The Power of Pooping

Susan Wong, RN, BSN, aka “Nurse Wong,” is a graduate of the UCSF School of Nursing. In her 40+ years as a nurse, she has served patients at UCSF in a variety of settings including surgical, dialysis, and colorectal. In 1999, she was asked to help with the development of a groundbreaking UCSF colorectal clinic.

Because of her ability to effectively listen and empathize with the beloved patients she treats, Nurse Wong has been affectionately dubbed the “The Rear Admiral” and the “Butt Whisperer” by her coworkers. She has participated in workshops all across the US as well as the Netherlands and Great Britain. She has won several service awards of excellence for contributions to her patient population and is rated as one of the top providers at her medical center. At the urging of her son Julien, Nurse Wong and Julien launched Butt Talks TV with the goal of reaching people around the globe with bowel-related issues by demystifying the taboo surrounding poop health.

On a personal note, Nurse Wong was one of only five Chinese-Americans out of the 140 in her nursing class, which, at the time, was a cultural breakthrough. After the passing of her husband in 2003, she raised her son Julien, now a budding entrepreneur. Her first language is Cantonese and she is also fluent in French. She loves to cook for family and friends using the many herbs grown year-round in her lovely San Francisco patio garden.

John Rietcheck, MA, AuD, is a clinical audiologist with a master’s degree from the University of Kansas and a doctorate from Salus University’s College of Audiology. He recently retired from the San Francisco VA Health Care System after twenty-nine years in hearing health care. He’s worked as a reporter for the Red Rock News in Sedona, AZ, and served as an editor of newsletters for local nonprofit organizations for a combined twenty years in both Topeka, KS, and San Francisco, CA.

John met Susan Wong through a mutual connection, and they soon became fast friends. Although they worked in different domains, their work with patients in the health-care arena provided them a common bond. When Susan and Julien asked John if he would like to write scripts for Butt Talks TV and later contribute his skills to this book, it seemed like a natural transition from all his years of writing in both official and unofficial capacities.

In his personal life, John is a singer and songwriter who has written and recorded many of his songs on two music albums. Now a resident of northern Nevada near Lake Tahoe, he enjoys cooking, reading, hiking, and playing disc golf.