Look Who it Was Random video

Karen Jackson, Pediatric NP

482 views · Published 12 October 2011 · 3:12 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: IntermountainParents · 2011 · Education

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My name is Karen Jackson. I'm the pediatrics nurse practitioner here at Mountain View Pediatrics.  I've been here for 22 years, and I am a native of Salt Lake City, Utah.  I really like the concept of nursing, because it really looks at the whole family, and it's a very caring approach.  Then I decided to focus on pediatrics, because I think you can really have an effect on families through their children.

I love kids, I love the funny things that they say.  They're just very entertaining, and they're very resilient.  So I feel I can just have a really big impact on families and their health and their happiness.  The whole concept of nursing is really looking at the whole family, and surrounding them with caring, and feeling like they are worthwhile, and that somebody really cares about what happens to them.  And I think in general that's what pediatricians do, but I really like that concept that was brought to me through the nursing program.

I think a patient can help me provide better quality care by actually telling me what they need from the visit. So often times when I'm meeting a new patient, I wil say, "I am very open to feedback you may have in how you would like me to provide care, I'm here to listen to you, I'm here to answer the questions the best way that I know how, and if I don't know the answer, I will find out".  But I do like to have the feedback about what they specifically need as a family, and if there's anything that I can do any better than what I already do, and so that's very helpful.  I really want the family to be involved, and have it be their visit, and them to get the most helpful things out of the visit that they can.

Some of my memorable experiences about helping families are certainly both in the younger children and in older children.  I do treat a lot of teenagers for depression and anxiety.  So when they come in, I'm able to do a lot of education about that, and then the parents realize they might even have the same problem, so they interact with me and also look at themselves to see if, "Oh, I need to solve that problem as well".  So the whole family is involved, and they work together in solving the child's depression or anxiety.

So I do get a lot of cards saying, "I'm so glad you could connect with my daughter or my son, they can really talk to you". Yesterday I had a 14-year-old boy actually come in for some depression, and at the end of the visit, he shook my hand and he said, "I really enjoy coming in to talk to you".  And that's a really special thing for a 14-year-old boy to be able to verbalize and talk about.

It's really rewarding, because you see this depressed child come in, their not doing well in school, or in life, or with friendships, and when they come out of that depression and realize that they really can be as happy as other children, that's a very rewarding thing for not only me, but I think for the family.  And I get a lot of feedback about how that's been helpful to the family, which really encourages me in my practice too.

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