SUNA Spotlight:

Leslie Saltzstein Wooldridge, MSN, RNCS, GNP

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Leslie Wooldridge has dreams. Most people do.

But Leslie’s, like others, involve winning the lottery…and spending the cash on everyone but herself.

“My wildest dream is to win the lottery and start a free clinic for underprivileged women and involve all my colleagues in this exciting endeavor,” says Leslie. “Short of that, I am happy for all those men and women who chose nursing as their career and have the same passion as I for this profession for years to come.”

Leslie currently works at Hackley Health at the Lakes Women’s Center, Bladder Control Clinic in Muskegon, Mich., and keeping busy is an understatement.

“I have an independent practice,” she notes. “My patient population consists of both men and women with bladder control problems, i.e. urgency, incontinence and retention. I also see a large group of patients with pelvic prolapse that are treated with pessaries and women with interstitial cystitis. I do all my own urodynamics, biofeedback and pelvic floor stimulation. In the past several months, I have been offering percutaneous nerve stimulation (PTNS) to my patients with intractable urgency with better-than-reported success.”

An original graduate of Butterworth Hospital School of Nursing in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1972, Leslie received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Nursing at Jamestown College in Jamestown, N.D. seven years later and then in 1981 graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee with a master’s degree in Nursing Administration and Critical Care.

After 14 years as a Critical Care Clinical Specialist, Leslie went back to graduate school to obtain a post-master’s certificate as a Gerontological Nurse Practitioner in 1995.

“While in that program, one of my clinical experiences was in a Geriatric Assessment Clinic,” remembers Leslie. “Part of that clinic was an Incontinence Clinic run by a urogynecologist and nurse practitioner. I saw patients who I thought were literally hopeless to become continent, happy and have a better quality of life. With the majority of my career based on critically ill patients being nursed to health and walking out of the hospital, I saw incontinence as the perfect transition into my new career with the older adult.”

Leslie’s nursing career has been as diversified as the name of, well, her own business, Diversified Nurse Consulting, Ltd.

“I have traveled a lot and had the opportunity to work in university settings, large medical centers and small community hospitals where as an RN, all you were there was for decision making purposes,” adds Leslie. “My experience spans three years as a nursing assistant while a nursing student to Director of Nursing in a medium sized hospital in Milwaukee.”

One other topic of note has also been important to Leslie’s career and that led her into where she is now.

“Education has always been an important part of my career,” she says. “As a nurse practitioner working in urology, I also feel it important to have an active role in the education of other nurse practitioners. I am on the planning committee and have spoken for the Grand Rapids area Advanced Practice Journal Club. In keeping with maintaining clinical expertise, I am also an active member of the National Conference for Gerontologic Nurse Practitioners and the American Geriatrics Society where I have been designated a “fellow” by my colleagues for contributions to the care of the older adult and the education of those caring for them.

“I also became interested in geriatrics when my mother was ill and I realized how little we really know as nurses in regards to the specialty of geriatrics. After working for a few years as the Director of Patient Services in a large continuum of care facility in Milwaukee, I started my own business educating nurses and nursing assistants about the care of the older adult in both acute care and long term care. I realized that patient care was my passion and at that point is when I went on to receive my post masters certificate at Marquette.”

It was while she was in Milwaukee that Leslie began to see how to advance her career.

“While working in a Medicare clinic serving Hispanics in Milwaukee, I also started developing best practice programs in Long Term Care for the Wellspring organization,” Leslie says. “Over the next five years, I implemented best practices in 84 nursing homes in Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas and Michigan, including decreasing incontinence among those residents.”

Still, Leslie does have a life outside of her career.

“Ten years ago, I moved to Michigan to marry my high school sweetheart,” Leslie smiles. “My most valued possessions and achievements are my family. I have two children, a 28-year-old son in his first year in law school and a 22-year-old daughter in her first year of a physical therapy doctorate program. I could not have achieved all of this without the help of my supportive husband, Steve. Family times are very exciting in our home with our blended family including my two children, Steve’s three children and our two lively grandsons.”

During these past ten years, for three of those years, Leslie worked at Senior Health Consulting caring for incontinent adults and doing comprehensive medical examinations. At Urology Associates in Grand Rapids, she worked for four years seeing general urology patients with an emphasis on incontinence and interstitial cystitis. During this time, Leslie also did a fair amount of consulting in nursing homes setting up continence programs for all levels of care in long term care.

And, oh yeah, Leslie is also a member of Great Lakes SUNA.

“Throughout my career I have always felt that professionalism begins with your core organizations,” says Leslie. “For me, SUNA is one of those organizations that has given me a basis for professional information, networking, research and up-to-date clinical data. SUNA has been a very helpful organization in that every committee I have been involved in and every time I have spoken for SUNA, the camaraderie as well as the assistance from the staff and fellow committee members has been unmatched. Currently I am working on getting a “sub-chapter” of GLSUNA in Western Michigan so we can also enjoy the benefits of our membership and be able to offer the same quality education that is happening in the Detroit area.”