My Specialty
Wound Care, Stefanie Winkler, Henry Mayo
Guiding patients through healing while providing crucial education
Stefanie Winkler, RN, BSN, CWOCN
Inpatient Wound Care Services
Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, Valencia
Please share the trajectory of your nursing career.
I graduated from the College of the Canyons nursing program in December 2011 and took a med-surg position at Henry Mayo. I transitioned into telemetry oncology in 2014, and also worked as a relief charge nurse.
After about a year, a colleague in wound care asked me to step in and help out. She knew I could handle it because I was already a “Wound Care Champion,” which is a staff nurse who’s received extra training in wound management, ostomies, and wound vacs, and can serve as a wound-related resource on the floor.
Since I was already curious about wound treatments and the healing process, I was very interested in this opportunity. In 2016, I received my wound care certification, and I got my wound, continence, and ostomy certification in 2020. I simply fell in love with this specialty.
What is it about wound care that you like most?
I enjoy the healing process and the satisfaction of helping to treat a wound that’s causing someone significant pain and discomfort.
Education is also something I enjoy. I work mostly with pressure injuries and surgical and ostomy patients, and I like teaching new nurses and patients’ family members about pressure injury prevention.
I also really enjoy ostomy teaching, which can make an enormous difference for patients coming out of surgery. Ostomies can occur in urgent surgical situations, and patients often see it as the worst thing that could ever happen to them. It’s incredibly gratifying to be able to ease some of that anxiety and teach them to manage this new aspect of their health.
What are some things that people misunderstand about wound care?
The staging of wounds can be challenging. Treatment can also vary greatly. The idea of moist wound healing doesn’t always compute, even though it’s been around for some time.
I’m not sure why, but the myth of “letting wounds breathe” is still quite prevalent. Patients often think they should leave their wound open to the air, but there are many wounds that we truly want to keep covered and properly hydrated.
Healing by secondary intention can also seem counterintuitive to patients and family members. I’ve had numerous patients ask me, “Why can’t they just close it? Why can’t they just sew it up?”
Having these educational conversations is crucial so that patients understand what we need to do to prevent infection and obtain the best outcome.
Please share an anecdote to illustrate a successful outcome.
I cared for a lady who had developed a stage 4 pressure injury to her coccyx area from a previous hospitalization at another facility.
Her family was very involved in taking care of her — they sincerely wanted to help her wound heal as quickly as possible.
We ended up making some alterations to her treatment plan, changing her to a collagen dressing that worked well for her, and she eventually healed completely. It took over six months, but it was an amazing outcome, and the family and patient were so happy and grateful.
How can a nurse find out more and gain experience?
There are lots of different programs out there. I received my original wound care certification from the Wound Care Education Institute, which is an excellent program for most nurses wanting to enhance their wound care knowledge.
The options will depend on whether you want to include ostomy and continence or not. My advice is to look at all three scopes and decide which kinds of wounds or settings most interest you. Also, take a look at the prerequisites: I know that WOCN certification programs require a BSN.
What do you see in the future for your own nursing career?
I’m actually looking into going back to school this year. I love everything about what I do, but my big passion is plastic surgery, which involves things like trauma wounds, burns, necrotizing fasciitis, debridement, and grafts. I want to pursue my master’s degree and become an NP specializing in plastic surgery and surgical wounds.
I also do some expert witness work on the side, working with law firms in negligence cases involving pressure injuries. I look at the details from an unbiased standpoint to see if the facility met the accepted standards of care.
Ultimately, I just love to see wounds heal, and to help patients have successful outcomes and significantly improved lives.
KEITH CARLSON, RN, BSN, NC-BC, has worked as a nurse since 1996 and offers expert professional coaching at www.nursekeith.com.
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