Real Nurse Stories

In this episode, I interview Nurse Jacqui as she is affectionately known by the clients that she works with.

Jacqui is a passionate nurse, a confidence coach, champion of carers and a BeYOUtiful Mentor.

Jacqui shares her journey into why she became a nurse and her journey into entrepreneurship as the founder of Heartplace and BeYOUtiful mentor

Jacqui candidly shares her experience whilst working as a nurse, of compassion fatigue and burnout as a result of a mindset of "work hard then rest". Jacqui recognised that she was not filling her self care compassion cup along the way until it was completely empty. Jacqui shares her insights into her own self-awareness and how her perfectionism, people-pleasing and overworking also didn't serve her self-compassion.

Jacqui gives some great practical words of wisdom in her interview about how to find a little space for your self-compassion because nurses need nurturing too.

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If you would like to know more about the work that I do coaching nurses or would like to share your story please drop me an email at [email protected].

In this episode, I interview Nurse Sonia Goodwin who is a passionate nurse leader, entrepreneur, CEO and founder of Sunny Street. Sunny street is a Doctor & Nurse-led outreach service providing primary healthcare and complex coordination services for homeless and vulnerable individuals and families across the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Fraser Coast regions. Sunny Street has a mission to facilitate community connections and improve access to health care options. Sonia talks about how she became a nurse and then had a geronimo moment when she took a massive leap of faith in response to a question that was asked at a palliative care event. The question that led to the planting of the sunny street seed was "Are you really doing the best and the most that you can do for the people who need it the most?" The rest as they say is history.

I loved interviewing Sonia who is a passionate advocate for vulnerable people, nursing leadership and a positive role model for female entrepreneurs everywhere.

If you would like to know more about the coaching work that I do with nurses check out my Linkedin profile or visit my website 

If you would like to share your story please contact me at [email protected]

Samatha's story is the final episode of 2020 where I started out to interview a nurse a month as part of the 2020 International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. Most of my interviews have been with nurses working in Australia and it seemed only right to include the experience of an Australian nurse who identifies as being an Aboriginal woman. This experience needs to be heard and understood and more importantly, storytelling is a large part of Aboriginal culture. Samantha describes  "being caught between two worlds, a love of my people and a love of the frontline and trying to find the balance."

Samantha is a Koori woman from Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri country. Samatha is passionate about wanting to increase access to health services through telehealth for Aboriginal people and importantly for Aboriginal people to be able to speak to a health care worker who identifies as Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander. Closing the Gap is something that Samantha references throughout her interview. The Australian Government describes  'Closing the Gap' as being "underpinned by the belief that when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a genuine say in the design and delivery of policies, programs and services that affect them, better life outcomes are achieved. It also recognises that structural change in the way governments work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is needed to close the gap"

Samantha's interview highlights that there is still much work to be done if the trust is to be rebuilt amongst Aboriginal communities to facilitate and sustain aboriginal community engagement that addresses their health needs and influences the services that need to be developed as a result.

Samantha advocates and articulates passionately the health issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and has a dream to establish a mentoring program that can help and support Aboriginal nurses to remain in their country through accessing remote learning and mentorship from qualified nurses who identify as Aboriginal Torress Strait Islander. If you can help Samantha realise this dream please get in touch and I would love to connect you both.

Grace's story is one of my favourites so far! Grace is a student nurse studying to become a registered nurse. Her journey into nursing was inspired by a condition that she was born with as a premature 26-week old baby. Her love of human biology is testament to the great person-centred care that she received from her Paediatric team who educated and involved Grace about her condition with age-appropriate education throughout her childhood. Grace talks about her experience as a young 17-year-old studying to become an enrolled nurse and some of the challenges that she faced.

Grace had a three-week volunteer placement in Nepal, Katmandu, which she describes as "a shining star experience." 

Her story illustrates that despite her young age she is a natural educator with fantastic critical thinking and project management skills and there are many examples in her story that illustrate these skills. Grace was awarded the New Columbo Grant and Award from the Australian Government Department of  Foreign Affairs and Trade as a result of her volunteering experience in Nepal. Her story is truly inspiring and I have no doubt that Grace will continue to give back and contribute her time and skills, making a difference to everyone she meets. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

If you would like to know more about the work that I do with nurses in leadership training and coaching you can read more about me here

 Are interested in sharing your nursing story on my podcast, please contact me on [email protected] to arrange a chat.

Athol grew up on a dairy farm and never dreamed of becoming a nurse. He had a love of anatomy and human biology and thought that he was going to study exercise science. His Grandmother suggested Nursing to him and the rest is history as they say!

In this episode we talk about Athol's nursing journey, men in nursing, his struggles with burnout and how understanding his 'why' helped him to recover from burnout and resume his nursing career after three years of pain and turmoil. Athol's story is a great example of how seeking to understand who you are as a person and what drives you to become a nurse and making wise choices for yourself rather than what others might expect of you can help you to grow as a nurse and learn to deal with the challenges of nursing.

Athol has put his experience of burnout to positive use by developing the FWards App which is designed to help busy nurses overcome stress.

If you are struggling with Burnout and need someone to talk to contact the Nurse and midwife support national hotline confidential support for nurses and midwives.

I teach leadership skills and coach nurses and midwives because nurses need nurturing too! You can find out more about the work that I do here

In this episode, I interview Nic who is a nurse and an entrepreneur. Nic runs her own business helping nurses who are new to a management role by offering training and support and is a passionate advocate in helping nurses to transition from a clinical to a leadership role.

Nic talks about her journey into nursing which was heavily influenced by her Dad dying when she was 13 and an acknowledgement that she didn't know what she was signing up for and how she went through a catharsis about what nursing was and what nursing is.

This is a fun interview with Nic and fun and humour was central to a lot of what we talked about.

 If you are a nurse manager then this episode is for you and is jam-packed with takeaways!

Nic also shares candidly some of her struggles in her transition from a clinically proficient theatre nurse to a nurse manager in a leadership role. We talk about imposter syndrome and feeling a fraud and the elastic band of guilt that pulls nurse managers back to the floor. We also talk about the Xfactor of leadership that makes nurses want to stay in their job. We talk about Conflict but through a positive lens, tribal camaraderie, toxic positivity, mentorship and so much more.

If you would like to know more about the work that I do with nurses and midwives you can find more information here

This is a fabulous interview with Jacquie who started her nursing career wanting to make a difference to the care of pregnant women by becoming a midwife. Jacquie describes her career path as a spiders web with many twists and turns, seizing opportunities as they arose and always learning from the opportunities that presented themselves. Jacquie gives an honest account of some of the struggles in her career and how she learnt to be a better leader. Jacquie passionately believes that partnerships are the key to changing culture and that "culture changes culture". Jacquie has evolved to be a fantastic people leader and loves to get out on the floor growing, nurturing and connecting with people. Her philosophy of paying it forward by encouraging her staff to look out for each other is a great one to live by. Jacquie's team are very lucky to have such a fabulous role model and leader. 

If you would like to know more about the work that I do coaching nurses and midwives click here or email me [email protected]

It was a real pleasure to Interview Jamie about his nursing career for this episode. I learnt about the Losada Ratio which is something I didn't know before interviewing Jamie! Jamie is a passionate advocate for creating positivity at work as a leader and in his life generally. By his own admission studying positive outcomes has taken up his brain space over the last few years. Jamie has had a diverse nursing career to date. He came into nursing after volunteering in Malawi aged 18 and being inspired by hearing the stories from the Doctors who worked for Médecins Sans Frontières. Jamie shares some insightful tips for Grad nurses and talks about the importance of mentoring. Jamie is a secret musician at heart and in the early days of his training, this was what he wanted to do. There are so many takeaways for the listener in this interview my biggest takeaway is that positivity is infectious!

If you would like to know more about the work that I do coaching Nurses and Midwives visit my website Evastorey.com or drop me a line at [email protected]

I am always looking for Nurses and Midwives to interview for my podcast. If you would like to be interviewed email me [email protected] for more information.

In this episode, I interview Wes who works in the emergency department in Resus. Wes started his nursing career more by accident than planning. He began a business degree and then realised that he hated numbers! He enrolled on a nursing degree course as a way to get into radiology and after one year was hooked on becoming a nurse. Through a series of personal events in his life, it took Wes 5 years to complete his nurse training.

Wes qualified as a registered nurse at the end of 2018 and like many newly qualified nurses in Australia, he struggled to get a graduate placement. There are always more graduates than there are placements and Wes describes how he used LinkedIn as a way of connecting to a Nurse Unit Manager on LinkedIn and how connecting led him to secure a graduate position.

We cover a range of topics from how to deal with traumatic events, debrief both formally and informally, nurses and social media, tips for staying resilient, nursing as a gendered profession, and public perception around gendered roles in health care.

Wes is passionate about helping new nurses starting out on their career. He has developed a series of articles to help newly qualified nurses set themselves up for success and he can be found on LinkedIn as Wesley Woodborne.  

If you would like to learn more about the work that I do with nurses helping them to achieve a healthy work-life balance through coaching please get in touch [email protected]. If you are interested in being coached you can learn more about me here

In this episode, I interview Joanne who is a registered nurse working in an emergency department in a regional hospital in Australia. Nurses working in an emergency department never know what is going to come through the door and they deal with trauma on a daily basis. Working in an environment where there is daily exposure to trauma can deplete resilience and it is so important to have personal strategies to deal with this. Joanne describes emergency nursing as "caring from the first cry to the last breath". She describes her job as an emergency nurse as her Ikigai, her reason for being. Joanne has travelled extensively in her career and attributes her knowledge skills and experience in having taken opportunities to learn new nursing skills in regional nursing jobs across Australia. Joanne's talks about how she overcame personal struggles as a single parent, some serious health issues in her life and how her determination, strength, love for her daughter and her resilience got her through these very difficult times.  We talk about the struggles that nurses who are single parents have in terms of juggling shift work and child care, homelessness, Ikigai and much more. Joanne beautifully describes what the essence of nursing is all about with examples from her practice as an emergency nurse. If you would like to know more about the coaching work that I do with nurses or would like to tell your story please get in touch [email protected]