Found Down

Today I interview Dr. Wallace aka Epidemiologist Kat about where we are in the Covid-19 pandemic on a national and global scale, how we are doing with vaccinations in the US and what it would take to get to herd immunity. She also chats about her work on social media on platforms like TikTok and Instragram dispelling mistruths about the vaccines and cov-19.

Dr. Wallace holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and has 15+ years of professional research experience in epidemiology, research design, pharmacoepidemiology, health economics, outcomes research, and biostatistics. She is currently working as an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health.

​You will not want to miss this episode. It is phenomenally informative.

Thank you, Kat for being such a delight and a champion for science and public health.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I chat with ICU travel nurse, Shannon Miller all about her life as a nurse, becoming an ICU nurse and then a travel ICU nurse. She shares a lot about what she loves about travel nursing and what is hard and what working through this pandemic has been like. Staying connected to other travel nurses is essential to travel nurse survival and one way she does that is through @travelnursetakeover on Instagram.

Shannon is about to take a much needed break. Congratulations and you deserve it!

Thank you so much for being on the show, Shannon!

Nicole

Today I talk with Brian Cyr, a seasoned fire fighter and paramedic with over 25 years of experience from Sonoma, California. We talk about his career, what he loves about it and what has been challenging. Brian shares what working through "fire season" really means and how that work has changed over the years. I can't even begin to imagine how challenging that work is.

Brian discusses how the the landscape has changed a lot from the days of being encouraged to push everything down emotionally. Paramedics and fire fighters are often first on scene for horrifying calls. Now, Brian is involved in resiliency work where the focus is to try be proactive in your self care so you can stick around to do the job you love.

This was a riveting and entertaining episode. Brian, thank you so much for being on the show and showing us nurses some love.

Nicole

Today I am thrilled to have Patient Safety Director Krista Haugen, MSN, RN, CTFE back on the show to discuss medical errors and mistakes in healthcare. She gives her insight as to why this is such a complex issue, what is just culture and shared accountability and how a facility and providers can approach mistakes. We share our own mistakes from our careers and we discuss why shame is so wrapped up in these events. She also talks about what is "speaking up" and how to think about it in regards to keeping your patients safe.

Medical errors and mistakes in healthcare is extremely important issue. We are moving away from a "blaming" culture and more to a systems approach like the "Swiss Cheese Model." Often there are many contributing factors to why an error occurred. Check out this link to the causal map of the Titanic sinking. Hint: There wasn't just one reason the titanic sank.

Check out this video on how we beat ourselves when we make a mistake: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/fixing-what-once-was-broken-ross-fisher-at-dftb18/

Thank you so much for listening to this show!

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I interview my friend Chantelle Dykstra, an acute care nurse about humor in nursing, including pranks and otherwise. Turns out, Chantelle comes from a line of jokesters and her absolute favorite day of the year is April Fools. On this episode, Chantelle shares stories from the bedside and her personal life. We discuss why humor is so important in nursing and she says, "If we don't laugh, we might cry." That is a true statement.

It was an absolute pleasure to have you on the show, Chantelle!

I hope you all enjoy this episode.

Stay Safe and Stay Safe,

Nicole

If you are a new nurse, you will definitely want to listen to this! This episode is for you!

Today I interview Corey Palmer to find out about their experience being a new ER nurse in the pandemic as well as thoughts on how nursing school prepared them for the reality of nursing. They reflect on how their orientation was changed to adapt to the Covid-19 pandemic and thoughts on what they would have done differently.

Corey also was an EMT for six years before going into nursing school and they share their thoughts on the learning curve that presented, as well as reflect on their time as an EMT.

Corey offers touching words of encouragement and advice to new nurses coming into the profession right now. "I'm so proud of you."

Thank you, Corey for sharing you thoughts on this episode. You are awesome.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today, I interview Shana Cantoni, Psychiatric Nurse Practioner about her experience working in the correctional system, taking care of the mentally ill. She talks about her role and the services she provides. She shares the day to day of her work and what it means to show up for this vulnerable patient population. I definitely learned so much and I promise you, you will too.

Shana also has her own business where she does trauma informed care for private clients at https://liquidsunshinepsychiatricservices.com/.

This is a fascinating interview. I hope you enjoy it.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I sit down with Raeann LeBlanc, Seedworks Endowed Clinical Associate Professor in Nursing at University of Massachussetts about social justice in nursing, the social determinants of health and the important implications to our nursing practice.

Raeann is also a part of Nurstory.org, a digital story telling workshop. Naturally, we discuss storytelling in nursing, its impact and what happens when nurses come together and swap stories. As she said, nurses hold so many stories that often don't ever get told.

Thank you for this very interesting and informative episode, Raeann! It was a pleasure!

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole

Today I talk with Des Wood, Critical Care NP about how to deal with uncertainty in the ICU. We swap stories and share methods about how to stay grounded and how to survive in the land of "you never know what is going to happen". In nursing, everything is always changing and there is so much uncertainty. We discuss how to not hang your hat on the outcome, how to set boundaries, how to ask for help and find balance when things have been hard. Carving out time for self care, doing the things you love and leaning on your colleagues can be so helpful.

Des and I are hosting the next Unwound Retreat this Wednesday. You can find out about it here. We'll be teaching stress reduction strategies as well as practicing restorative yoga. We hope to see you there.

I'm so grateful for your friendship mentorship and leadership, Des.

Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nic

On today's riveting episode, I interview Patient Safety Director Krista Haugen, MSN, RN, CTFE about her experience surviving a helicopter crash as a former flight nurse and how this experience put her on a trajectory for patient safety. Krista has a background in ER, ICU and flight nursing. She shares her story of being in this crash on the heels of losing a crew; two nurses and a pilot only one month prior. Krista talks about how this crash impacted her well-being, the toll it took and how she sought help to get to the other side.

In her current role, Krista is a Patient Safety Director at a major medical air and ground transport organization reviewing adverse events. She is passionate about just culture and has a systems view of how mistakes are made. She speaks openly about how we need to support the clinicians who are involved in such events so they know they are not alone.

This is such an inspirational episode. Thank you for being on the show, Krista. Thank you for your message of hope and encouragement to keep going even when things are hard.

As Always, Stay Safe and Stay Sane,

Nicole