Name: Melissa Waide
Position: Pediatric Nurse Practitioner/Renal Transplant Coordinator
Where: Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughter (CHKD)
Education: Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner
Pictures of Nurse Melissa Waide at her Job:
Q: What inspired you to get into that field?
A: Since I was six years old, I have always wanted to be a nurse. I volunteered as a “candy-striper” when I was 14 years old at the hospital in NC where I was born.
Q: What was your path to your current job?
A: Attended DePaul Hospital School of Professional Nursing and graduated with a Registered Nurse Diploma. I passed a licensure exam to become an RN in Virginia and worked at DePaul Hospital in Norfolk taking care of elderly cardiac patients for about 6 months after I graduated from nursing school. I soon decided that I would like to work with children instead of adults and interviewed at CHKD. I started working there in October of 1988 on the Infants and Toddlers Unit taking care of very young patients. I went to Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, KY for 6 months to do an internship in their Neonatal ICU. I then returned to the NICU at CHKD for two years. After having children, working weekends and night shifts became more difficult. I transferred to the Operating Room in 1992 to work as an OR nurse. I spent 11 years in the OR doing all kinds of surgeries, including pediatric open heart surgery and transplant, major orthopedic surgeries and craniofacial reconstruction—which is a combination of neurosurgery and plastic surgery. Once I became a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in 2003, I left the OR and started as the Pain/Wound Care Program Coordinator at CHKD. This role led to a position in Plastic Surgery and Ear, Nose and Throat clinics. Eventually, I started working in The Kidney Center/Pediatric Nephrology in 2011 as the Renal Transplant Coordinator and have been in that role to date.
Q: What are your basic roles and responsibilities?
A: I take care of kids getting kidney transplants from age 1 year to 25 years old. I am responsible for teaching them and their parents/caregivers about transplant surgery and their medications.
Q: What is your favorite (or most rewarding) aspect about the job?
A: Getting to know children and their families, because they are our patients for usually a long time, is a real joy for me. Watching the kids grow and develop, go to school, graduate, and sometimes go to college or get married. It is very meaningful to have such a long relationship with them and their parents/families. It is awesome knowing that you have helped a child and family along a difficult and often emotional journey with transplantation.
Q: What is the most surprising aspect of your career?
A: Seeing how much has changed with technology in the field of medicine over the past 30 plus years has been amazing. Hopefully, we are soon going to be able to “grow” a kidney and not have them come from human donors—then immunosuppression will not be needed.
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of your career?
A: Dealing with patients/families that do not take their medications after transplant to prevent rejection. It is very frustrating to get a patient through transplant surgery and have them lose their kidney to rejection because they did not take their medications, get labs drawn, or come
Q: What advice would you give to someone getting into the health field?
A: It is definitely a calling to work in the medical profession. You will know if you are called and I highly recommend spending time in a healthcare setting before you go through the education to make sure you are comfortable around sick people. It is an amazing opportunity to help people understand their body and organ functions.