Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast

Can a nurse who doesn't code still build an AI tool that shapes federal policy? 

On this episode of the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast, hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN, and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL, sit down with Sharonda Davis, MSN, RN, health tech strategist and futurist, and a PCU nurse at a Level I trauma hospital who built Nurses Voice Matters, an AI-enabled platform that helped nurses submit public comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on how AI should be reimbursed in clinical care.

The three talk about why Sharonda shifted her stance on AI after sitting through the CMS workshops, how she built a working comment platform using Claude Code, ChatGPT Codex, and GitHub without a software background, and what she means by responsible AI, from resource use to patient privacy to a prompting discipline grounded in clinical reasoning. They also get into FHIR, the standard that lets outside tools talk to Epic and other EHRs, and what it opens up for nurses who want to build small tools for the problems that eat their shifts.

Sharonda, who comes from more than a hundred years of nurses in her family, makes the case that nurses have to be the ones writing the tools, writing the comments, and shaping the standards that will decide how AI shows up at the bedside. If you've been waiting for permission to start, this episode is it.

Listen to the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast at nurse.org/news/love-n-leary-nursing-podcast or search Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast on all podcasting players.

Article: Why Nurses Need to Build Responsible AI Tools Now, With Sharonda Davis

Jump Ahead:

• 00:58: Welcome and guest introduction.
• 02:20: What drew Sharonda in: the workshops on CPT codes and AI reimbursement, and why they made her rethink her position on AI in healthcare.
• 03:18: Introducing Nurses Voice Matters, the platform Sharonda built for nurses to submit public comments.
• 05:30: Why the platform worked for nurses: it prompted them to put their actual clinical skills and knowledge into the comment.
• 07:50: "Prompt from a problem": Sharonda's rule for using AI responsibly, plus water consumption and getting called out by Gen Z at home.
• 11:10: How she built it without coding: Claude Code, ChatGPT Codex, GitHub. The earlier nurse prompt hub, shadow AI tracking, and why Nurses Voice Matters was deliberately the safer build. 50 clicks, 30 submissions, and why she held back on promotion.
• 14:03: Rebecca on nurse-led innovation and integrity, and why Sharonda should see herself as a forefront voice in this space.
• 16:10: Sharonda's background: founding NurseBlock, five years in Atlanta's blockchain community, and more than 100 years of nurses in her family.
• 19:22: FHIR, Epic, Oracle Health, and the open door for nurses to build EHR-integrated tools. "If it's irking you at work, build it."
• 22:13: Sharonda's final thanks: "keep trying, eventually something has got to give."

Guest links:

• Connect with Sharonda on LinkedIn
• Nurses Voice Matters on GitHub
• eCQI Resource Center - FHIR: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
• Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs & Leaders: SONSIEL.org

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Why should nurses care about policy? 

Nurse anesthetist and policy expert Angela DiDonato, DNP, CRNA, FAANA, joins Marion and Rebecca to answer that question with stories from the front lines of nursing advocacy. She shares how frustration with Pennsylvania legislators inspired the Amplify Nursing podcast, how CRNAs won formal recognition in Pennsylvania after more than a decade of advocacy, and why understanding healthcare as an industry gives nurses a tool to change it.

Plus: why she calls compassion fatigue "crap," how a three-minute surgical huddle won over hospital finance, what she teaches her policy students at Penn, and why every nurse should submit a public comment on the CMS proposed payment rule before the September 14 deadline. Whether you have never touched policy or you are ready to lead, this episode shows you where to start.

Article: Why Every Nurse Should Care About Policy, From a CRNA Who Helped Change State Law

Jump Ahead:

• 0:58 - Welcome and guest introduction: Angela DiDonato
• 2:18 - The Amplify Nursing origin story: "Aren't you just the assistant?"
• 5:53 - Why policy feels boring, and how podcasts translate it for nurses
• 7:40 - The Pennsylvania CRNA designation fight: one of only two states without recognition
• 11:39 - Nursing reimbursement, AI billing codes, and the CMS public comment window (closes September 14)
• 15:04 - "Your voice matters": healthcare as an industry, and the surgical huddle story
• 20:24 - What Angela teaches her policy students at Penn
• 25:30 - Why you should get involved even if you never touch policy: you're a constituent
• 26:59 - Closing thoughts and how to start local

Guest links:

• Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists (PANA): https://www.pana.org/
• Connect with Angela on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-didonato-a0929826/

Take action: Submit a public comment on the CMS proposed 2027 physician payment rule (file code CMS-1848-P) at regulations.gov before September 14.

Related reading on Nurse.org:

• Nurses Have Waited a Century for Billing Codes. AI May Get Them First: https://nurse.org/news/ai-billing-cmaa-cpt-codes-nursing-reimbursement/
• ANA Responds to Nurses' AI Billing Concerns: https://nurse.org/news/ana-statement-ai-billing-codes-cpt-medicare/
• Nursing Excluded as a Professional Degree by the Department of Education: https://nurse.org/news/nursing-excluded-as-professional-degree-dept-of-ed/

Listen to more episodes: nurse.org/lovenleary

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Why are health equity voices getting quieter online? 

Dr. Oni Blackstock, founder and executive director of Health Justice and a primary care and HIV physician, joins Marion Leary and Rebecca Love to talk about the engagement drop advocates are seeing on LinkedIn, why she left Twitter to protect her mental health, and how she balances speaking out with staying well. 

She shares the family lineage that keeps her going, from her physician mother who served Central Brooklyn to great-grandparents born during Reconstruction, plus her community-centered work on how AI gets used in healthcare and why she believes National Nurses United is showing the entire industry how organizing is done. 

Her advice for every nurse: find your sphere of influence and use it.

Article: Why Health Equity Voices Are Going Quiet Online, and What Nurses Can Do About It

Skip ahead:

0:59 - Welcome and guest introduction
2:24 - Roots in social justice: her mother's story
6:12 - Are advocates being algorithmically silenced?
9:34 - Leaving Twitter to protect her mental health
11:30 - Balancing speaking out with staying well
17:45 - Your voice matters
19:55 - A lineage of resilience, from Reconstruction to now
23:30 - Community-centered governance for health AI
25:47 - The Health Justice origin story
31:35 - Every nurse's sphere of influence

Helpful links:

• Connect with Dr. Oni Blackstock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oni-blackstock/
• Health Justice: https://www.healthjustice.co/
• About Dr. Blackstock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_Blackstock
• National Nurses United: https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/
• Read the excerpt from Legacy by Dr. Uché Blackstock in the Harvard Gazette: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/02/was-racism-a-risk-factor-in-mothers-leukemia/

Listen to more episodes: nurse.org/lovenleary

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Bullying and incivility in healthcare are getting worse, not better. In this episode of the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast, hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN, and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL, talk with Renee Thompson, DNP, RN, FAONL, FAAN, CSP, CEO and founder of the Healthy Workforce Institute, about why toxic behavior persists in nursing and what actually stops it.

Renee shares the research behind the problem, including data linking incivility to psychological safety and a $2 billion-a-day price tag for workplaces. She explains why "nurses eat their young" now cuts both ways across generations, why leaders default to silence, and why one-off workshops never fix a culture. Then she lays out the strategies that work: equipping leaders, setting behavioral expectations as a team, making healthy workforce a standing agenda item, and building real feedback skills.

She also shares the message behind the second edition of her best-selling book, Enough! Eradicate Bullying & Incivility in Healthcare, and the one thing every witness to bullying can do today.

Article: https://nurse.org/news/nurse-bullying-incivility-renee-thompson

Connect with Renee:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rtconnections/
• https://healthyworkforceinstitute.com/
• https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/17635625.Dr_Renee_Thompson

Skip Ahead:

• 0:59: Marion welcomes Renee Thompson, CEO and founder of the Healthy Workforce Institute
• 1:42: Renee's 30+ year nursing career and why she left a job she loved to fight bullying
• 3:52: The data: psychological safety, the AONL Joslin Insight study, and incivility's $2 billion-a-day cost (SHRM)
• 6:20: Is it getting worse or are we just better at reporting it? (Both.)
• 7:24: Why the pandemic's "healthcare heroes" moment didn't last
• 8:49: Nurses eating their young — and now their old
• 10:33: Marion asks: is it incivility, or a more confident generation? Scripts for both sides
• 13:53: Rebecca on why these conversations stay at the water cooler — and why culture change beats one-off workshops
• 15:53: What actually works: equipping leaders, ending silence as a strategy, the HR disconnect, team compacts, and the #1 tip — healthy workforce as a standing agenda item
• 21:18: Enough! Eradicate Bullying & Incivility in Healthcare, second edition
• 23:52: Parting wisdom: the three parties in every incident — and why the witness is the most powerful

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Stand Up for Science founder Colette Delawalla, PhD, joins Marion Leary and Rebecca Love to talk about what's happening to federal research funding — and why nurses belong in the conversation. Delawalla shares how a banned words list days before her grant deadline led her to organize a protest that drew tens of thousands, why she believes institutions won't lead this fight, and her practical advice for anyone who wants to get involved but feels overwhelmed: pick one issue, do one small thing a day, and vote in every election. A candid conversation about science, advocacy, and burnout for nurses at every career stage. 

"Pick a Lane": How Nurses Can Fight for Science Without Burning Out

Skip ahead:
00:59: Marion introduces Colette and shares her own background with Philadelphia Science Action and the March for Science
02:37: The banned words list, the grant deadline, and the decision not to cut the word "woman"
05:30: Searching for a protest, finding none, and posting on Bluesky
08:19: Social media as the battleground for public opinion
11:22: Rebecca on showing up to the Boston rally and finding almost no nurses there
12:57: "Stand Up for Science, not Stand Up for Scientists": the big tent argument
14:14: The Nursing is STEM Coalition and the push for federal designation
18:00: Federal funding cuts and what Colette expects next
22:14: "Pick a lane" — practical advice for nurses who want to engage
25:03: Current Stand Up for Science campaigns and how to get involved
27:23: Closing thoughts

Links:
Stand Up for Science: https://www.standupforscience.net/
Nursing is STEM Coalition: https://www.nursingisstem.org/

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this episode belong solely to the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, beliefs, or position of Nurse.org.

Lulette Infante arrived in New York City from Manila at 18 with two suitcases and three younger siblings to help raise. Thirty years later, she's a nurse informatics leader, and she's sounding an alarm about what immigration enforcement is doing to patients, to the nursing workforce, and to the care pipeline every American will eventually depend on.

In this episode of the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast, hosts Marion Leary and Rebecca Love talk with Infante about her 25 years in pediatric hematology/oncology and ambulatory care, the LinkedIn post that resonated across nursing, patients who are now too frightened to show up for chemotherapy, and the history of Filipino nurses in the U.S. health care workforce. 

Plus: why she believes advocacy doesn't require being the loudest voice in the room, and what nurses can do on their very next shift. 

>> RaDonda Vaught on Life After Nursing, Shame, and the Mistake Every Nurse Fears

Timestamps

• 00:58: Meet Lulette Infante MSN, RN-BC, CPHQ
• 07:57: The article and the LinkedIn post that started it
• 10:44: Thirty years in: what it feels like now
• 16:34: The American dream, immigration policy, and the nursing pipeline
• 22:18: The history of Filipino nurses in the U.S. workforce
• 28:56: Closing thoughts and Lulette's LinkedIn quote

Mentioned in this episode

• Infante's LinkedIn Post
• Nursing, Immigration, and Peace & Power by Patricia Regalado 
• American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA)
• Association of California Nurse Leaders (ACNL)
• Center for Nursing Value fellowship

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Nursing has never had its own CPT billing codes — but AI is about to get 288 of them. In this episode of the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast, hosts Marion Leary and Rebecca Love sit down with Stephanie Witwer, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, a leading ambulatory care nurse expert and strategic advisor to AAACN, to unpack the AMA's proposed AI CPT codes and what they mean for the future of nursing.

Stephanie explains how CPT codes work, why nursing work is billed as "incident to" physician services, and how $266 billion in annual nursing care remains invisible to payers. The conversation breaks down the three proposed AI categories — assistive, augmentative, and autonomous — and the legal, ethical, and economic risks of reimbursing AI while nursing stays unbillable. Could health systems be incentivized to invest in AI instead of nurses?

Most importantly: there's something nurses can do right now. A CMS public comment period is open, and the hosts are calling for 100,000 nurse comments to get concerns on the permanent public record.

Topics include: CPT codes explained, RVUs, incident-to billing, AI reimbursement, autonomous AI and nurse practice acts, nurse staffing economics, and how to submit a CMS public comment.

Jump Ahead:

• 00:58 – Welcome and episode overview: AMA's proposed AI CPT codes and the CMS comment period with Stephanie Witwer
• 03:07 – CPT codes 101: the 1960s origin, AMA ownership, and how they became the national billing standard
• 08:58 – Are there any CPT codes for nursing? (Spoiler: zero)
• 14:55 – Assistive vs. augmentative vs. autonomous AI, and the nurse practice act problem
• 16:53 – The economics: what AI reimbursement means for nursing jobs
• 20:05 – The call to action: a billing taxonomy for nursing, how to comment to CMS
• 23:03 – Closing thoughts: the power of a unified nursing voice

Resources:

• Comment on the CMS physician payment rule (CMS-1848-P, the PFS) by September 14, 2026.
• Comment on the CMS hospital outpatient rule (CMS-1850-P, which the ANA refers to as HOPPS) by August 31, 2026.
• Register and comment on the AMA CPT Editorial Panel Meeting Interested Party through August 10, 3036

For additional background, see Nurse.org's in-depth coverage of AI billing and nursing reimbursement:

• Nurses Have Waited a Century for Billing Codes. AI May Get Them First (7/16)
• Nurses Have Never Had Their Own Medicare Payment Designation. Software May Get One First (7/20)
• The Evolution of CPT Codes and Their Emergence as THE National Healthcare Billing Standard (7/22)

Becker's Healthcare coverage:

• New AI billing codes spark concern across nursing (7/17)
• Nurses’ AI pushback expands to new front (7/20)

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this episode belong solely to the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, beliefs, or position of Nurse.org

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL kick off the first Nurse Spotlight episode of the Love n' Leary Nursing Podcast with someone who has quietly reshaped how nursing sees itself: Paul Coyne.

Jump Ahead

• 00:58 — Welcome and introducing Paul Coyne, Love n' Leary's first Nurse Spotlight guest
• 01:55 — Paul's early years: heart disease, hospitalization, and paralysis at 15
• 03:00 — Suffering a stroke a week after college graduation
• 04:31 — The moment at Goldman Sachs that changed everything
• 05:50 — What his Wall Street colleagues said about him switching to nursing
• 06:49 — The challenges of being one of the only men in the room
• 08:27 — Six degrees in three and a half years
• 10:00 — Why the pace was less about ambition and more about proving his brain was back
• 12:18 — Choosing to pair the nursing degrees with an MBA and Master's in Finance
• 13:00 — What "manifesting" looked like before he knew the word for it
• 15:19 — Becoming one of the youngest chief nurse executives at HSS at 35
• 16:07 — Leading 2,000 people through the pandemic
• 17:30 — The 30-minute-a-day leadership practice
• 19:00 — Why nurses can spot fake care from a mile away
• 21:25 — Starting Augie and the philosophy of augmenting instead of replacing
• 25:00 — Random LinkedIn outreach and Rebecca's original 2017 message to Paul
• 26:18 — The text message and the story of the mother whose son has leukemia
• 29:25 — Why every nurse leader wants to help more people
• 29:45 — Paul's two books of poetry and how it started with a dream
• 32:00 — Writing 100 lessons for his son in case he wasn't there to teach them
• 34:00 — How his poems have connected with readers across every experience
• 36:23 — Final thoughts: possibility, framing your own story, and telling the world
• 38:32 — Closing thanks

Paul is a nurse, nurse practitioner, entrepreneur, healthcare executive, and poet. He was born with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, suffered a stroke at 22, moved to New York to work as an interest rate derivatives analyst at Goldman Sachs while relearning how to speak, and then walked away from Wall Street after seeing himself in scrubs during a corporate physical. What came next included six degrees in three and a half years, the co-founding of a computer vision company called Augie, and one of the youngest chief nurse executive appointments in U.S. hospital history at 35.

In this episode, Paul shares the moments that shaped his path, why he thinks empathy is a strategic asset in healthcare, how he built a leadership practice around one 30-minute conversation a day, why he writes poetry, and the text message that arrived one hour after he told his psychologist how much he missed being a chief nurse. Marion and Rebecca dig into what nurses can learn from Paul's story about possibility, purpose, and the power of showing up as themselves.

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL welcome Shannon Vieira, RN and Kara Wilson, OT of MGB Home Care for an urgent conversation about one of the largest healthcare strikes in Massachusetts history.

On July 8th, home care nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, dietitians, and speech-language pathologists will walk off the job for seven days. On the same day, inpatient nurses at Brigham and Women's Hospital will also strike — and the hospital has announced it will lock them out for an additional four days.

In this episode, Shannon and Kara walk through the changes to their working conditions that led up to the strike, the caseloads pushing home care clinicians past safe practice limits (up to 50 patients per clinician), the growing wage gap between frontline workers and executives at the seventh-wealthiest hospital system in the U.S., and what they're actually asking for. Marion and Rebecca connect the dots between staffing, cost of living, hospital economics, and the future of the healthcare workforce.

Whether you work in home care, hospital nursing, or any patient-facing role, this conversation explains exactly why nurses and their colleagues across Massachusetts are drawing a line — and why the rest of the country is watching.

Jump Ahead

• 00:58 — Welcome and introducing Shannon Vieira and Kara Wilson
• 02:10 — What led up to the strike: the point system, salaried pay, and lost overtime
• 03:22 — A new CNO, efficiency mandates, and a 20-25% productivity jump
• 04:13 — The UKG clock-in revelation
• 05:21 — Is this the first home care strike of its kind?
• 06:08 — The parallel Brigham and Women's inpatient nurse strike
• 07:04 — Same-day strike, plus a four-day hospital lockout
• 08:09 — Why the lockout feels like a strong-arm tactic
• 09:30 — Why nurses across the country are watching this strike so closely
• 10:29 — Caseload realities on the OT side: 34 patients in 32 hours
• 11:49 — Why home care is more than face time with the patient
• 13:39 — What Shannon and Kara are asking for
• 14:18 — The safe caseload research: 25 max, 18 ideal
• 15:59 — Sicker patients, faster discharges, and 30-day readmission risk
• 17:19 — The executive pay disparity and MGB's $35.8B in assets
• 18:10 — MGB reported $2 billion in net gains last year
• 19:12 — Why Boston's 53% higher cost of living matters
• 21:58 — Retention, hourly rate math, and clinician burnout
• 23:30 — Who sits on the MGB board of directors
• 26:07 — Shannon's final thought: the unionization wave was created by MGB
• 26:35 — Kara's final thought: self-care as patient care
• 27:55 — Marion's closing: "The people united will never be defeated"

Listen now at nurse.org/news/love-n-leary-nursing-podcast.

🎙️ About The Love & Leary Podcast

Thank you for tuning in to The Love n' Leary Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with a colleague.

🌐 Connect With Us

• Official Website: Visit nurse.org/lovenleary for episodes, articles, and exclusive nursing resources.
• Watch on YouTube: Subscribe to  Love n' Leary Podcast YouTube to watch full video episodes and highlights

👥 Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn

Stay connected, network, and join the conversation with us professionally:

• Connect with Rebecca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalovenursing
• Connect with Marion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionleary

About Nurse.org: Empowering, entertaining, and uniting nurses worldwide. Explore more career guides, news, and community stories at Nurse.org.

Hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL welcome Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH, founder and executive director of The Truth About Nursing, for a powerful conversation about how the media shapes the way the public sees nurses — and why it matters far beyond entertainment.

For 25 years, Sandy has been pushing back against the way nurses are portrayed on TV, in advertising, and in the news. From the early days of organizing nurses to challenge ER, to going after Hooters for a naughty nurse ad campaign, to today's fight with The Pit, Sandy walks through the stereotypes that won't go away and the real-world consequences of those portrayals on funding, policy, staffing, and the nursing shortage itself.

In this episode, you'll hear how Sandy got the Washington Post to cover her first nursing media campaign in 2001, why she says the so-called nursing shortage was created by the hospital industry, how AI reimbursement codes are threatening to redefine nursing roles without nurses at the table, and what every nurse can do right now to join the fight.

Whether you're a clinical nurse, a nurse leader, a nursing student, or a healthcare changemaker, this conversation is a call to use your voice.

Jump Ahead: 

• 00:58 — Welcome and introducing Sandy Summers
• 01:32 — The Truth About Nursing's mission
• 02:57 — Why nursing is the largest profession but still poorly defined in media
• 03:34 — How it all started: the 2001 budget cuts and the ER campaign
• 07:38 — Why The Pit is making the same mistakes ER did
• 08:52 — 25 years of progress: ad campaigns, billboards, and global media wins
• 11:09 — Why Sandy keeps going after 25 years
• 13:20 — "I can't tolerate the disrespect"
• 13:23 — How media portrayals affect policy, STEM designation, and funding
• 14:54 — Nursing education gets 1/50th of physician education funding
• 15:30 — Why the nursing shortage was created by the hospital industry
• 16:29 — The CPT codes problem: 288 for AI, zero for nursing
• 18:35 — How nurses can get involved with The Truth About Nursing
• 20:00 — Linda Aiken's research: doubling a nurse's workload increases mortality by 31%
• 23:28 — How to get more nurses fired up about this fight
• 26:30 — Turning anger into action instead of burnout
• 28:10 — Sandy's parting words to nurses
• 28:44 — Closing thanks

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