienced in other settings. I think that we know what men who served in Vietnam experienced, but it was very insightful to look at what women experienced because a lot of people didn't recognize that they were even in Vietnam and here she was literally on the front lines.
Charles Schelle:Interesting. Well, it sounds like, quite a cross section of nursing and military service. I'm a fan of reading biographies and autobiographies. So if only there was someone's life that I could read and hear about that fit that description.
Dana Rampolla:Well, I'm sure there is, and at the very least, today we're going to talk to someone who lived that experience firsthand. She graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She went to our School of Nursing, and her name is General Margaret Chamberlain Wilmoth. She goes by Peggy, and she's such a nice lady and so approachable and has so many great lessons to share from her experience.
Charles Schelle:General Wilmoth, Peggy, as you said she is the first U S army nurse to command a medical brigade as a general officer. She'll tell us what that means and what that looked like. She served as an Army Reserve Deputy Surgeon General, while she's balancing a life of a little bit of everything, being a single mother and still having a career, served as the Deputy Chair of the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee, and she actually had a lot to do with policy changing research. She ensured safe deployment for at risk soldiers, her policy leadership expanded inclusiveness within the Department of Defense, and she also served as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellow, that's a mouthful, and contributed to the field of psychosocial oncology, which she will also tell us what that all means too.
Dana Rampolla:Not only that, but she served in various leadership roles at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in their school of nursing. She continues to be a professor there. And general, should we call her general or doctor? Because she has so many credentials at the end of her name. Well, she also served as the National Academy of Medicine Distinguished Nurse Scholar in Residence Today on the UMB Pulse, we hope to give listeners an insightful view into Dr. Peggy Chamberlain Wilmoth's career that reflects a commitment to healthcare policy and military service that's transformative leader in both the military and nursing fields and public health policy. And it's very interesting to us, Charles. I think I speak for both of us as co hosts of the UMB pulse because she is a two time alumna of our school of nursing and a proud one at that.
Charles Schelle:Reporting for duty, General Wilmoth!
You're listening to the heartbeat of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the UMB Pulse.
Dana Rampolla:Hi Peggy, welcome to our UMB Pulse podcast.
Peggy Wilmonth:Well thank you very much for having me today. And I want to give a disclaimer upfront, I'm getting over a cold, so please forgive the froggy voice.
Dana Rampolla:Well, we're happy to have you here and we appreciate you coming on, even with a froggy voice.
Peggy Wilmonth:Thanks. Thank you.
Dana Rampolla:We have a lot of questions to ask you today and let's just jump right in by talking about a little bit about your time at UMB and how that laid a foundation for your notable career in nursing and military leadership. Tell us what initially drew you to nursing and how UMB influenced your career path. Well, I always. I wanted to be a nurse. I grew up in an era where women didn't have as many choices as they do today, but I had some very important mentors and role models in my life. One is an aunt who is a nurse, and the other was an army nurse from World War II who lived across the street. So between watching my aunt go through a diploma at your school and then visiting with the army nurse corps officer from across the street, the two of them really influenced my interest in being both a nurse, but not just a nurse, but joining the military. And I was very fortunate to be able to live my dream of being an army nurse. I'm very fortunate in that regard. Thank you first and foremost for your service and how did you wind up at UMB?
Peggy Wilmonth:I well lived in Maryland at the time and I applied to several other schools, but I got into University of Maryland College Park. And then, of course, you had to do the two years and do well enough to get accepted into the upper division major and moved to Baltimore and was just transformed the first time I drove up the BW Parkway. And I was just so excited to be at the University of Maryland. I had some fabulous faculty. Sally Peralhoff was very informative, instructive, gave me the swift kick in my derriere when I needed it to Do more than just get along. And Margaret McEntee was a very important professor of my undergraduate, my senior year. I was just blessed. Great friends, great faculty, wonderful learning experiences. And then I came back for my master's degree. At the University of Maryland after going away for a year to a medical college in Virginia, where I was a nurse intern. And that is where I changed my focus for my clinical career. Margaret McEntee inspired, and my aunt was a cardiac nurse, and they inspired me to go into cardiac nursing. And my, year internship at Medical College of Virginia included six months in the open heart recovery room where I took care of everyone from valve replacements, bypasses to infants with major surgery to heart transplant patients all in my first six months of school. And then I went to a surgical oncology unit going from taking care of one or two patients a shift to a unit of cancer patients, particularly with head and neck cancer patients. That was a very difficult transition, but that's where I fell in love with oncology nursing. And then from there, I went to a burn unit and worked in a burn unit for my last four months of my internship. And burn unit nursing. It's very hard work and you become very autocratic, and my roommates did not appreciate me coming home and basically telling them how high to jump because that is what you have to do when you're working with burn patients. But I fell in love with oncology nursing from that experience because I felt it, I was able to use the full scope of what we had been taught in my undergraduate nursing program about the full range of care for individuals. And so that's where I focused in my master's program was looking at oncology nursing, and I worked during my master's program at the University of Maryland hospital on oncology unit there.
Dana Rampolla:So you had some very intense nursing, in my opinion, you're not just. Taking care of little problems or sopping up small wounds, you dove right in head first. And just to clarify, Peggy, when you've referred to University of Maryland a couple of times, do you mean University of Maryland Baltimore for all of that education or did you split some time between College Park and Baltimore.
Peggy Wilmonth:The first two years were in College Park, my freshman and sophomore years. I was in a sorority and lived at home part of that time. And then the last two years were what we called a UMAB at the time, University of Maryland at Baltimore, UMB. And that was my junior and senior years. And then for my master's program at UMB.
Dana Rampolla:Wonderful. Well, what was it about the military service, just a little bit more about that, that inspired you to combine it with nursing? Was it simply having that person in your life or did, were there other people or experiences that guided that trajectory? Because it is rather unique.
Peggy Wilmonth:At the time when I was in high school and going into college, University of Maryland was partnered with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing, the RAINN program, and I tried to get into the RAINN program, but I chased boys too much one summer and one of my high school math scores grades was not as high as it should have been. So I was not accepted into the RAINN program. And so that was my first attempt at becoming an Army nurse. To get that Army nursing education as a nurse through the RAINN program, Which is partnered with the University of Maryland. And then as I was graduating, I was trying to go active duty nursing, but that's when Vietnam was winding down and they were shrinking the size of the force. So that road was blocked. So it wasn't until I had graduated with a master's degree and I was already teaching nursing at the University of Delaware, and I had a child that I was actually commissioned into the Army Reserve. And so I, for 35, 40 years, I had two careers at the same time. I was a professor by that time, teaching at the university of Delaware and moved a little bit and got my PhD in nursing. And then I also had a second career in the army reserve. I balanced two careers for 35 years. And I feel it really gave me the best of both worlds. I truly believe one informed the other, and I truly believe that my leader skills were developed as a result of my Army career, not so much in my nursing academic career. So I really felt that they really helped, both careers helped shape me in a very unique way.
Dana Rampolla:Well, and it's interesting, too, because you've mentioned two careers, but you also were a mother through this whole time.
Peggy Wilmonth:And a single mother for much of that time, too. So, yes. And
Dana Rampolla:that's responsibility.
Peggy Wilmonth:It was. And at the time where I was teaching, it was a nine month academic appointment. So, therefore, I felt I could kind of be a better mother in the summers, if you will. So that kind of helped me be able to balance that three legged stool that I believe reservists all balance. Active duty, as much as they were 24 7 365 in uniform, they balance one job and families. Reservists, no matter whether you're artillery, or a logistician, or healthcare, you're juggling two careers, the demands of two careers, as well as your family and community responsibilities. Because not only in the military are you required. Particularly as a health professional to maintain your civilian credentialing. In order to get promoted in the military, you must do certain types of military education at prescribed times to get promoted to the next rank. And that's whether you're an enlisted individual or an officer. So there's a lot of demands if you're in the reserve component because you're trying to juggle all of these things and keep everything moving forward without dropping any balls.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, that's a lot to take on between the different responsibilities and as you said, you're on the army's clock, right? when it comes to these things so You were the first US Army nurse to command a medical brigade as a general officer Yes, could you share a little bit about what that role entailed? Maybe people aren't familiar with all the things that go into nursing in that setting, and then what it meant to be the first nurse to hold such a position.
Peggy Wilmonth:It was really a humbling honor, humbling and very honored. I was very honored to do that. I had already had a battalion level command. So that battalion in the medical world, you're usually in, in the rest of the army, you're usually a lieutenant colonel and having a battalion, which is usually about four companies. So you've got, Between 700 and 1000 individuals you're responsible for. In the medical world, I had a battalion as a full bird colonel. I had finished the Army War College, which was a part time distance ed course for two years, while I was in command as a battalion commander. And I had a hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina. And then I had some other smaller units around North Carolina and South Carolina. And that meant I was responsible for the quality of training and all personnel actions and all our equipment for this battalion. When I became a brigade commander at the time, now that they've changed them to colonel level commands, but at the time they were one star commands, I was the commanding general for every reserve unit. across eight states in Puerto Rico. That meant I had 6, 000 soldiers I was responsible for. In 54 different units. We doubled in size when I took command. So I grew without the staff that one needed to manage all those people. So the old acronym, you're building it while we fly. We were building command structures to support all of these elements that I was responsible and accountable for while I was still teaching full time. Mind you, this was a part time job. And I would travel every weekend. To visit varying units across my command structure and meet with leaders, meet with soldiers to be sure that they were doing the kind of training and preparing whatever they were had to prepare for training. And this was 2005 to 2008. So we were deploying units to Iraq and Afghanistan at that time. So we were very busy trying to make sure that all these units, whether they were dental units or combat support hospitals, were getting all their pre deployment training, doing all their pre deployment medical readiness. We're going off to do special training at Camp Parks, California. Because they were going to be in a combat zone, so they had to know how to function and operate in a combat zone, not just be proficient in their medical skills, they had to be proficient in their military and army skills. And so we were sending units off and welcoming units home during that period of time. And again, I was still working full time at the university. So I was juggling an awful lot. As was everyone else in my command. It wasn't just me, but when you're the commanding general, the buck stops with you and as the first nurse, and as I think we could understand from the election a little bit that when you're the first, you get scrutinized. And you get scrutinized very heavily. And at the time being the first means, people are always watching you. So it was as an honor, but it was a very difficult experience. I was also during that period of time appointed to serve on the army reserve forces policy committee. By the Secretary of the Army, so quarterly, I was flying into the Pentagon for meetings with my other general officers from the Guard, active duty and reserve to talk about issues that affected the mobilization and deployment of the force. So I really had some solid policy experiences, policy development experiences at that, during that period of time as the commanding general as well.
Charles Schelle:You talked a lot about the nuts and bolts of it and bureaucratic kind of parts of it as well, but, as you've been touching on. The balance it takes between the demands of this and then demands of your job and family. How did you handle those times personally just to keep yourself grounded and all the stress and I'm sure anxiety that, that comes with leading in multiple places?
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, let me also add that my son was in the army at the time. It was on the invasion force into Iraq. And so, that was 2003 that he was on in the evasion force. And he didn't write, I didn't hear from him for six months. So when I would send soldiers off. I would say, no matter what you do, write your mother snail mail. I don't care if you are able to call her, you will write to your mother. And I had the experience one time welcoming a unit home and one young man said to me, ma'am, my mother said to say, thank you because of you, I wrote to her. And so that, that's, those are the things that you remember that, you made a difference in some mom's life. My son I have not yet let him forget that he's never wrote to me. He's on his third deployment right now, so, so I'm still living, even though I'm retired from the military, I'm still very much involved as a military mom. But I worked out and physical fitness and eight hours of sleep a night. I truly believe those are things that leaders need to role model for others, and I know I needed it for myself. So, and I had a dog, have a dog, had one then. And so, pets and physical fitness. Eating right, sleeping, all those things that we know that we need to do really are what help me handle the stress.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, it's all about putting yourself first and when you have everyone pulling for your time, right? Yes. Well, as you were talking, looking over soldiers and yourself and your son. You still had to get to work and shape policies and practices within the military. How did your leadership help shape these, policies, especially regarding, healthcare and how, healthcare was afforded to these soldiers, whether it's here or in combat.
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, interestingly enough, I had the privilege after I finished my command in 2008, I applied for the. Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, and I was fortunate enough to be selected to be a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow, 2009 to 2010. So I learned about big health policy and how it's made by that phenomenal experience. It was truly an honor to be a RDFJ Foundation Health Policy Fellow and to be there when we passed the Affordable Care Act and to watch how that was then turned into regulations. And then my second one star assignment was as the assistant for mobilization and readiness. In the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, where we actually made health policy for the entire force. And so those experiences really helped hone my ability to understand policy, to look at policy, to do policy analysis, and to think about policy from not just the strategic pieces, but also look at it from the tactical level and in, in, in the weeds and how does it really get implemented. So those experiences were really informative. And then as a two star, I did policy as the Deputy Surgeon General for the Army Reserve, and I had a second stint on the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee. So I worked in policy in that space as well.
Dana Rampolla:And then Peggy, you were also involved in research, right? That research, from my understanding, played a pivotal role in the deployment of at risk soldiers, could you give us some insights into the specific challenges that the soldiers faced and what your research aimed to, to address?
Peggy Wilmonth:First off, I had read an article written by a reserve component physician saying that when reservists were deployed into theater, in war, that they were less prepared to handle war on a daily basis than active component because the active component does war all the time or does military all the time. Well, as a reservist, I was insulted because I felt everyone, no one wants to go to war. I mean, we have a strong military to try to preserve the peace. No one wants to go to war, but we train for it. We prepare for it. And so I got my team inside OSD Health Affairs. We started looking at the data and did a data analysis about who was most likely to be sent out of theater for psychiatric mental health problems. And we found it wasn't the reservist at all. It was younger individuals, younger women primarily, who might've left theater. Young children at home, and they were like 20 to 24 year old women with young kids who were really struggling with what it meant to be a parent and be a soldier and be deployed. And so we as we looked at those data, we also looked at the number, the data around. the military in the period prior to the surge in Iraq, that General Petraeus had implemented. That was successful. But in order to have enough servicemen and women to man the force, they allowed individuals to move. Some individuals with some pre existing mental health challenges to be assessed in the military. And so in looking at those data we were able to get CENTCOM deployment policy modified. to try to reduce the harm and risk of sending those with known mental health diagnoses into theater. And I don't know where those policies stand today. They've just released I think I heard mod 17 to the CENTCOM deployment policy. So I don't know how that has changed in the intervening years, but but for that period of time so about 2012 13, after the surge, they were able to make some modifications I'm really proud that we were able to make a difference and hopefully some individuals have better experiences or less traumatic experiences. Because of that.
Charles Schelle:Following up on those comments, there are a lot of conflicts going on around the world right now, and we're on the edges of some supporting, whether that's Ukraine or the Middle East, or things that are heating up in the Pacific, and in regards to health of soldiers and all, is there anything maybe the American people should take more time to pay attention to or keep their eyes on as far as whether it's policy or things that soldiers need as far as their health?
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, I would let me go back a little further and talk in a bigger sense about the state of our youth today. We all know that our adolescents have a huge mental health challenge. COVID was very stressful for many and social media in some cases is detrimental to the emotional health of young men and young women. And life is very stressful for everyone. We also have a huge issue in our youth of obesity. 75 percent of America's adolescents today do not meet the criteria to join our military. And part of that is due to obesity. Part of it is due to felony convictions. Part of it is due to drug use. And part of it is due to poor education. So, there, there's a lot of issues that the American public should be concerned with. Not only in obesity in our youth with type 2 diabetes growing in young children and teens obesity in our adults is a huge problem. Economically, it's going to break our healthcare system from the cost of care of these complex chronic illnesses and that is, impacts our ability to recruit qualified individuals into the military. We're at 50 years into the all volunteer force, and we can't man that force because we have so few who, even if they want to serve, have problems with serving. They don't meet the standards. And I know the military has been doing a review of our accessions policy, and they are now going to allow Waivers for individuals with 51 new conditions to be waived in to serve in the military. And we don't know what the long term effect of that is going to have on the health and well being of those who serve, who are allowed to serve with these conditions and what that's going to be at the other end in terms of their own health or care that we as the American people owe them for volunteering to serve.
Dana Rampolla:That's really scary. Not anything I've ever even thought about. It's sad to say,
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, only 1 percent of Americans volunteer to serve in our military today. So 99 percent have no awareness or understanding of, or, it's not in the aperture at all to, to think about that. And so, while the all built volunteer force is good in that we don't, we aren't facing a draft. It means that fewer and fewer know what it means to serve or know what the cost of serving are. And then the other issue that we could come up to play with, if we don't have enough to volunteer to serve, does that mean we have to restart the draft? And then right now women are not part of that picture. And what does that mean? So I think those are some big macro policy questions we're going to face as a country going forward.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, thank you for bringing those up, especially now with a new era of American politics entering and what's going on abroad. It's, you're right. It's very important to pay attention to.
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, I will tell you, I was in, in the Balkans this summer in, in a military cause, a military role and speaking to ministers of defense and leaders of their military, and they are very anxious because if we pull out of NATO, they know what's going to happen and who's going to come across and into their borders. So it's very tense time over there.
Charles Schelle:Absolutely. Thank you.
Dana Rampolla:Peggy, You've dabbled a little bit with inclusivity by talking about women and what was the impact of your work in expanding inclusiveness within the Department of Defense? Specifically, how's your policy leadership influence that military culture and opportunities for maybe other diverse groups within the organization?
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, interestingly enough, one of the last assignments I had was when Secretary Carlson worked and brought leaders from all the military departments together to expand the ability of transgendered individuals to serve openly in our military. And I was assigned that task to be the Army Surgeon General's representative on that task force. So my last six months in uniform, I was in weekly meetings with other leaders from the Department of Defense to craft and draft the policy to allow transgendered individuals to serve openly in our military. And I truly believe that any American who wants to serve ought to be able to serve in our military. And regardless of gender orientation I, I, if you want to serve, we ought to make it, find a way for you to serve. Again, since so few Americans are propense to serve, who are we to tell someone that they shouldn't be able to serve because they may be gay or be transgendered? And so that was a really important part of my last six months of work, of which I'm very proud. I learned a lot. And interestingly enough, my doctoral work at Penn was looking at the impact of cancer and cancer treatments on intimacy and sexuality. So while a lot of what we wrote in the Department of Defense for transgendered individuals was around personnel policy, not health care policy, I felt that I was at least Potentially more open and understanding than others say from the Marine Corps might be. When we began to approach that work, it the experience of working with those individuals on that committee was truly hard work, but it, we all came at it from working to be as nonjudgmental and as unbiased as we possibly could, and I believe we crafted a very solid policy for that that work for those individuals to serve.
Charles Schelle:And that dovetails in to what I was about to ask about psychosocial oncology and your contributions. Can you explain to people what psychosocial oncology is and what motivated you to focus on that area?
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, turn back to the time when I was a head and neck cancer nurse and I was working with some of my patients at the University of Maryland hospital. And I had one woman who had a half of her jaw removed and half of her tongue. And that was in the days before peg tubes that fed people through their stomach. So she had a tube coming out of her nose to eat with and her first name have to be Peggy. And she threw a temper tantrum one morning. I look horrible. I can't kiss my husband. He won't come near me. This cancer has robbed me of my relationship. And I had Even to go back further, in my senior year at Maryland, we had a choice of two electives, death ed or sex ed. I took the sex ed, I couldn't imagine talking about death for a semester. So I took the human sexuality course with Susan Hetherington. And so I felt like when Peggy had, said this like, Oh, my God, I took this course. I was supposed to be comfortable with, and at least aware of the impact of health issues, diagnoses on the human being. And I completely missed it. So I felt incredibly guilty that I had not considered this as part of it. My role as a nurse that I completely ignored the impact of her cancer and her cancer treatments for just figuring cancer surgery on her as a woman and then on her intimate relationships. And so I owe it to my patients for taking the shutters off my eyes. And so I started talking to more and more of our head and neck cancer patients. And I had another gentleman who we'd even made home visits to because he was dehydrated. And, found out that I was very privileged. I knew how to put a blender together out of a box and he didn't. So it was again my white Anglo Saxon upper middle class bringing that I didn't know that patients would go home and not know how to assemble a piece of equipment that they'd been using in the hospital, but we had not taught them how to put it together. So those issues and then meeting him in the outpatient clinic and talking about the fact that since he'd had his head and neck cancer surgery. He was no longer able to have erections. Well, no one had talked to him about his alcoholism and how alcohol and then getting debilitated could affect his performance. And so again, it was another one of those moments, I'm crying, he's crying. And I really felt that I had failed again in not pulling together All my knowledge to try to provide high quality care to these individuals. So that's, I started my master's program, and I started asking our patients about body image and sexuality. And I was talking to one of our surgeons one time, and he said, So Peggy, these people are all over 60. Why are you talking to them? Y'all know once you're 60, you're not interested in sex anymore. And I was a smart aleck, 25 year old, and I looked at him, and I said, So on your 60th birthday, are you going to tell your wife that's it, no more separate bedrooms? And He got walked away from me. But I felt again ageism. He was putting his values on our patients. And so that's where I got started looking at the impact of emotions and family relationships and cancer treatments. On patients with cancer. And so I did my master's thesis looking at that, wrote my first paper with my master's with Susan Hetherington about that, and then did doctoral work on it at Penn. And, but then I got waylaid into military health policy later in my life, but I'm still very passionate because I really feel sometimes in, in healthcare today, we're so busy with the checkoff on the computer. And we forget about those kinds of things and just sitting at the side of the bed, not at the foot of the bed, not standing at the foot of the bed, but sitting Face to face, eyeball to eyeball, and just saying, how are you doing, can make a huge world of difference and then open up areas where we as nurses can make referrals and help make patients lives better, which is why we're all in nursing to begin with.
Charles Schelle:Do you feel like that approach is beginning to show itself in hospital rooms or do you think that we have a ways to go for people to embrace that philosophy?
Peggy Wilmonth:I still think we have a ways to go. I really do. Again, we're so technologically oriented and fast paced and patients are in and out so, so quickly in hospitals that some of that care has to take place elsewhere, whether it's outpatient or follow up physician visits. I know when I was living in Kansas, finishing my doctoral degree and teaching community health, I really found that was the optimal way to make a difference when my students and I would go into people's homes. And having a chance to engage with them, seeing where they lived, meeting them where they were, not in a hospital, which is where we live. That's our home. It's our place. Medical professionals own it. It's the home and the community where we really can make a difference.
Dana Rampolla:Did you feel like part of that was because you had more time with them or meet them in their place?
Peggy Wilmonth:I think part of it was also my maturation as a nurse, Benner wrote about from novice to expert. And I truly think that as we go across our full length of career, we move from novice to expert. So once you get past being a novice and know how to do the technical things, then you can begin to expand and incorporate other kinds of thinking and care into your work.
Dana Rampolla:Well, Peggy, you've certainly had an accomplished career, both in nursing and military. What advice would you offer new nurses or health care professionals, especially if they're interested in going outside of the box? They might be looking for a leadership or a policy opportunity.
Peggy Wilmonth:First off, your career is a marathon, not a sprint, so you don't have to do everything in 5 or 10 years. I would say be willing to risk. Don't let others put you in a box. My family thought I should be in the white picket fence, and I still had the letter from my dad when I was joining the army, you're a wife and a mother, your place is at home. Don't join the army. I didn't listen. But because of, because I didn't listen, because I didn't allow myself to be put in that box, I've had all these wonderful other experiences to allow me to expand and grow. This last year I was a National Academy of Medicine Distinguished Nurse Scholar in Residence funded by the ANA and the American Academy of Nursing and the American Nurses Foundation. I wouldn't have had that experience. I would have been a health policy fellow if I hadn't done some of these other kinds of growth opportunities and gone outside of straight clinical nursing. And I was just elected to be the 84th president of what we now call the Reserve Organization of America. It's an 102 year old organization that advocates for all serving reservists. It was the Reserve Officers Association, started by General Pershing after World War I. I'm only the third woman to be president of this organization. So again, it's, you have to find your own path and you have to be willing to risk. And to be true to yourself and to look at yourself in the mirror and know that you're following your own path and not the path that others think you should be following.
Dana Rampolla:I hope your dad changed his opinion.
Peggy Wilmonth:I don't know. I was a dean for, when I became a dean at Georgia State, he goes, I'm really proud you make, you've made general, but being a dean is really awesome. So I don't know that he ever got past again, he was born when women, you know, were And, and after, and after World War II, women were told to take off their Rosie the River clothes and put the pearls on and go back in the kitchen and, God, I hope we're not going back there. But but, so that's what his frame of reference was. And um, I don't know why I stepped out of the box like I did, but I had some phenomenal female role models and some men that opened doors for me when I didn't necessarily think about In fact I'll share this one story. I was in my battalion command. I had one year left in command and a general officer named General Larry Neitner called me and he goes, well, Colonel Wilmoth, I'm the new commanding general of the 81st RSC and RSG. And I would really like you to be my chief of staff. And I'm like, well, sir, I'm still, I'm About a year in command, blah, blah, blah. He called me several times, and finally it dawned on me, someone was opening a door for me, saw something in me I didn't see in myself. And thank God, I woke up, and I walked through that door because I left the army medical world behind for a period of time and moved outside of the army medical arena into the bigger army and learned about how the rest of the army ran. Had I not done that, had he not offered that and been so patient with me, I would not have become a one star general. So I think we also have to be aware that sometimes people from. Who we might not expect come to us and offer us opportunities, and we need to step through that door or that window. It will close. It'll never open again. I think too many times nurses sell ourselves short, and we need to own our own power and our own value as nurses.
Dana Rampolla:You certainly have had a very successful career. And if you were to pick, you've named a lot of different things you've been involved with the proudest moment. Can you pick one thing that really stood out?
Peggy Wilmonth:I really can't, because to me it's a kaleidoscope of things that have kind of come together and molded. I think sometimes the fact that there were some roadblocks put in front of me to prevent me from being a one star, and then roadblocks that others put in front of me from becoming a two star. And they were such that most people would have just thrown in the towel and retired as a one star. And I forced the system to work. And the fact that the system worked when I had the tenacity and went through what I went through to make the system work validated for me the importance of knowing your value and owning your power and believing in yourself so that you can force the system to work. And in my case, I was fortunate that I was became a two star general. But the other things that make me most proud have been my students and the students that I've worked with who have gone on to achieve in their own right. And again, as with anyone who looks back, it's those that you've helped along the way that really validates the hard work that you do.
Dana Rampolla:True. And what would you hope to leave as a legacy for future generations? Is it that giving them the opportunity?
Peggy Wilmonth:The opportunity and I would love for more nurses. to own the value of what we as nurses do and don't allow someone to say, or you to even say, I'm just a nurse. Because that puts us all down. I believe nursing is a fabulous profession that sometimes we box ourselves in. We speak to our own choir. We do not get out of our own way. We need to be outside of nursing in many cases. Talking about the values that we hold in leading outside of nursing, if we truly want to make a change in our profession. And so that's what I feel the military has allowed me to do, is to speak outside of my silo of nursing, and more of us need to do that.
Charles Schelle:You've absolutely broken glass ceilings for nurses and women in leadership. And we're recording this a few days ahead of Veterans Day. So thank you for your service. Thank you for everything you've done and keeping in touch and active with the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the School of Nursing, even as you're with another institution. And so, Peggy thank you so much for coming on to the UMB Pulse.
Peggy Wilmonth:Well, thank you so much for having me. Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans who are listening and to their families. Thank you.
Jena Frick:The UMB Pulse with Charles Schelle and Dana Rampolla is a UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs production, edited by Charles Schelle marketing by Dana Rampolla.
