Autobiography

A Novel About My Exciting Nursing Career From Start to Present

My Introduction to Healthcare​
I was born in Cocoa Beach, FL and raised in Wesson, MS. Hardy Wilson Memorial Hospital in Hazelhurst, MS was my first healthcare job and I got the job because my best friend's mom worked there and talked my future manager, Lisa, into hiring me. I actually do not remember going through an actual application process. Hardy Wilson was an incredibly small hospital that consisted of 3 ED beds, 25 inpatient beds, 2 surgical suites (which was one too many), and a L&D department that, in the 2 years I was employed, only 1-2 babies were born there. 

My managers, Lisa and Terri, were two of the most brilliant and foul mouthed women I have ever met. After a while, after they found they could not scare me off (I truly believe they took bets to see how long I would last), they became like second mothers to me. They truly cared about me and my future, so whenever I expressed interest in a field of healthcare (i.e. radiology, pharmacy, etc.) they would throw me into that department for at least one day a week so I could decide whether I wanted to pursue that career. After working in a few different departments, including getting my EMT certification to work in the EMS department, and not enjoying a single second of them, I realized that what I wanted was to be a nurse, just like Lisa and Terri. Initially, I was going to go to Copiah-Lincoln Community College, where I was enrolled, however, we hired a nurse during the reopening of our Behavioral Health Unit and she didn't know how to take a manual BP. So off to Florida I went! 

Nursing School
Several of my credits did not transfer from MS to FL so I had to retake several courses for my pre-requisites for nursing school. After failing to get into Brevard Community College's ASN Program, I put all my eggs in a single basket, moved to Orlando, FL and planned to either get into the University of Central Florida's BSN program (who had a 100% NCLEX pass rate at that time), or go to Cosmetology school (which I did NOT want to do and had zero desire to cut hair, but had no idea what else to do and just needed a plan B). While taking some classes at UCF to keep from having to pay back my student loans while waiting to apply to Nursing School, I met my next mentor, Hannah.

Hannah was my instructor for my Crisis Intervention class, I was a part of the very first class to take this course. I was immediately drawn to Hannah, she had been a Psych and Forensic RN her entire career, she made her own clothes which were always bright green and teal, she called us all "Buttercups," and she would do impersonations of various psychiatric diagnoses to show us how the patients may present. I would stay after class and she would tell me about her career, give me pointers on how to better my chances of getting into the nursing program, and prepared me for what I was about to experience in the UCF Nursing School. Little did I know, she was on the selection committee for UCF's Nursing School and even though my GPA needed to be a 3.7 to be accepted and I had a 3.4, she vouched for me and pushed for my acceptance. I will be forever grateful to Hannah.

​So fast forward through Nursing School, AKA 2.5 years of chaos and  nervous breakdowns, I passed my NCLEX on the first try, after 91 questions. Also, NOBODY warned me that the screen just goes black when you answer enough questions to determine whether you passed or not. I went into full fledged panic and began crying because I thought I either failed or the computer crashed and I was going to have to do it all over again. 

Orlando Regional Medical Center
I got my first RN position at ORMC on the unit I completed my final clinical rotation, my Practicum, on. The department was split into two units, 10LP, the "dirty unit," was our Colorectal/Trauma Surgical Unit; and 11LP, the "clean unit," was our General/Bariatric Surgical Unit. When the floors eventually split into separate departments, I decided to remain with 10LP. I LOVED the complexity that comes with  Trauma patients, and to my surprise, I really loved Colorectal patients. 

I grew quickly in my position. I have never been naturally go at anything in my entire life (including the traumatic attempt at playing the trumpet), but I was REALLY good at being a nurse. My critical thinking skills and ability to see the whole clinical picture came almost naturally to me and I learned my nursing skills quickly and was really good at them. I could start IVs and draw blood on my first stick just about every time. I could get NG Tubes down quickly and to this very day have never thrown an NG Tube down the "wrong pipe." I mastered Would Vac dressing changes with ease and nothing else brought me more satisfaction than turning on that Wound Vac and there not being a leak. I could eyeball Ileostomy and Colostomy stomas and cut the wafer PERFECTLY and my bag exchanges never leaked. I began precepting students 6 months after I completed my orientation to the floor and soon started having New Grad Nurses assigned to me to Precept. I found that I LOVED teaching. Seeing that light bulb light up on a new nurse/student face after connecting the dots brought me immense joy. 

I began craving a new challenge and to learn more about different specialties. I joined every committee I could find, including Advanced Preceptorship, Diabetes Resource, Informatics, Research, and Nurse Practice Counsels. I began picking up overtime shifts on as many units as I could. I picked up on Ortho, Antepartum, Women's Unit (women's surgical/postpartum unit), Neuro, Oncology, Rehab, and more.

​Eventually I found that I loved the Orthopedics unit. I loved their staff, their Leadership, the Residents and Attendings, the patients, the hardware, everything, so I transferred to their department where I began Precepting pretty much full time. My manager and Supervisors knew I loved teaching so they would base their next hires on when I would complete my orientation with my current New Grad. This also allowed me to see the flaws in our New Grad orientation model that we had at the time, and so I started trialing and erroring different ways of orienting New Grad Nurses, eventually this let to the adoption of my new orientation model on our unit and I heard later, after I left, that several other units adopted our orientation model as well. 
Scripps Health
Eventually, I met a nice Navy Boy, Eric, who was best friends with the boyfriend of my best friend, Stephanie (who I met on 10LP).  After a year of dating on opposite sites of the country and sometimes in different countries when he was deployed for 7 months, I decided to moved to California. I am now engaged to that nice Navy boy and the Navy has ruined our wedding plans 3 times now.

I applied for Scripps Corporate Wide Float Pool on Labor Day and exactly 1 week later I was offered the position. I packed up my things and took a 2 week road trip from Florida to California by myself, just bouncing around the United States. Without a doubt, the scariest and most thrilling trip of my life.
I started at Scripps about 1.5 weeks after arriving to SD and I really struggled transitioning from East Coast Nursing to West Coast Nursing. If you have been a nurse on both the East and West Coasts, you know exactly what I am talking about.

My first year at Scripps was honestly a culture shock for me with the different hospital policies and procedures, labor laws, the scope of practice for my Nursing Assistants, and the different charting system that was described during orientation as a "hybrid system" but was actually just mostly paper charting. I literally had to learn how to write an order because I had pointed and clicked my entire career up to that point. But eventually, I got the hang of it and I began really  embracing the challenge of being a Float Pool Nurse and trying to learn as much as I could on each of the units I was assigned to. I became a resource for the units, especially the Med-Surg/Tele Units because I was a Stepdown Nurse. Unit Leadership began asking if I could help precept some of their New Grad Nurses that had just been hired and New Grad Nurses that were still struggling after their orientation had been completed. I had missed precepting more than anything else, so was excited to be asked to help orient. I was often scheduled as Resource/Mentor/Break Nurse on many of the units as well. 

Then, in 2020, the Covid Pandemic started. I was assigned to a unit that became the Dedicated Covid Unit and I admitted Scripps Mercy San Diego's very first Covid patient to our floor. We were trying to prepare ourselves for the surge of patients that everyone was talking about at the beginning. We were terrified because it was something that we all were learning together and we wondered how in the world we were going to make it through a surge of patients. Well, as you all know, the first predicted surge never came. The unit I was assigned to closed down and I was being assigned to different units at the 5 Scripps Hospitals day to day. I was getting assigned to the Dedicated Covid Unit at Mercy Chula Vista quite often because I had told my manager that I did not mind caring for Covid patients and prior to the pandemic, stepdown patients were not assigned to their unit, so the unit needed stepdown nurses to care for the Covid stepdown patients. The manager approached me one day and asked if I would mind being assigned to their floor so that I could be a Charge/Resource Nurse and begin orienting their staff to become stepdown nurses. I told them I was more than happy to help, they just needed to reach out to my manager and arrange it. 

Eventually, like many nurses, I began to feel burnt out. There were many nights that I was the only RN on the floor that had been checked off on Death Pronouncement and then on one of those nights, we had 3 patients pass and I had to pronounce all three of them. That night is when I came to the conclusion that I hated to come to, it was time for me to take a break from being a bedside nurse. I had no idea what I was going to do because I had planned to retire at the bedside. My patients and Orientees were my everything. One of the Supervisors on that unit, Amina, recommended that I go into Leadership. I had heard that before but I had always responded with, "ew, no way." She continued to push me and encourage me to consider Leadership. Finally, one night, Amina told me that a Supervisor position became available for the Mercy Site-Based Float Pool (SBFP) and that I really needed to apply. Something just clicked in me and made me think, "this is right." 

When I started my new Leadership career with the SBFP, our manager had lost both of his supervisors pretty much at the same time. The other supervisor and I started only about a week apart and neither of us had Leadership experience. Our manager was so inundated with emails, calls, and texts from our over 300 employees plus the staffing office, that my counterpart and I pretty much had to teach ourselves the ropes and ask questions along the way. I found that I was pretty good at being a Supervisor. We managed to set up structure to our department and expectations of our employees. There are always growing pains when new management starts, but my employees and I worked through it. I worked tirelessly developing a rapport with all of my employees and gaining their trusts. I had started rounding on my employees which had never been done by any previous supervisor. I requested that my hours be changed from 1300-2130 to 1600-0030 so that I could be more readily available for my staff. I started identifying areas for improvement and began spearheading improvement projects. I learned as much as I could about staffing so I would have a general idea of what to do if I had to cover the staffing office one night. I became my employees biggest advocate and cheerleader. I show them that I do truly appreciate them, I understand the difficulty of being a float pool employee, and that I see their hard work. In return, my employees show they appreciate me in return, primarily by ensuring that their compliance requirements are done by the established deadlines which is, in all honesty, the best demonstration of appreciation than they could EVER imagine. I never thought I would say it, but I love being a Leader. 
Now that you have read my Novel, I want to end on a motto that I came up with that I had never realized until I became a Leader and perfectly describes my Leadership Style:

Exceptional care, high patient satisfaction rates, and positive patient outcomes can only be given by & achieved by exceptional employees at the bedside. Exceptional nurses and nursing assistants will only remain on a unit, providing their exceptional care, if there is exceptional leadership that supports, inspires, and appreciates them.