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The cost & courage of caring - stories that spark resilience.
Speaker 2 (00:00.236)
Welcome to this week's episode of the Caregivers podcast, our show about the cost and courage of caring. All of us who care and give can learn from each other. Today we have a very special guest, a nurse, teacher, leader, mother, partner, health care champion with grit, voice of the unspoken and listener to the unheard. Today we welcome Amy Archibald Varley, otherwise known as the gritty nurse. Enjoy today's episode. We're so glad you're here.
you
Speaker 2 (00:28.386)
grateful that we're here, we're grateful that you're here. And following and subscribing will help keep us around. Thank you.
So before we dive in, can you just tell us the stuff that you feel our audience of listeners really need to know about you as we get started? The most important things. mean, snapshot of Amy.
Goodness. important things. the most important thing is I'm a nurse. My background is in labor and delivery. I have my master's degree in nursing as well as women's health. I am a podcaster, a fellow podcaster like you are. So I host the Gritty Nurse. And also I am, I'm very active in advocacy. So I had the opportunity to be a
freelancer. So I actually did medical freelancing work with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and I'm still a freelancer. I currently write for for hospital news. It's the largest hospital newspaper in all of Canada. I think it's the only hospital newspaper in all of Canada. So goes out to all of the various hospitals. But my main call to action is really bringing voices to the table that haven't been brought. So particularly nurses, people who are underrepresented in health care, families voices and patients voices.
and talking about mental health. So I mean, I've had the ability to work with various different leaders. I had the opportunity to speak to the prime minister several times, working across Canada with nursing unions, as well as various different political groups. But yeah, that's my passion, advocacy, talking about mental health, and being able to see myself and put myself in spaces where people would not see nursing traditionally.
Speaker 2 (02:12.524)
I can see how that work matters to you. just positions you able to make such a difference. And I mean, really the listener of the unspoken and the voice of the unheard, it's wonderful. So let's go back to the beginning. Like what drew you to nursing? I mean, we're here now and you've seen this amazing evolution of your career and different paths along the way. tell us about those moments and for our listeners to kind of, what drew you to nursing and what
What was the moment that was sort of your calling?
Yeah, I would say, you know, I think every kid has some type of a dream of what they might be in nursing, wasn't it? Actually, I wanted to be a news weather anchor person, which is just random. Yeah. But yeah, it's like, I want to be on the news. Well, I guess I get to do that a little bit now in my in my work. But my grandfather got sick when I was probably in around grade nine. And we were entering the health care system as, you know, people who had someone, a loved one that was sick.
And I recognize there was nobody really in my family that had any healthcare background. I didn't, I was like 13 at the time. And it was really difficult to navigate. I felt that there were times that we were treated differently. I remember seeing how some of the nurses were excellent with his care and seeing some of the nurses were really awful with his care. And I remember saying to my mom, like, you know what? And I was 13 at the time, right? I was like, you know what? I'm gonna...
into the system and I'm going to change it. Like I want to be a nurse and that's because again, I saw mostly the nursing care. Of course I did, he was followed by physicians, but he was palliative. So I just wanted to be like, you know, I think I could do a better job than the people that I'm seeing. And I want to be here to make change. So that's kind of what started my journey into nursing. I found out later that my grandmother actually did work at Baycrest in a hospital in Toronto as a nurse. And I was like, what? Nobody told me that.
Speaker 1 (04:11.32)
But yeah, that was my first kind of taste into trying to learn a little bit about healthcare because I felt that the system needed to do better because I felt that my grandfather didn't get the care that he deserved. And I wanted to be a part of how to make that pivotal change.
When I read your book, I got a sense of your grandfather and certainly a man of dignity and strength. And I could see as his granddaughter that you witnessing that with open eyes and the variability of care, which would shape your momentum and your conviction that you needed to do things differently. So over the years now, you've been through so much. What's kept you here? What's kept you in nursing? And we'll explore that journey a little bit. you're still here. What's keeping you?
Yeah, that's good question. think, again, maybe just dovetailing off of that story, then to answer the question, what keeps me here is things weren't always great. So I got into nursing, I went into nursing school. That's a whole other drama in terms of just, you you think that in healthcare that everybody would be compassionate because that's the work that we're doing and finding out that people are not as compassionate as you would think. And then graduating, moving into leadership.
and being like, oh, you know, I'm a Keener. I'm so excited to be here. And I'm going to learn all these different things and change the world. And realizing that that's not how health care works, that there's still so much hierarchy. There's still so much power that's not the power imbalances. There's so much that's not shared amongst, you know, health care providers in terms of progression and making change or innovation and trying to be empathetic and even, you know, values of ethics. And I got into this role and I was gaslit.
nursing violence and nursing lateral violence is real, bullying is real, and harassment is real within the healthcare space. And it was something that really took a toll on my mental health. I ended up leaving the organization I was working for. They had no idea how to deal with mental health. They gave me a form. like, how much can you lift, bend, twist? I mean, it's really helpful in bringing me back to work when it's not my body that's broken, but it's my mind, right? So.
Speaker 2 (06:09.73)
that form.
Speaker 1 (06:19.426)
I just felt that I needed to be able to change the system. And I felt that I couldn't do it in the way that I was doing it, but I felt that maybe if I shared my story, that there might be someone else out there that's like, yeah, me too. I experienced that. I had this issue that happened. So kind of just bringing it full circle, that's why I started The Gritty Nurse. I did have a colleague that was formally on the podcast that no longer is on the podcast.
But that was the main impetus that I knew I couldn't have been the only person I reached out to her because she was experiencing some of this too and decided to start the grid nurse. But now continuing on, the reason why I continue to stay is because change still needs to happen. Like I think that I would be doing myself a disservice if I did not stay in a profession, one, that I spent a lot of time in and two, that the whole reason if I back it up to that little 13 year old girl that was like, I just need to be here to do something different.
to make people have better healthcare outcomes for someone who's dying, they can die with dignity. I'm still, guess, in some ways have that stubborn 13 year old that's like, I'm going to change the world. And that's what keeps me here. It's really the patients and families. It's the ability to connect and build community with other folks and other nurses to be like, you know, I can't be the only person experiencing this. And to continue to challenge the status quo. I think that's the biggest piece too, right? I think that
There's so much that's normalized in healthcare, so much that's normalized in nursing and labor and delivery. We talk about the normalization of the deviances, which is, for example, we might see a tracing and we're like, we're so used to that poor tracing. It'll be a perfect outcome. And then we have a baby that comes out, we're calling a code pink and things are untoward because we're so used to demonizing and normalizing that deviation. And I think that I want to be that person that continues to remember that little fire that
that 13 year old had to say, it's the people that continue to bring me back.
Speaker 2 (08:18.574)
They remind you of your vocation and all of those moments that happen in real time just sort of make you feel, I knew this is where I needed to be. There's a lot of things on your journey that I'd like to unpack with you over the course of their time together, but if you had to sum it now for let's say professional caregivers and non-professional caregivers at home looking after loved ones, what are the hardest things people are facing today?
think there's an information gap. Health literacy is probably one of the biggest challenges, particularly with folks that might be caring, like non-healthcare folks and just how to navigate the healthcare system. I think that's probably the biggest challenge. Right here in Canada, one of the things that we continue to see, and I'm sure it's no different across the board in the US, is over-flooded emergency departments. And that's not just because of...
immigration. Of course, we do have issues related to those types of things, but it's also related to health literacy and just like, when is the best time to seek an emergency doctor? When's the best time to see your primary care physician? When's the best time to see your urgent care physician? And there's a real disconnect in between how, how do we make sure that we're navigating these systems and using all the systems afforded to us like public health care, community health care, how are we using and navigating all those, those, those places to ensure that people understand where the best places to go? I'd say that
You do a really bad job with health care litters.
Educating about the alignment between a certain form of provision and a certain need. And then tackling the six and a half million Canadians who don't have primary care providers who, where that becomes a funnel usually to an emergency room or an urgent care center, usually delayed rather than upfront and usually with more complexity because of delays. And you can see where it's just sort of snowballs forward and we've all been there and all witnessed that.
Speaker 1 (10:11.374)
Yeah, absolutely. And then I would say if we flip it on the other side, so like you're a healthcare provider and now you're in that space being a caregiver burnout, I mean, we're caring constantly and now we're taking on an additional role of frustration within the system. So you have an idea of how things are supposed to go. And then you're seeing that you as a healthcare provider are navigating, like this doesn't make any sense. It's not working for me. And the other piece I'd say is, you know, trying not to be
in the driver's seat. like if, for example, I just did a podcast with someone today who I was just like, she was talking about being a nurse and being diagnosed with MS, but sometimes we have to be the patient and it's really hard. It's really hard. remember like I have four kids and knowing having all that extra education and understanding how labor and delivery is supposed to go or, you know, me looking at my own strip or knowing that, you know, what's happening with me, it can be a pro and it can be a con. So,
I think those are just some highlights of the things that healthcare providers who are caring can go into, but definitely burnout and just feeling like we have to, like this is what we're in for, so we have to be this way and not asking for help. I think healthcare providers are the worst at asking for help.
Well, taking care of ourselves is always a challenge and then asking for help and then sort of, well, we were speaking with Jeanette Yates a couple of weeks ago and, you know, when is pretty darn good, good enough and make sure we put that guilt aside that fuels the thinking that this is never good enough. You know, your book really brings together so many great stories of grit from the front lines and personal anecdotes and
There's heartbreak, there's humor, there's compassion, there's all of these amazing bricks to an amazing story. But is there one story that's really stayed with you? One that sort of changed how you see professional caregiving as a nurse or even it changed yourself somehow when you really came to terms with one of those stories in your book?
Speaker 1 (12:18.03)
That's a tough question. I would probably have this, there's like two really. Seeing a silent birth, that was wild. If you've ever worked in labor delivery, it's not a silent place. I remember my husband would come and drop me off lunches and he's like, do you hear that? And we're all sitting at the nurses station, we're super calm. We're like, yeah, we hear. It's just like, what is happening here? So I would say my first experience of seeing a silent birth was,
It wasn't just uncanny, was wild. I just never experienced anything like that. And was so visceral and so real and so raw. And an experience that I'll never forget. The room was, like I said in the book, you could hear everything. And it was just such an amazing experience because most of the Delirous are not like that. And just a testimony to the strength of women's bodies. we just, I'm...
I'm shooting my own horn here that I think that our bodies are amazing. We could do so many different things and just a feat to our strength and resilience. But again, of course, I'm always a big proponent of pain management, but just the fact that our bodies can do such amazing things.
Tell me if some of our listeners may not know what a silent birth is exactly. Can you just clarify that term?
Yeah, so essentially when a patient reaches 10 centimeters dilations, we would call that in nursing speak, the ring of fire. So that's really when the cervix is at its thinnest. So they're fully dilated and it hurts. You have a 10 centimeter infant that is coming through the birthing canal. And it's probably one of the most, I'd say probably one of the most painful experiences anybody could go through.
Speaker 1 (14:01.972)
And she made no noises. She was just breathing. It was very visceral. She didn't grunt or groan. She just kind of was continued to breathe and it just let it happen. I've never seen anything like it was just her body did all of the work. Of course she did the work because she was a, she's a part of that body, but it was just amazing that there was no sound, no screaming, no grunting.
No crying. And I'm not saying that people don't use those things as other ways to facilitate their birth. This was just an, it was just unbelievable to see something like that.
He had another story.
Yes, my goodness, my flight story and being stranded in Ottawa. So one of the things that nurses get the pleasure of doing is sometimes when we have patients that are very, very sick in laboring delivery, we would have to fly and take them to a tertiary care center. I think in the US it's a level one, but here it's a level three. don't know. We have it backwards, guess. But I had this story where I had this patient, I think she had a circlage and it was coming open.
What that is essentially is a stitch in the cervix to keep the cervix closed. And it was opening up and she had had previous losses and we're like, we're not gonna lose this other one. And I was new, I was pretty fresh. And they're just like, Amy, it's your turn, you're going out. And I was like, what are you doing? This is wild. They're like, you got all the knowledge, you're good. And yeah, it was just such a powerful story for me to be able to be with that woman at that time.
Speaker 1 (15:34.818)
to care for her, to be in an air ambulance and seeing how that all worked, but also being the only person that was really truly like, I was back there with another, you know, high level EMS, but he was like, he looked at me and it was like, I don't do babies. So we could work on this, but you're pretty much on your own and being like, my God. And then getting to Ottawa and the, of course, because they have to deal with emergencies, they're like, there's another emergency, sorry. And they just flew off and left me four hours away from my hospital.
So navigating all that and getting back and trying to figure out when's the next time I won't be going out for that type of experience. But it was definitely an eye-opening experience.
Those experiences, those are the cement of conviction, right? When you know in your heart that, I'm really where I'm supposed to be.
Yeah, and just like I'm in it. This is real. Like this person who's looking at me is depending on my knowledge, skill, and judgment to ensure that they're safe. And again, with labor and delivery, we have two patients, the mom and the baby, right? So just a lot of, you're right, just knowing that I'm in the right space and knowing that I love what I do and that I was going to do the best I can for that patient at the time.
So I'm thinking of a beautiful phrase in its four words, the wisdom of nurses.
Speaker 1 (16:56.174)
my goodness, you're too kind.
What are you pointing to? What are our listeners at home? What should they be thinking of when they hear those words out of your mouth?
that we are transformational in care. And I think that, you know, the bedside isn't the only place that nurses should be valued. And that because we bring so much wisdom that we should be seen in other places. And I think that was one of the things that I've been trying to do. You don't see many nurses in journalism and I stuck my foot very hard into there. I was like that door opened and I was going to leave it open.
seeing nurses, you know, speaking in media, I think it's so important that we don't just hear from executives. We don't just hear from doctors. think one of the funny things is, I don't know if you've ever had this doctor come on your podcast, but if you do get a chance, he's amazing. He's a friend of mine. His name is Dr. Brian Goldman. He hosts the show, White Coat Black Art. And at the very beginning of the pandemic, he had been talking to very different people about, you know, what was happening in the emergency departments, particularly what was happening with nursing. I'm like,
you need to ask a nurse, why are you asking a doctor about nursing things? And I heard from them and I was like, what have I done? I like, I just put myself in the hot seat. But it was important to be, to share that perspective. Cause I think that we are all contributing members of the care team. And it's so important to hear different insights and perspectives from various different people. So I think that's one piece. And I think that again, it's just,
Speaker 1 (18:30.488)
We see more of the same in terms of the status quo, in terms of healthcare. Researchers are over here, physicians are over here, nurses are over here. I wouldn't even say invisible hierarchy. We know it's there. It's something that we need to work on. But the fact that nurses do and should be seen in different places. So politics, think it's important for us to be in political. think that...
I've heard people say, you know, healthcare isn't political. Oh, it's, it's very political. I, and I don't mean politicized because that's a different, um, a different spin and different take, but that healthcare is political in terms of the policies and procedures and laws that are put in place that might affect, you know, individuals, healthcare and their wellbeing in the community and the hospital setting. So I think nurses have staking there too. And the other one that I'm going to throw it there that I think is something I'm trying to step my foot into a little bit is, um, in film.
So we do see a lot of media depiction of nurses is atrocious. Okay. We're, one of three things where the sexy nurse, where the satanic nurse, or we are these. So it's like sexy, satanic or angelic or saint. And I can tell you, maybe we're all three, but they're all wrong depictions. Or just like, I mean, I it's just, it's just not right. And I think that we should be the ones defining,
what that really truly looks like. And there hasn't really, there has been some good shows. So for example, The Pit is one of my favorite ones where I found it was really realistic in terms of how they depicted nurses. But maybe we should have something nursing specific. That's good, because there are some shows that are like not good. But just, know, how do nurses tell stories in the way, you know, film is presented using visuals, using lighting, using proper direction, using the power of storytelling? And how can we be a part of that?
element because I think that's also a really good way that people can learn about healthcare. Films do such a good job of conveying stories and I think that if nurses could really step up to the plate and learn a little bit that we can make something beautiful in the film space and share knowledge that way too.
Speaker 2 (20:41.198)
And with that same grit we've come accustomed to from you, I could see those being very valuable exercises that really educate not only nurses and caregivers, but also the population as a whole. It's interesting, you talk about leadership and the various elements involved and different silos, et cetera, but I think it's come up a couple of times today already, like that fear of change or the resistance to change, but you
innovation is founded on change and the acceptance of change. And, you know, in my experience, a lot of the big changes we've been through at the hospital usually are met with the fear that comes with change looming. And then usually change happens and you look back a couple of weeks later saying, oh, that wasn't too bad. At the same time, there are these obstacles. There's some big players who provide obstacles and that's probably
you know, major fuel for some of the foundational problems that you're referring to like bullying and gaslighting.
experiences that as a nurse and as someone who cares, you're in this state of cognitive dissonance and you know what you think happened and you're being told didn't happen and you're just trying to make sense of it. You walk home at night and you're like, I just can't believe what I've been through today.
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (22:09.533)
Let's talk a little bit about that. I can't believe that that still exists. Where's the one up in leadership that's there to make sure that doesn't happen? We all know about going one up, And there should be someone there. Yet, I'm not feeling it.
Yeah, that's because health care has an accountability problem. I guess one of the things that I've noticed particularly, because yes, there can be a chain of command. There's, you can speak to this person, you should speak to the next person and so forth. We have all sorts of protocols for like, you know, escalating up the chain. But sometimes you escalate up the chain and there's like, it's like, oh, I don't really know what I could do about that. We have accountability problem in health care.
right down from the CEO executive place like hospital to public health and policy and within even leadership, just nobody who wants to take the fall for like really crap in the bed. And we've seen it time and time again, where it's just these issues that might happen, whether it's violence within the workplace or whether it's bullying or whether we have a policy that needs to be changed.
And it gets to the state where people are just saying, well, I wasn't responsible for that or, there's no oversight or we don't have enough money. I've heard that a lot. but yeah, the biggest problem is we just have an accountability issue. Nobody wants to take accountability for anything. I am of the house of particularly in healthcare when we're dealing with people's lives that we should start seeing quotas or attach things to funding. It's like, okay, if we want to see it,
a healthy patient outcome, first we should measure it. If you don't meet the benchmark or the measure, then maybe you're not equipped for the role. You're not equipped for the job. There are people and leaders who stay in these positions for years and years, make billions, millions of dollars and have not actually made any incremental measurement that benefits patients. It might benefit their corporations, private profits, things like that, but not actually mobilizing and changing the face of healthcare.
Speaker 1 (24:30.346)
reducing morbidity and mortality in various different populations. So I personally think that that's the issue. just are, we don't have accountability structures put in place where people have to meet benchmarks that they might lose funding, that they might lose their job, that they might not be able to continue to be in the position. And I think that would be the biggest problem. I see it here all the time and I'm sure, I'm sure it happens in the US too.
Well, I mean, it's the notion of when something goes wrong saying, well, there's a policy in place, but doesn't mean the policy is good. Doesn't mean the policy is updated. Doesn't mean the policy is humane or actually informed by reality. And just having the word policy is not enough.
No, it's absolutely not. I think, well, if you've ever worked in a hospital, I think it's Joint Commission in the States and here in Canada, it's accreditation. We have this procedure where, you know, we have these people with clipboards that come out and they make sure that we're doing the best that we can in the hospital walls. following all these various different check marks and they come in, they check, check, check, because we've cleaned up very well. And as soon as they leave, we're right back to exactly where we were. So even though people would say like the Joint Commission and account.
accreditation are these structures that we have in place, there is no accountability. let's say you fail your accreditation, you failed your, you know, your joint commission, you're not going to get that silver shiny metal to put up on the wall. What is the impetus for people to make change? Right now it's money.
Which is unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (26:02.562)
You speak of...
Innovation, you have lots of people who look up to you. I'm sure lots of young trainees in the fields of nursing and I think in the fields of healthcare, think young people have a lot to learn from voices like yours who are committed. But let's get back to bullying. mean, there are policies to control bullying in elementary schools. As parents, we're all aware of that. We know about
the harm it can cause during fragile states of development. Yet here we complete our vocational training and we enter real life and you're facing lateral bullying, you're facing bullying. I mean, there's this quote and nurses eat their young. I don't understand it. And I don't know if people understand it. To me, it's just not like, how do you do that? And why? where's the reward to whoever from such...
Walk me through this.
Yeah, you know, it's such, it's such an awful saying that follows and plagues nursing and it's an unfortunate reality. Essentially the, the, the, the meaning behind nurses eating their young, it's kind of almost like bullying initiation. I was bullied, therefore I'm going to bully you. It's, it's really a bull excuse. It's just such an excuse for bad behavior, right? Like there, there is no reason that because you were bullied, you need to pass it on or, know,
Speaker 1 (27:36.022)
your senior nursing to be, you need to be like nurse ratchet or these various different stereotypes that we see. there's no reason for it, but within nursing as a profession, it is, it is something that we do see. and it's unfortunate. It's ridiculous. I, I experienced, I think that if you spoke to any nurse out there, they've experienced at least some form of bullying within their healthcare, world, particularly in nursing. And it's just,
It's just so unnecessary. I had mentioned to you in previous conversations, you can see it sometimes, you know, whether it's nurse to nurse, like staff nursing, withholding information, being very cliquey, not speaking to a nurse, not relieving them, various different things like that. And it changes obviously in various different leadership roles, but just an unnecessary situation. And I don't want to tie it just to us being a female-dominated profession.
because of course there are men within our profession. But I do find it very problematic that the ways that nurses handle conflict, instead I have always been very direct. If I have a problem, people will know I just wear it on my face, I guess. I just am not very good at leaving things to Stu or to like, I don't like that person, so I'm gonna like nitter natter here behind this person's back. I've never been that type of person. I think communication is always best, but.
I guess nursing, need to work on that S bar within nursing as a profession to really find better ways of communicating with one another and really squashing this bullying thing because we have enough problems. You've probably heard of the song by Jay-Z, 99 Problems. We don't need this problem. We have 99 problems and really bullying should not be one of them.
Do you think what's fueling it today is different than what it might have fueled it, let's say a generation or two ago, if it was present then? I mean, when I think back to the most positive engagements I've had in my career with nurses, and this goes back to when I was a resident, we rotated on wards where there was a nurse leader who shaped the culture of the ward. You knew everybody, you knew all the nurses on that ward because they stuck around.
Speaker 2 (29:55.438)
There was a culture, there was a buy-in, there was a pride in their collective commitment to the best patient care they could provide. Everybody showed up every day and some of the most meaningful encounters I ever had, I remember one just sticks with me, teaching the nurses about electrolytes and a couple of other things that came up about a patient and everybody, we just sat together and...
It was just an honest exchange and there was no egos, there was nothing. And that's always stuck with me in that when you break down all the barriers and just sort of share and why you're there to learn from each other, to contribute towards a greater good, things work. And it boils down to basic principles. But part of that started with a culture on the ward and leadership and buy-in and has the way
I mean, that notion of the ward, it doesn't have a fixed population anymore. There's floats coming in, there's no attachment, maybe there's no ownership anymore. I don't know, but is it a function that we don't have the social structure within a unit under leadership that all of these vagaries sort of just start happening and then the lateral bullying starts, this and that as you described so well? Like what's fueling it today and what do we need to change to
tighten things up again and not find ourselves in that rut.
Well, I would say that, you know, there is still that camaraderie. I feel like there are still places where you do find, you know, that everybody is working. It's synergistic. It's beautiful. It's exactly how you want things to be. But I would say that the bullying and violence have probably always been there. I don't think that it's something that is.
Speaker 1 (31:48.77)
probably unique to nursing. I'm sure that medicine has its own form, various different other, you know, maybe RTs, maybe they call it something different. But I think that, you know, because we are human and we are people and we are thrust into an environment, particularly the healthcare environment, where like anything can kind of go, right? We're expecting, we are there to help and deal with people on their most vulnerable time. They're sick, they need care, they need support.
So I feel that they're like healthcare, unfortunately, is this ripe environment that if you're already tense, stressed, have all these other predispositions, you're busy, the system's not working well for you. And I think this will kind of help answer the question that you asked that all of these various different things and factors coming in really leak into how that individual will, you know, show up that day. If we're short staffed, if you have something happening in your personal life, there's all these different
Ways that affect a person who comes in on that day to deal with whatever it is that they're dealing with their assignments, you know Do the rounds whatever I think that we have to account for and health care tells you to check your feelings at the door and deal with patients families and then pick it up back on the way out, but we can't do that So I think in essence because we are human I think the best way and you know, I think the saying is to err is human the best way to actually deal with this is to recognize that
We are
people at the end of the day and that we come with, you know, all of these various different things. And I'm not giving a pass to people who are belligerent, aggressive intentionally, because I do know that there are just some people that have it out for other people for whatever reason. But I'm talking about those tensions that do rise that we see anyways in health care. So I would say that it's about the environment. So maybe what's changed over time is the busyness of the emergency departments and various different places that we're working with.
Speaker 1 (33:47.47)
the fact that we're seeing more sicker patients and sicker families, that we are dealing with the complexity of the family. Because I do know that there was a little bit of shift in the healthcare model where it was like patient centered and now we're family centered and now it's somewhere in between. I think we're still like a family. So I just feel like maybe what has changed and maybe what you're noticing is all of those various different pressures. And I think the other piece of that is politics.
Navigating the complexities.
Speaker 1 (34:16.898)
somehow playing into it. I don't know how much you want to get into that, but it does affect the way that we come in and deal with people. People, because healthcare has been politicized, remember I said it is political, but it has been politicized and I say they're very different. There are different ways that patients even interact with some of their care providers feeling that they can't be trusted or all of these things factor into these different types of interactions that are happening. So I would say that
All that's happening is a shift in the times, right? I would always say that bullying has probably always been there, but maybe all those other extraneous things weren't there to make it as burdensome. I'm not saying that there weren't challenges back then, but I think that as we're continuing to see that there are more things that are coming in that are drawing our attention away, social media, different things like that, seeing the politics or feeling the politics of the day.
All of these different things factor into the way that we respond to each other. And the biggest thing that we aren't doing is talking. Like we were just, we might be having internal conversations, but we're not really as a healthcare community. And I mean, nurses, physicians, folks that are in the healthcare space. We aren't really having good conversations about polarization, about how this is affecting. talk about moral injury and burnout and these different things.
these various buckets, but we aren't putting it all together and saying, okay, how are all of these affecting our workforce? And it's a hard conversation to have, but an important one, because how can we want to change healthcare outcomes if we don't talk about politics, if we don't talk about the stresses that we had in our personal lives, if we don't bring all these various different components, or I would say calling us all in to have these conversations. And I think that it's time.
definitely time to have really hard conversations with ourselves and within our professions to say, can we make this better so we aren't creating a situation where we're seeing poorer healthcare outcomes? Because it's concerning, right? I'm very concerned about how the trajectory of healthcare is going. And I think that if we don't start coming together and building community, that we're going to continue to see that ripple effect where, you know, that code, it wasn't, was it synergistic or, you know,
Speaker 1 (36:40.75)
We're not seeing eye to eye on how this policy is developed. All of this ends up affecting patient care at the end of the day.
Right, it does. part of moving forward is actually, as you said, sitting together and putting it all on the table and finding community in the ability to communicate. That also fosters the development of common shared goals and the building blocks of change. you're right, those conversations just cannot occur separately. And too often, I mean, we've all experienced that where there's, there's a big change.
And then you sort of look around and say, why didn't anybody ask us about that? You know, and that's, it's huge. And it's, you know, at the most granular level, it affects the individuals at the bedside and works its way up the ladder in terms of the ripple effects, but they can be potentially huge. We're so aware these days of,
Yes?
Speaker 2 (37:40.354)
difficult scenarios and they infiltrate everywhere. And in your book, you talk about gaslighting and I mean, you my interpretation of it was narcissistic abuse from leadership and that infiltrates business, corporations, workplaces, the education system, healthcare. How do we, how do we deal with that? I mean, you know, there's that famous saying, hire slow, fire fast.
Yet those people kind of stick around. Yeah. How do we, if that starts at a low level at the entry level, the ability to erode the spirit and the strength of young nurses, young caregivers, anybody entering some sort of vocational path, we need to have checks and balances to make sure that doesn't happen. Are we seeing leadership able to act and advocate for the
their employees when they're facing such, I mean, you've been through that and your story is resonant to say the least, but are we seeing progress or do we have to be louder voices to say that's completely unacceptable, do something about it?
some places, I'd say, right? think there are, there are some healthcare leaders that are, that want to listen. I think that's the biggest piece, right? I think it's just take the time to listen to the stories. Maybe you might not like them or, you know, you might feel butthurt about it or whatever the case may be, but take the time to listen and true. And there are those leaders that are willing to listen, to take a step back and to be like, okay, I can't be in the driver's seat.
or I need to share my power in a different way that I'm amplifying other people's voices, experiences, and actually making change, right? I think that's the other piece. We can't just say, you know, I hear what you're saying, but actually not change things. And there are some leaders that are doing that. Now on an overall scale, we have a problem when it comes to money. There is still issues related to budgets over people.
Speaker 1 (39:53.004)
I can't tell you how many meetings I used to sit in as a leader in healthcare. And the conversation was about money, was about, okay, this is our budget. And I understand that we have to talk about budgets and money, but nursing should never be a line item. And then it's like, we can't look at nurses or other folks in the healthcare space. And, you know, those are the things that go away. So we have to talk about the importance of, you know, people, healthcare outcomes over profits.
healthcare is a right space, particularly in leadership to see that kind of narcissistic behavior like you had mentioned in the same narcissistic encounters that I've had. And they fail upwards instead of them being kicked out again, cause I said healthcare has accountability problem. They're good with the numbers and they know how to push their people into a grave. I'd say some of them, they will continue to be promoted up because we have
So guess inherently we have an accountability problem, but we also have a values problem. So if you're placing your value more on the worth of the worker who can crunch the numbers versus the worker who is ensuring that their staff is safe, ensuring that patients are being served, ensuring these other various things that people would consider to be soft, which are not soft at all because healthcare is not just quantitative, it's qualitative as well, that we will continue to see this rippling effect of
healthcare CEOs and frontline staff having a huge disconnect because we're not speaking the same language. You're speaking about dollars and cents and I'm speaking about patients and healthcare outcomes. And there has to be somewhere of a middle ground. And again, I think people need to be fired. We need to start tying some of these measures to performance. And I don't mean performance in terms of, you hit that quota. I mean, performance in terms of patient healthcare outcomes. What's the point of having a hospital?
if we're not bettering people. I know in healthcare in the States and a little bit here in Canada, it's becoming private profits are huge. We don't have CEOs that make $15 million, but you do. And it begs the question if we're talking about safe staffing, understaffed, know, people not having full-time work or, you know, issues with housing and poverty within nursing, because there are nurses that have told me they're working more than one job, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (42:17.486)
and your CEO is making $15 million a year.
That's a huge notion of working the equivalent of one and a half jobs in nursing, but only having a designation as part-time and not having the benefits that come with it, I think is an aberration. It has to. I know. It's been around for a while and it's not going away. And as you say, if that's how you justify crunching the numbers at the human cost, there's a significant revamp that needs to be
It's so much.
Speaker 2 (42:51.32)
to take place here.
I would say that takes the power of the people, right? I think this is where you have to, I tell people all the time, like, listen to what your political leaders are saying. Like if, and I don't, I'm not the type of person to say, okay, you have to be a single issue voter or whatever the case may be. I think you need to think about all these different issues, but listen to what people are saying about health care. If that is something that you truly value, listen to what your...
You know, your politician is saying, listen to what your various different MP MPP is saying. Does it make sense? Does it fit your model of how you want to be cared for? it, some of the, sometimes I'm just like, I want to shake people like, do you like, you're going to lose this. And then, you know, you'll be like, no, the leopards ate my face because you voted for a policy that is now doing damage to you. So again, I always urge people to like really truly listen, look into what people are saying.
and vote accordingly. think people, we have so much more power than we know that we have, just individual citizens to really make a change. And if you don't like what you're dealing with, then you have to vote. And I'd say, and maybe I'm saying something dangerous here, there are a lot of nurses that don't vote. It's a problem.
You know, there's certain commonalities which really resonate and it probably reflects trends that don't know borders. Down in the States, there's, you know, we had the pleasure of speaking with Tadda, who's one of the team working on a new movie, hopefully it'll be released this fall, called Suck It Up Buttercup. And it has to do about profits over people in nursing and
Speaker 2 (44:39.522)
medicine and what's going on. But the losses that the healthcare profession is facing with people just saying, I can't do this anymore, whether it's physicians, nurses, the tragedies of self-harm, addiction that arise from systems that are broken and people who enter the field with the biggest of hearts only to have them shattered with.
the cumulative effect of
you just what you describe of all kinds of factors. What are the biggest reasons nurses are leaving today from the profession? What are the top three? Do you have a sense of that?
Yeah, I would say, and in no particular order, moral injury, and burnout. think we're beyond burnout now. I think that the term itself has really lost all sense of meaning. So that's why I like to use the term moral injury over burnout, because I feel that nurses are at this place where it's just, they know that the care that they're delivering is
I don't want to say inadequate, but just that there could be so much more that can be done. We're trying to rush through assessments. We're doing more with less. So we understand that there are patients that come in that aren't getting the best sense of care. Like they might be getting the checklist of what we can provide in that particular space. But there's so much more that needs to happen. And when nurses are put in that place where you're just like, I know that I'm not doing the best I can, it creates that.
Speaker 1 (46:20.29)
moral and ethical injury. And I'd say that's probably one of the biggest ones. Again, I said no particular order, but I would say that mental health is probably a really huge part of it. I'd say safe staffing. So ensuring that, you know, we're not overburdened. Like I said, we're doing more with less and less resources, less time, but more work, heavier patients, sicker patients.
not enough staffing. So it just makes no sense. And again, I would say it's not a shortage of nurses who are willing to work. Nurses want to work, but we want to be respected. We want to make sure that patients are kept safe. So we need to have safe staffing and we want to make sure that we're compensated fairly. And I've heard wild things about compensation all across very, you know, from Canada to the U S to the UK.
that the compensation models just aren't really meeting the demands. Again, like I mentioned, you know, if you have a CEO that's paid 50 million and you got a nurse that's paid $36 an hour, but she doesn't have a full-time job, like, what are we really, really talking about? I'm not saying nurses should be paid.
Well, it's total discardance of value systems, right? I mean, there's got to be shared values at every level that are almost kind of sacred, right?
I completely agree. I would probably say, so like staffing and safe staffing, that's kind of that second bucket. And then the third bucket would be really, I'd probably say tackling violence in nursing, violence in healthcare. We have other professions like police, EMS, firefighters. Imagine as a police officer, we know what the laws are. You hit a police officer, you harm a police officer, you injure a police officer.
Speaker 1 (48:04.642)
You're going to have a very bad day. Like, let's just be honest. It's a felony. It's criminalized, prison sentences. So harsh, right? You punch a nurse across the face. What happens?
It's really bizarre that we have this dichotomy of
But Amy, there's a policy, right? Somewhere.
That's clearly not working because we should have the same rights and protections of firefighters as police officers, as EMTs, and we don't. So it begs the question why? I know the answer, but it's not good enough. So I think that that's another piece out. Why do I think it is? I think it's because we're a female-dominated profession that I feel that is not heard and not listened to. And again,
This is some of the work that we need to do as nurses to continue to advocate and let people know, but also to push our policymakers and regulators to make it a felony charge, make sure that there is criminal time attached to it, that our managers and directors and other people know that if you're going to put up a sign that says no tolerance policy and your patient punches you in the face, then it's no tolerance. We can't keep saying it because we've seen
Speaker 1 (49:29.718)
nurses who are injured, who, and I've had countless stories from Canadian, US, UK nurses, they've been injured on the job. They can't go back to work. They're not getting benefits. They're like, you know, working out of their car. This is, shouldn't be something that is a part of the job. Violence is not a part of the job. If I worked at Walgreens or Walmart and I got smacked in the face, I can press charges on that individual. But there's this culture in healthcare.
where we don't do the same thing. And it's hugely problematic. I spoke about a nurse who was in BC who ended up working on an acute mental health unit by herself, which resulted in a horrible injury. And again, I'm not going to say causation, know, correlation is causation, but this nurse ended up dying two months by suicide because she was injured previously to that and her quality of life had plummeted into the ground.
We can't allow this to continue to happen. We have to put measures in place. need strong laws against this type of violence towards us.
the assignment following policy.
No, I would argue against that because again, I think people have to understand that the hospital policies do not override human rights policies that we have outside of those hospital doors.
Speaker 2 (50:49.902)
It's not even human, it's beyond its basic human dignity to be not in a situation as a caregiver of any sort.
Right. But it's just weird where I don't even nurse. I spoke to a nurse this week where she was just like, I didn't know that I could press charges. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like you're, you're still a human citizen. You still are a tax paying member of society. And yes, that hospital might have the policy, but we also have court systems, provincial, local, federal, that you can take this to and then let the courts decide. Cause again, there's a conversation about,
What if this person was mentally ill or whatever the case may be? I am the proponent of saying, the courts decide. It is not your manager's decision whether you should take your assault or not call the police. Like it doesn't make any sense to me. We would never tell anybody else to not call the police if they were harmed in this way. So why do we do it in healthcare? I think that there's a lot of change that needs to come there. And I would say those three things are probably
one of the biggest reasons why nurses are leaving. Violence is not a part of the job and it's not taken nearly as serious. We feel that we're undervalued, underpaid, underprotected, understaffed. And with all of that at the helm, how could we be mentally okay? Like how could you just be like, oh yeah, know, everything's fine. It's that, you you see that burning.
person in your caregiving, so it all erases that, right? Just know that you're doing good. I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (52:29.048)
It is not good enough. And yeah, that angelic whole, know, nurses are, you know, we're heroes. We're not, we are people with real feelings, with families, but the same wants and needs and aspirations as anybody else out there. Nursing, and here's where I, some people might not like what I'd say. I'd say that nursing is a job. It is no different. Yes, we have, are entrusted with people's lives and that is hugely, hugely important.
because you're qualified for the job, right? You're not doing it because it's a job, you're doing it because you're qualified for the job. As a nurse, you're qualified.
It's tricky when people use the word like, it's a calling or say that, you know, this is a vocation that you were called to. I think that it really entangles the nurse in a very, you know, moral kind of ethical dilemma where they don't see themselves first, where they see the job first and then themselves a second. And that is hugely problematic. That's why I say at the end of the day, it is a job because
If you die or you get injured and you die and you can't work, that employer will list your job in 24 hours. And where are you? In the ground, injured and you can't work? We have to start seeing ourselves as people and not just as titles.
That heartbreaking moment when some individuals who are so vocationally enthralled come to the realization how replaceable they are and within a very short period of time despite all of their deepest commitments to the cause. Yep. I mean, all of those three examples are just a huge funnel into progressive moral distress and
Speaker 2 (54:24.078)
eventually the moral injury that's incapacitating. once you get to that point, it's, mean, everyone's burned out now, right? It's a common denominator, but it's the most severely morally injured who are at the forefront of where the risk lay is in terms of just walking away or potentially walking into harm's way as a means to cope with it.
Yeah, that's the other sad reality, right, that we don't talk about that there are healthcare providers that are struggling with substance use and addictions and that's a whole other one that's just swept under the rug.
happens to humans,
Yeah, we are people. think that, again, you know, those tropes of putting us as heroes or pinnacles can be problematic or murders. It's problematic when, at the end of the day, we're as fallible as anybody else out there.
I Frederick's on. Did you have a question for us, Fred?
Speaker 1 (55:30.434)
Yeah, I have two questions. The first is, you you came into this inspired to make a difference, you know, to make a change in the way people are being cared for and in the way the system operates. But caregiving as a colleague doesn't necessarily mean that the people coming into the profession are compassionate and are coming with that same intention. That must have been like a remarkable thing to discover that not everyone shared the same values that you did. What kind of impact did that have on you as a young nurse?
to make that discovery? mean, to find that there are un-compassionate people in healthcare. mean, I guess, like, I guess I was initially was shocked just to be like, you know, this is, aren't we supposed to be all caring for people? And then, you know, you have your interactions and you kind of hindsight's 2020, you start kind of putting things together and be like, you know, I can't
walk around the world wearing rose colored sunglasses and not seeing that there are inherent problems within our profession as well as in other disciplines as well. And I think that, know, I wouldn't say it was an eye opening experience, but for example, I don't know if you've heard of this person, her name is Elizabeth Wettlaufer. She was Canada's first nursing serial killer and hearing that a nurse would use insulin.
to kill patients and that she was open. She was just like, yeah, I would continue to do it if I wasn't caught was astounding. And actually we had on our podcast, a gentleman named Bruce Ackman. He was an FBI investigator. He's in the States. And he was the one who brought down like him and his team brought down Michael Swango, which was like a physician who was a medical serial killer. just the fact of the matter is there are people in the world.
just in general, that will do bad things. And we have to understand that healthcare is not a place that's removed from that space. So for me, I had my moment where I was like, that's wild. And then just recognizing that, you know, again, we're people and where there are people, there will be people that will not have the best intentions. And healthcare is a really tricky place from speaking to Bruce Ackman that a lot of deaths can be happen.
Speaker 1 (57:47.864)
when there are those types of people in that environment. just recognizing that, you know, there's fallibility within human society. So. Right. You've also described your approach as very direct. You've clearly very outspoken. You've taken on some really what could be called controversial topics, like giving voice to things that aren't typically talked about. So what kind of pushback have you experienced from taking the stance that you've taken?
you know, surprisingly, I really haven't had a lot of pushback. And I know that sounds really surprising. Like I think there are, I think once you get into navigating the advocacy space, that there are some people that just won't have interactions with you. So I'll just be completely transparent. there is one union, the union in Ontario that I live in that doesn't really interact with me because
they because I think what what happens sometimes is if you're talking and you're you might be calling out or calling in and saying there needs to be more work people might take that personally as opposed to saying well maybe there is something different I could do so I can see sometimes there's that type of disconnect but wholly like my organizations have been very supportive when I worked at Niagara Health they were like okay yeah off you go just as long as it doesn't like
involve any of your work stuff and I kept everything very separate when I was working at a hospital organization. But yeah, I would say that most people, I really haven't experienced that type of, I've received negative, of course, social media is just like a dumpster fire. So I say that that's probably where you might receive the most amount of backlash in particular during COVID-19 because I was
In the emergency department, was seeing what was happening. I got backlash for speaking out about that. But in terms of the advocacy space, I'd say that people are pretty like open to having conversations and trying to navigate what that might look like in terms of changing. And if there are people out there that have disagreed with me and I have gotten into some conversations with some people online, for the most part, I think that I stay rooted in scientific evidence. I make sure that
Speaker 1 (01:00:05.666)
there's a citation behind whatever I'm pulling and make sure I use facts and figures. And sometimes facts and figures don't care about people's feelings. yeah, that's what I'd probably say about that. feels like our country is maybe the most politically divided that it's been, at least in my lifetime that I can remember. How is that playing out at the nurses station in the hospital wards? Is this a left versus right divide?
Are people sort of divided along like political party lines? Is that something that is causing some discord? I would say at the nursing station, it's more it's more people against profits. There are you will find nurses who politically may lean one way versus another way. But I don't hear it. I'll be honest. I don't hear it as much as, you know, left versus right or you're you know, you're a leftist, you're a libertarian.
I don't hear it like that, but I do hear a lot about people over profits. Like those conversations are had quite often at the nursing station. But I would say that it's just, gets very awkward. If for example, they bring up any particular type of, you know, political leader. And I think it's important that we have the conversation. So for me, I don't shy away from it, but I'd say that it's definitely not water cooler nursing station conversation. It's more.
this is happening and this is going to affect our patients, but not so much as polarization as you would see outside of those healthcare walls. And I would say that there are some healthcare workers that don't necessarily understand how some of these laws actually affect their patient population. So like I mentioned, the Leopard Eating Face Party,
And I think that's also a part of the disconnect too. So I would say it's not water cooler conversation, but for example, there was a nurse that did a tech talk who's being dragged right now because she was making fun of patients who need snap benefits. And we're like, well, as a nurse, these are your patients, like all of these various different social determinants of health, food, income, security, poverty, your environment, all of these things interact.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26.968)
So making fun of a patient who doesn't, who's losing snap benefits is detrimental to the work that you have to do. So she's getting dragged right now. So things like that happen. But again, I wouldn't say there's very specific conversation about, you know, Donald Trump. Well, it depends where you're If the union takes a particular political position, that's clearly identified with supporting one party or the other, is that something that causes tension?
Does that sort of bleed down into the conversations in the hospitals? So what I would say right now, so for example, right now I've seen some campaigns out of ONA and various different organizations that they're more attacking the policy. Some are attacking the person. So for example, if you look at any of like right now, I think I saw something on ONA's page where they were pretty much attacking the provincial government, which is Doug Ford.
You do see that, but in terms of aligning themselves with like liberal government or NDP or, you know, I guess for you it would be Democrat or, or conservative or Republican, not so much. So it's more like you attack the person, the policies, but there's no specific alignment. Like for example, the nursing unit wouldn't be like, you should vote NDP or you should vote liberal.
That never really happens. I've seen there. They try to be pretty partisan.
I've seen like, for example, they've invited various different leaders to, know, their conferences and AGMs, which is sometimes really weird for as a union leader, if you're like inviting, I would say that in unions that typically doesn't happen, but I've seen it happen in nursing associations where, for example, but this is where the conflict of interest, they might be actually receiving funds from the provincial government, but then they're attacking them. doesn't, it makes no sense. It's performative at that point, but I would say that they don't really
Speaker 1 (01:04:29.496)
They don't align themselves in that sense, so they're nonpartisan, but they will call out the particular party that might be in power to say how they're dismantling the public health care system.
The good patient and family-centered policy that's caregiver-centered as well, like that's nonpartisan.
I think so.
ship stops at the table, that same table you invited all of these different siloed leaders to sit at and start saying, where do we carve out the future that's healthier, that's better for patients, better for caregivers, better for our society, better for our culture's health span, to use a very popular term, but boy, is it drive the message home.
Yeah, and I think it really doesn't matter what party's in, if it doesn't align with the goals of keeping patients and families safe, then I would say that any political party's fair game.
Speaker 1 (01:05:31.746)
I think that at the end of the day, we need to go with the alliance of protecting our healthcare system, protecting patients and families. So if the NDP was messing up, I would call them out. If it was the Liberal Party that was messing up, I would call them out. If it's the Conservative Party, I'll call them out. It doesn't matter to me. I'm just, I'm aligned with making sure that patients are kept safe at the end of the day and also the healthcare staff as well.
think our citizens are aligned with that too. And that's such an important metric and it's also an important message. And I think, your cause and other similar years are about uniting the citizens and by extension the nurses, but it's about a citizenship that we all share together as individuals who have vocational jobs.
in delivering healthcare that's focused on wellness of the individual, the health of the individual, the safety of the individual. What's amazing is we need these people. everywhere you read, we're short of nurses, we're short of physicians, we're not targeting physicians to the right needs of our society. There are not enough comprehensive care delivering family doctors who will actually be able to keep people away from urgent care and emergency rooms.
You know, there are not enough integrated resources where the wealth of wisdom that comes from nursing and physicians and social workers and psychologists and the holistic ensemble, if you will. And we've seen the experiments, they're out there, but they need to take on a much grander scale. But you want to talk about delivering health for the citizens. And yes, it's an opportunity cost, but what a value proposition. And I'm not saying that with sort of starry eyes.
et cetera, but it's going to take a lot of collective work and reassignment of the value to that for our citizens, and maybe value to that as a nation, perhaps more than other disbursements elsewhere, but sort of reflexively bringing it back in towards the citizens.
Speaker 1 (01:07:46.06)
Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. I think there's a lot less billionaires than there are regular folks. So it's kind of like, well, where should we be putting our interests in and where should our alliances be? And I think that, I think slowly people are starting to see it. We'll see.
So how are we going to build a life, a better life for the next generation of caregivers? I mean, we've just established that our society needs them. We need them. You and I are going to need them one day because we may not be doing our jobs forever and we'll need their help too. How are we going to make sure that the next generation are best prepared, best suited for these roles? Like, do we need to revamp curriculum in nursing school?
Certainly, I think we need to in medical schools. There's a lot of interesting conversation about there, like what Navy SEALs go through to be resilient and to face incredible challenges. But what if we did like a portion of that for young nurses, young physicians, young social workers, PTOTs, people who are going to champion healthcare and the direction of healthcare through whatever mechanism and maybe not direct patient care, but how do we teach that resilience?
to make sure that the next generation is better and stronger. What are your thoughts about that?
Yeah, education is one place. Again, I think if you look at the pillars of how people learn, education is actually at the lowest pillar, which kind of sucks. But most people don't just learn by education. think life experience is probably the biggest piece. And I think we have to not forget what has happened in history. I think we do this really good job of being like, yeah, the plague. It happened so long ago. It'll never happen again. And we do a really good job of forgetting.
Speaker 1 (01:09:46.158)
And I think it's important that through education, we can use that as one means, but not solely the only means, but really talking about our histories and talking about how we can improve on some of the mistakes that we've made now that our future generations could be like, learn from us, heed our warning, don't do this, to try to make it different. And this is also important for us. Although, you know,
I think we have to realize that, like you said, we're going to be the ones receiving the care. So it's important that our young people really do know about health care and health care policy because they're the ones that are going to be building them. And we have to let them know what the importance behind all of these things are and how they might affect us. So yes, we can educate them, but I think it's so important for them to truly understand how one impacts the other. And yes, education is a piece, but it's also that action. And I think it's so important that
And this is one of things that I would have loved nursing and, you know, healthcare providers like physicians to do. I think, yes, we have our clinicals in the hospitals, but maybe it's good to get out into the communities and see actually what's happening. Because I think sometimes if you see what's happening, it'll really change and cement how you might respond to that when you're in that situation. Because I've heard many stories from nurses and even physicians that their first experience into patient care
is when they're in medical school or when they're in nursing school. And that's just now how the world works and operates. I think we should have clinical rotations in politics and policy. I think we should have clinical rotations within the community. So I think by combining education with actually doing something, maybe we should be sent on humanitarian missions where we're sent out to, know, Rwanda or Sudan or any of these different places that need help and support, but really seeing how
policy can affect the way people's lives are actually lived and how that affects health care. I think there's so many innovative ways that we can teach the younger generation and folks that are coming up behind us to not do the things that we're doing now to improve the way that the care that we receive can be different. And I think that we need to make sure that they don't just, they're not, they don't feel that they're just, you know, they're just a cog in the system that they are the system. They are the ones.
Speaker 1 (01:12:07.906)
that will be the change makers and the leaders of the coming days. And we have to prepare them. So yes, we do that by educating, but we also do that by sharing different perspectives and different experiences and pushing them to really challenge themselves and to challenge the status quo and to ask questions. I'm laughing now because my one son, he is incessant with questions. He's just like me. Sometimes I'm like, this is overwhelming.
But it's so important that with him being a 14 year old boy that we sit and we talk about misogyny, we sit and we talk about, you know, some of the things that we see, you know, politically or in relation to healthcare or in relation to his healthy relationships. There's nothing off the table. And I think as educators, there should be nothing off the table and we should make sure that we, we push and that that is okay to ask questions. And, and then it's also okay for us to say, I don't know.
Let's find the answer together.
Absolutely. You describe those added experiences to training in healthcare as, they basically propel you into the human experience beyond just the four walls of the nursing school or the medical school and...
I think it would just bring a level of honesty to the patient caregiver encounter that would be so authentic and so informed and not...
Speaker 2 (01:13:41.078)
not biased by so many things that float around that affect how we interact with each other and how we interact with our patients. With those kind of experiences and teaching the caregivers of tomorrow how they can make a difference, how they can express their voices, where they can learn more, how they can get more community experience as part of their formative impression before they go out there.
You can't be invisible anymore if you got that under your belt. And maybe that's what keeps us invisible.
Yeah, well, again, it's just reducing those areas where there's stigma, where people are, you know, unaware of how a culture might move or interact, knowing that people aren't monoliths, of people aren't monoliths, and just trying to understand different perspectives. And I think that we can only do that through experience, right? And I think that, you know, there's just so many missed opportunities that we have in terms of training people, in terms of, you know,
envisioning how healthcare, nursing, medicine, all these other different places could be that we do really miss the market trying to find what humanity actually looks like. think we do such a good job of like, here's the underpinnings, here's why this was done, here's the science behind it, but forget that humanitarian aspect and forget that we, at the end of the day, we're dealing with people.
Well, we have to look at our neighbors. We have to talk to our neighbors. We can't just talk to our phones. I mean, we won't get into that diatribe, but it's rampant and everybody's addressing that these days.
Speaker 1 (01:15:22.638)
Yeah, I do have a positive outlook and I feel that the more we continue to have conversations like the ones that we're having today and this is why I call these episodes evergreen because you can listen to them 15 years from now and the message really still is the same. I can't see how it would change. That the more we continue to build and we have conversations, we build community, the better we can be in the future.
Absolutely.
It's amazing how just in this conversation you could sketch a caregiver, a healthcare provider with so many new dimensions to where they can make an impact in society, in their own lives, in their own relationships, perhaps even their relationship with themselves. But we can also appreciate how that can just take us places where in the end we're no longer looking after ourselves or may have forgotten how to because
Again, we're using a formula that gives all of our energies directed to very valuable causes, but potentially overlooking ourselves. What strategies have you used on your journey? You've been on a journey and with milestones, landmarks, a few pitfalls here and there, as you've been honest about in your book and in your podcasts, what tools have served you the best when...
keep yourself going, but also in those wake up call moments where you need to sort of say, yo, Amy, get it together, refocus a little bit. Like, what have you learned? Because I'm sure you've learned much more than any self-help book or checklist can tell a young person out there, sort of saying, OK, I got to do all these things. Where's the meaning? Where's the value?
Speaker 1 (01:17:18.126)
I think it's so important that we listen to our bodies. We don't do a very good job of listening to our bodies. And I think that our bodies do a very good job of telling us when it's time to take a rest. know, if you've, let's say you walked out, you got up out of bed and you are feeling palpitations, probably not normal. Or you react in a situation that doesn't need that type of a strong response.
might be worth looking into or you you have a new pain and you just keep shoving it down, but it's getting worse. These are ways our bodies are telling us that something is wrong. And it might just be something physical. It might be something that's mental. It might be something that's emotional, but it's important that we pay attention to it. And I think the biggest thing that I've listened to and learned to listen to is paying attention to those cues, right?
I guess it's those signs and symptoms of anxiety or depression, but really listening. Like I know that if I've snapped at one of my kids or if I've raised my voice, cause that's not the type of person that I am that I'm like, hmm, there must be something there. Or if I find that I'm just exhausted all the time, there must be something there. Or if I find that, you know, I'm binge eating, I know it's been, it's Halloween after Halloween and there's way too much candy around that maybe that also
is a sign that there's something that my body is telling me that there's something I need, whether it's rest, emotional regulation through, I would say therapy, because I think people forget that therapy is also something that's super important, that ability to talk to another healthcare professional who's trained in mental health to help you kind of work through your thoughts, whether it's through CBT or DBT. And just really, you know, taking the time to rest and be like,
I
Speaker 1 (01:19:17.29)
I'm not looking at my phone. I'm not engaging in social media. I'm just going to go outside and go for a walk with nothing, my dog and my kids. And to take those times to do things. I was telling my friend the other day, like, I've literally started, well, we're losing the flowers now, but stopping and literally smelling the flowers because it's just the time that we have here is so short. We never know what might happen tomorrow.
tomorrow is not promised as some would say. And I think it's so important that we take the time to take care of ourselves. We only have this one body. You're not going to get another one and we have to take care of it. And that's the biggest thing that I learned that no one else out there can take care of my body for me. I have to be the person to do that. And as much as there's times where I'm like, I know I'm going too hard. Sometimes I have to listen to what my body's telling me. And then just, you know, I do have
my other person, my husband who is really good at his checks and balance to be like, hey, Amy, maybe it's time for a rest and really take, sometimes take someone else's advice to be like, yeah, I've been going too hard. It's, time for a break and, um, not feeling guilty about taking a break. I'm, I'm telling you, it is so important to just be like, all right, no social media. I'm going to do something that I want to do for myself, whether that is, you know,
doing a puzzle or painting. I've actually gotten into painting, which is very cathartic. Just doing something that you love that doesn't necessarily have to interact with social media. Because I think social media is the death of all of us. Like it's something that people like it's it does bring community together, but also could be so damaging and taking care of yourself. And I think that, you know, I say to people, find that passion. I never would have thought.
that I would enjoy the arts as much as I do. And I think that, you know, we are more than the sum of our parts. Like I said, know, nursing is just an identity. It's a job. It's something. It's a title, but it's not who I am. And finding those little joys and passions are, I think, a part of it too. So, you know, making sure that you listen to yourself and you do something truly that you enjoy and that you love.
Speaker 2 (01:21:38.794)
One last question. You spoke so elegantly about how we learn about history and you spoke about the plague of the past. think that among so many people today, and maybe it's even amplified among those who give so much of themselves in the care of others. I haven't quite figured that out yet. But I think one of our modern day plagues is disconnection and loneliness. Absolutely. And
That's something I fear for my own kids. It's what I would fear naturally for anybody I care about. And as leaders who care about the next generation, what would be your advice to those young people who are feeling disconnected and lonely, who are trying to do their best in the care of others?
Yeah, I would say that they're not alone. think I would probably say that loneliness is definitely an epidemic. We're seeing and having more conversations about loneliness. I've been called in many times to have conversations about polarization and mental health and people feeling disconnected because it is a real thing. think, like I mentioned, as much as we have all this technology, it doesn't replace human interaction.
And we have to be mindful of that. Like I think we've seen the damaging effects of people, you know, using AI as a means of therapy. And again, I understand why some people might do that because access and affordability are problems. But again, it does not replace human interaction. And again, we have those areas that we need to work on, but we have to get back to how do we speak to people? How do we commune with people? How do we build and learn and have connections with other people?
And I think that, again, through just having conversations, I tell people to get out and find your crew. Like my husband is now going to be joining a D &D group because I was like, hey, you should just, you you like playing Dungeons and Dragons. It's not a big thing for me. But maybe you could find some other people who like that and found a community. I think it's about being with people. have removed ourselves so much by using social media. And yes, I do think it's still a powerful tool.
Speaker 1 (01:23:59.928)
but it's also very damaging where it gives you a false sense of connection. Although you have the ability to interact with millions, billions of people, it's not a true human interaction which makes your brain do so much more different things when you're talking face to face or in the presence of people versus looking at a screen and interacting that way. Your brain just works very differently.
Boring with like the neuroscience behind it. I think it's just so important that we have to be and learn to continue to be with people. That's why I say get out into nature, walk, find groups. Again, I think it's so important that we try to stay connected in a time where there's so much polarization. I feel like there's so much more that actually connects us than divides us. We can't let one policy, one person divide a whole nation. I think there's so much more to be said in terms of how we can connect with people.
And I think that's a lot of internal work that we need to do. I have hope that we can get back to that place where we don't see each other as the things that divide us, but the things that can actually bring us together, connect us. I really hope that we can really change some of the conversations by having conversations like we're having today. That it's not so much about the divisiveness, but how we can bridge those gaps by finding those little pockets of things.
that bring us together.
and taking the actual chance to make it happen. was a really interesting exchange. Really interesting exchange recently on LinkedIn and I put my two cents in, but someone had flashed up a picture from the 1970s of a high school dance and they were college dance, a young man and a young woman dancing. And it doesn't matter who it is dancing. But in reflecting and seeing that picture and my comment just
Speaker 2 (01:25:58.754)
made me think back, but those were the days when someone actually saw the value in taking the risk of asking someone to dance. And I just wanted to sort of thank you today for taking the time to be with our listeners and to have the dance with us. To go places, to explore really important things that mean a lot to you, but also mean a lot to us. I think
are beginning to mean a lot more to a lot more people more than ever.
Thank you for having me.
And I would like to just call out to all our listeners in the bios and at the podcast information, all of Amy's links will be there. The wisdom of nurses is a very well researched and interesting read and I enjoyed reading it and look forward to seeing your next book. I'm sure there more stories and there's more wisdom to come.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:27:06.27)
Thank you so much for joining us today and I wish you so well in your journeys and we look forward to hearing back from you again. Before we wrap up, I wanted to remind you of something important. The conversations you hear on this podcast are here to inform, to support.
to spark reflection. You're not a substitute for professional medical advice, care, therapy, or crisis services. Listening to this podcast does not create a doctor-patient or caregiver-client relationship between us. If you're facing a medical concern, health challenge, a mental health challenge, or a caregiving situation that needs guidance, I encourage you to reach out to a qualified professional who knows your story. If you're ever in crisis, please don't wait. Call your local emergency number or recognize crisis hotline right away.
You deserve real time help and support. The views you hear on this show, whether from me or my guests, are our own. They don't necessarily reflect any organizations we work with, are part of, or have worked with or been part of in the past. This podcast is an independent production. It's not tied to any hospital, university, or healthcare system. Thank you for being here, for listening, and most of all, for taking the time to care for yourself while you continue to care for others. I look forward to hearing from you.