The Self Care Unit

CW: This podcast contains discussions of mental health that may be sensitive to listeners.

This week, the absolute joy Nicole LeeAnne is on the pod! Nicole talks with us about her passion for and departure from nursing, the physical and emotional challenges she’s faced, navigating the healthcare system, and ways to better support nurses through burnout. It’s all about building supportive communities! We wrap things up, of course, with some fun snack combinations!

Follow @nicoleleeanne6 on IG and TikTok for some of the most fun and insightful content out there!

CW: This podcast contains discussions of mental health that may be sensitive to listeners.

On this week’s episode, we formally welcome Micheline to the pod! Micheline brings so much expertise in burnout, managing our stress cycle, and advocating for nurses. We chat with her about her about her reasons for joining The Self Care Unit and shared goals for the future! So stay tuned for more from this incredible team!

Micheline can be found on Instagram @the.healthynurse!

CW: This podcast contains discussions of mental health that may be sensitive to listeners.

This week, @BriBriTheNurse joined us for Mental Health Matters! Bri talked with us about her journey as a nurse and shared the mental hurdles and anxieties she has encountered in her life and career. We then discussed the difficult realities of advocating for the care we need and, in Bri’s case, the challenges that come with an endometriosis diagnosis.

Huge thank you to Bri for this incredible conversation! For more of her, she can be found @BriBriTheNurse on Instagram and TikTok!

CW: Discussions of mental health that may be sensitive to listeners.

This week, we are joined by Chrissy Massaro, also known as @chrissycrna on Instagram! Chrissy is the co-founder of the Confident Care Academy, and her passion for educating and providing resources for nurses shines in this incredible conversation! Topics include her journey to becoming a CRNA, what it's like going back to school, mentorship, and how to better prepare, educate, and support nurses heading to CRNA school. Check it out!

Please follow @ChrissyCRNA or @ConfidentCareAcademy to learn more and access all the amazing resources they provide!

For this week’s Ask a Nurse, Shannon and Carley are on the pod to talk about the twists and turns of their nursing careers. We drill down on the feeling of being in a different place than expected upon graduating from nursing school. We also talk about how to best weather those bumps in the road. Our journeys may not always look like what we thought they would, and it’s important to talk about!

CW ://: Discussions of mental health that may be sensitive to listeners.

Melanie Van Sistine, of Mel’s Crafty Corner fame, joins us this week for Mental Health Matters! An incredible delight of a human being, Mel courageously opens up with us about the challenges she's faced, including physical injury, feelings of failure/negativity, guilt, and bullying. In the end, she speaks to why creating for her community of nurses has meant so much to her!

This week, Sarah and Carley talk to fellow nurse Heather Murray about her work to get more organizational support for nurses mental health, specifically presumptive coverage for traumatic psychological injuries. Simply, this would presume that diagnosed trauma happened because of an experience at work, removing onerous barriers and putting nurses and healthcare workers in a similar system as other first responders.

Seems like something that should already be the case, but it isn't! So tune in to learn about this important work and the ways we can get the message out there!

On this week's episode, we have Jennifer Garcia with us! She is a nurse who is passionate about all things mental health, is the host of the RawTea Podcast, and will be our opening musical act at this year’s nurses week concert! If you can't tell from all that, Jen is incredibly fun and a great conversation! She talks with us about managing anxiety as a nurse, finding balance in life through creative expression, and what it means to take care of ourselves.

This week, we were joined by Micheline Fraser, AKA @the.healthynurse, whose work is all about nursing burnout prevention! We talked with her about her own burnout story, the factors and problems that lead to it in our industry, and what we can all do to take care of ourselves. Micheline is a truly incredible advocate and someone who cares deeply about her fellow nurses and healthcare workers, so we were beyond grateful to talk with her this week!

Make sure to follow her work @the.healthynurse on Instagram!

This week on the Self Care Unit–we LET. IT. OUT. Carley and Sarah take some time to vent, decompress, share what's happening in hospitals, and discuss solutions to the pressures and burdens nurses face. They also talk about their nurse specialties, the work of fellow nurses to improve emotional intelligence, and the many paths available for nurses who want to make a change.