Found Down

Today I sit back down with Sam Doyle, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner to talk about how change can be a good thing. She recently left her role in the ICU to go back to the outpatient setting, to work at an Acute Clinical Evaluation Clinic. As it turns out, the stress of the pandemic and having her kids at home while working in the ICU was too much. She realized she needed to change things up in order to have a better balance.

What we talk about is interesting, this notion of needing to detangle how we often over identify with our roles as clinicians in certain settings, (ie ICU or ER) but at the end of the day, as Sam says, we have chosen careers in the service of others, so we are equally valuable in whatever role.

"Spend your cortisol wisely," Sam says in her meme-able quote. It's ok to leave and do something less stressful.

And at the end of the day, it is just a job.

Thank you for coming back on the show, Sam for this fun episode!

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

On today's episode, I catch up with my friend and nursing school classmate, Tim Tattu. Tim is a beautiful human who shares his journey into hospice nursing. His story is unique and inspiring. He started out as an artist in LA and found his way to a monestary in Japan, where he stayed and practiced meditation for a year. It wasn't until his teacher asked him to help open a home for the dying that he found himself in the realm of where people cross over.

I promise you, you do not want to miss out on this honest and raw conversation. Tim has a unique perspective on dying and the dying process. "It is not medical" he says. What a breath of fresh air!

Come listen along to Tim wax poetic about death, something that is so universal to us all.

Thank you so much for all you do, Tim.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I interview Emily Scott, labor and delivery nurse and one half of the Two Dusty Travelers about her time working with ebola patients in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Emily describes how she decided to heed the call to work up close and personal with such a deadly disease and what she experienced when she got there.

Emily is an adventurous and brave individual who shares this inspiring tale. Not everything went as expected - as often in this case, so you will definitely want to tune in to this episode!

Thank you again for being on the show!

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

On today's episode, I interview Emily Topalanchik, a nursing supervisor at a local Covid-19 quarantine facility in Seattle, WA.  Emily has previous experience as an acute care nurse, but when the pandemic hit, she started working in the quarantine facilities (in addition to her full-time job) and has a very behind the scenes look at this side to infection control and prevention of community spread.  

Emily shares with us the day to day of the operations at this facility and how they keep their quarantined individuals safe and cared for. She has learned a lot about her practice as a nurse from this experience and has learned to check her biases and use harm reduction strategies in caring for guests.

Emily also discusses the results of a UW Impact study that shows the REAL benefit to the community, where they predicted that the facilities saved at least 5,000 - 20,000 people from being infected with Covid-19!

If you want to get involved in the community, check out the medical reserve corp.

https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/emergency-preparedness/reserve-corps/join.aspx

https://kingcounty.gov/depts/community-human-services/COVID/shelter-response.aspx

Thank you so much for being on the show! Go follow Emily @yawar.misky on Instagram.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I interview Emily Scott, labor and delivery nurse, entrepreneur and science communicator. Emily has been in L&D for over a decade and she still gets misty at deliveries. She discusses the highs and the lows. She touches on how special those bonds are that she develops with the laboring women, as she is often with them for 12 hours at a time.

Emily is definitely an interesting and talented woman. We touch on her work as a disaster response nurse during the Ebola outbreak. I promise to bring her back to talk solely about it in a special dedicated episode.

And, this amazing human also spends hours of her own free time combating Covid misinformation on social media on her Instagram @twodustytravelers. Thank you on behalf of all of us.

Emily is also a travel blogger and travel entrepreneur. She is one half of www.twodustytravelers.com where she and her husband promote ethical travel and put on overland jeep tours. Go check it out!

Thank you so much for coming on the show! You are an inspiration to so many of us.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I interview Bryan Hill, ICU Nurse, STAT nurse and ECMO nurse about his journey getting a Parkinson's Disease diagnosis. He is also a new father, a husband and an incredible clinician. Bryan came on the show to talk publicly about his recent diagnosis, what living with a chronic illness is like and what it has been like carrying this so close to his chest for the last four years.

Bryan shares how he came to want to talk openly about this and his hopes to make it better for others out there living with a chronic illness. He gets very vulnerable on this episode of Found Down and about his choice to speak out. He is up to some really cool things and hopes to change the landscape for young people dealing with PD. You can follow him here @balddad206 on Instagram. He is clearly thriving and such an inspiration to us all.

If you want to donate to the Michael J. Fox Foundation you can do so here.

Thanks for being such an awesome human and nurse.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I had the awesome opportunity to talk with Emily Cheng, BSN, RN, CCRN-CSC ICU travel nurse turned entrepreneur. Emily is the CEO and Co-founder of the MedVenture App, an app to unite traveling healthcare professionals through community, resources and tools.

Emily shares her nursing trajectory, what led her to travel nursing and her burnout story.

It is clear in talking with Emily that she is passionate about travel nursing and the need for a better community. Travel nurses often arrive on site, not knowing anyone, thus it can be an isolating experience. So, she decided to create a better space for travel nurses to come together online and in person through the MedVenture App, which officially launched this January 2021. Emily speaks about her nursing entrepreneurship journey, what it means to fail fast and the need to get over perfection.

As far as trying travel nursing or entrepreneurship, Emily says just do it! Whatever is sitting on your heart, you should just do it.

This was a very inspiring interview. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I interview Shannon Miller, ICU nurse, travel nurse and CAMP Nurse all about her time being a nurse at summer camp this summer. If you have ever wanted to do this, check out this episode! It is a very behind the scenes look at what it takes to be a nurse at summer camp, especially during a pandemic! We talk med passes, home sickness, Covid precautions, scraped knees, lodging situations and the importance of getting alone time.

Shannon also shares how she carved out a four month break between her last travel assignment working as an ICU travel nurse and taking a job as a camp nurse. "Rest is a radical act!" I agree, Shannon.

Thank you so much for being on the show! Please go follow Shannon Miller on Instagram @headstandsonholiday to see what cool stuff she has going on!

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

On this episode, I interview the very esteemed epidemiologist Katrine Wallace, PhD aka Epidemiologist Kat. She brings us up to speed on the Covid-19 pandemic, the Delta variant and the surge we are currently experiencing in the states. She also discusses the vaccines and break through infection and how we should look at data we have.

This is a very informative episode. Thank you so much for being on the show, Dr. Kat!

Go follow Dr. Kat on Instagram @epidemiologistkat or on TikTok @epidemiologistkat OR go to her website for great resources www.epidemiologistkat.com.

Hope you enjoyed this one!

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I interview network engineer and father of three, Neal Browning about his experience being the second human ever to get the Moderna vaccine. Neal enrolled in the phase one clinical trial back in February of 2020 and received his first Moderna vaccine dose on March 16th, 2020. He describes his decision making to get enrolled in a vaccine trial for Covid-19. Neal also talks with us about how the clinical trial operates under the circumstances of a pandemic and the safety and effectiveness of the this mRNA vaccine technology. If you are vaccine hesitant at all, you should listen to this episode.

Neal has been featured in many news sources including here with Sanjay Gupta, MD and Anderson Cooper.

Thank you, Neal for your bravery and courage. We so appreciate what you have done for modern medicine and humanity.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole