Kathie Wuellner, MD, became a community pediatrician in 1982, practicing one year in Florissant, Mo., and then moving across the river to Alton, Ill., in her home state. With more than 25 years of experience, she knows the satisfaction of developing close relationships with her patients and their families and watching infants grow into “some pretty awesome adults.”
Despite all of her years as a pediatrician, however, Dr. Wuellner still worries over finding the right way to tell parents she thinks their child may have a serious illness. It’s the kind of caring concern that has resulted in a mother thanking Dr. Wuellner for the gentle way she was told her baby had Down’s syndrome. And it’s a former 2-year-old leukemia patient coming to Dr. Wuellner for her college physical and saying, “Thanks for helping me be here.”
“When you have to deliver bad news, those are the moments you think, ‘Oh, geeze, how am I going to do this.’ Somehow you find the words and hope they are the right ones,” says Dr. Wuellner. “Fortunately, these diagnoses don’t occur that often. I began my private practice thinking it would be very fulfilling to start out with a baby and follow him through a lot of years. To this day, I still feel that. Sometimes I step back and think, ‘Wow, I’ve been a part of this patient’s life all of her life.’”
Dr. Wuellner received her medical degree from Saint Louis University School of Medicine and completed her residency at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, going on to serve as chief resident of pediatrics. It was during that time she discovered she enjoyed teaching, and she found an outlet for that interest by becoming a COPE preceptor 15 years ago.
“As chief resident at Michael Reese I began a three-week rotation for residents in a private pediatrician’s office, but there really wasn’t anything as comprehensive as the COPE program available at that time,” she says. “As a result, I went into private practice full of questions about what I should be doing. I wanted an opportunity to give residents an in-depth understanding about how a private practice is run and how to interact with parents and understand their concerns and how to talk with patients. You get a flavor of that in the hospital, but you don’t develop relationships that last for years as you do in private practice.”
Dr. Wuellner tailors her COPE teaching to fit the abilities of each resident she works with. She finds some are immediately comfortable with seeing patients on their own, while others prefer to spend more time shadowing her. She adapts to whatever the residents need.
“The main goal is that the residents begin to develop relationships with the patients and families, to learn about family dynamics and how those dynamics affect children,” says Dr. Wuellner. “For instance, when you know a father has lost his job and then his child—your patient—starts getting into trouble or becoming depressed, you have a much greater insight into what is going on compared to just seeing a family once in a hospital setting.”
In addition to her private practice, Dr. Wuellner is the pediatrician for the Catholic Children’s Home in Alton, a residential treatment program for troubled adolescents. She has served on the home’s board of directors and was a school board member for six years at Marquette Catholic High School. She is a former president of the medical staff at Alton Memorial Hospital and has served in the past as chief of pediatrics at both Alton Memorial and Saint Anthony’s Health Center in Alton. She and her husband, John Wuellner, MD, an internist, have two children—Colleen, 27, a physicians’ assistant in Bozeman, Mont., and J.C., a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force who is attending medical school. The Wuellners spend their weekends on their farm near Carrollton, Ill., where they grow pecan trees.