The Lamp Podcast

Grief has a way of tying us to objects and those objects sometimes remind us of who we are and who loved us. In this episode, we hear from Oriana, as she shares how a personal keepsake gave her strength through grief in nursing. Oriana is a mom, nurse and founder of Medicine Mountain Scrub Company LLC. Together with her Co-Founder, and sister, Golden she is creating a sustainably sourced, ethically manufactured and mountain inspired line of medical workwear launching Fall 2020. She is on a mission to help women in medicine feel confident and comfortable at work, so they can do the dirty work with grit and grace. She is an advocate for self-compassion, nurturing a supportive work culture and sustainability in healthcare. You can find out more about her business at www.medicinemountainscrubs.com or on social media @medicinemtnscrubs.

For this episode, I called my longest friend of almost 30 years, Kristin. In the middle of a Pandemic, Kristin is loving her work as an educator and reflects on being burned out as a manager. Kristin has been a Medical assistant, an EHR educator, and a rural health clinic manager. She teaches Medical Assistants in her local school district, which currently means sitting in front of her computer most of the day surrounded by vineyards.

The American Nurses Association put out a statement in 2015 that “nurses will no longer tolerate violence of any kind from any source.” This includes nursing. But bullying and lateral violence is still a problem for nurses. Many people who work in the caregiving profession can recall a time where they were harassed, demeaned, or treated poorly by colleagues, within their own profession or across professions. In this episode, Blaise shares her story of how she struggled with bullying from other nurses as a new grad. Blaise Agcopra is an ambulatory oncology nurse and a financial leadership entrepreneur focusing on people in healthcare fully understanding finance and leadership. You can find her on Instagram @juzzblaise or at https://www.linkedin.com/in/blaiseagcopra/  

Disenfranchised grief is grief not acknowledged by society. There is missing collective mourning right now for so many people who are dying during this pandemic. In the world of caregiving, there is also often a lack of acknowledgment for the grief professional caregivers experience. This episode features Jennie Hoek, a NICU nurse, sharing her story of walking with grief. Jennie Hoek RN, BSN, RYT 200 is the Nurse behind Nurturing Warrior, a safe place for Nurses to find Healing & reconnect to the Love within. Over the last 5 years, Jennie has worked throughout the critical care line from Adult ICU to Peds ED to NICU. She noticed very quickly as a brand new Nurse that nobody was providing healing for the Nurses, who were exposed to high levels of emotional trauma bearing witness to the darkest moments of their patients’ lives daily. IG @NurturingWarrior Facebook  Nurturing Warrior: High Vibe Healing for Nurses https://www.facebook.com/groups/nurturingwarrior/

Inferno is the most well-known volume of Dante’s Divine Comedy. But the second volume, Purgatorio, is about a long-suffering climb up the mountain of Purgatory. Purgatory is often marked in people’s minds by its in-between status, waiting to advance to paradise. Are we in the Inferno or Purgatorio right now? I know I am trying to take breaks from this Pandemic by watch #vanlife on YouTube. I mention Luca and Sara in Italy in this episode. A long-suffering wait on earth can also be found in the court system. Despite the way that hour-long television dramas and feature-length films may feel, courts move slowly. And sometimes it is caregivers who are in a kind of Purgatorio in the court system. This episode looks at the feelings of a nurse as she experiences being named in a lawsuit. In this episode, I quote an Italian proverb: “A lawsuit is a fruit–tree planted in a lawyer’s garden.” Tiyana Calderon has been a Medical Assistant and is now a Licensed Vocational Nurse working towards her RN degree. She has worked in numerous settings and loves what she does. She is grateful for her family, friends, and support along the way.

After our break, we have returned with a new episode. In this episode, I shared a podcast that is good to listen to if you want to learn about the history of whiteness in this country. The podcast is called Scene on Radio featuring the season called Seeing White.  Episode 8 features Arlene Taylor, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner talking about her experience with depression after multiple traumatic events. Arlene takes us back to her hospitalization and content warning, this episode does feature a suicide attempt and adult language. Arlene is a psych N.P., now a Doctoral student, and a fierce advocate for the mental health of nurses. You can find her at https://www.theroseyarde.com/

On one cold November night, Tony, a flight nurse, finds himself in a life-changing and dramatic personal health crisis. In the midst of providing emergency care, he becomes the emergency. His story of survival is a powerful reminder of the value of the everyday work healthcare providers do. Tony Bernstone was born in Napier, New Zealand, and graduated from Hawkes Bay Community Polytechnic in 1990 with a Diploma of Nursing and an Associate Degree from New York University in Feb of 1991. He worked in various ICU settings around the U.S. and New Zealand, eventually becoming a flight nurse. He and his family settled in Utah and he worked with AirMed at the University of Utah until 2018. He is now a procedural Nurse with the Department of Endoscopy at the University of Utah. He currently calls Salt Lake City home with his wife Stacy and 2 sons (ages 15 and 13), 2 spoiled dogs, and they love to spend as much time outside enjoying this great state as possible.

Are we in the middle of collective grief right now? What does it mean to experience loss as a group? It feels like collective trauma and grief for us in this pandemic. Some aspects of health care feel like that as well. In this episode, Peggy discusses the difficulties of being a charge nurse in a small Emergency room while dealing with death. Peggy has been nursing for 29 years, most of those years have been in the ER but also includes time on obstetrics and rural nursing where you are the nurse of all trades. She also worked as a flight nurse for 7 years, transferring patients worldwide. Traveling everywhere from Canada, the USA, and globally. Peggy’s passions include her family, including three grown children and also now includes a grandson and another grandbaby on the way. Peggy hit a wall 6 years ago in her nursing career, feeling disconnected, frustrated, bitter, angry, and unfulfilled. It was then that she realized she had been waiting on the wrong people for way too long, to change things. She had been waiting for so many others to change how she felt, only to learn SHE was actually the person to create the positive change she craved. You can find out more about Peggy at https://www.instagram.com/the_fulfilment_project/

The mix of personal loss and loss in the professional caregiver setting can be hard to navigate. Caregivers sometimes imagine they can compartmentalize the personal for the sake of the professional, but what happens when they intersect? Gerri shares a story of pregnancy loss while working on a labor and delivery unit. This episode features a poem by Walt Whitman entitled Whispers of Heavenly Death WHISPERS of heavenly death murmur’d I hear, Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals, Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low, Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing, (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?) I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses, Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing, With at times a half-dimm’d sadden’d far-off star, Appearing and disappearing. (Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth; On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable, Some soul is passing over.) Gerri Sainte is a board-certified RN with over 20 years of nursing experience. A native New Yorker, she holds a Master’s degree in Nursing Administration and is currently working in hospice care. Gerri has had the pleasure of experiencing nursing in California, Florida and New York and has worked bedside, administrative and in education. Patient advocacy and education of patients and staff are her passions, as well as mentoring nursing students and new grads.  Learn more about Gerri here: Instagram- @whoisnursingthenurses Facebook- RN Mentor  Or share your thoughts on her story via WhoIsNursingTheNurses@gmail.com

When you are first starting out in your career, how do you know you are on the right path? How do you know you are in the right job? Frances shares her story of ignoring the signs all around her that she was in the wrong job. Frances Wright has worked as an inpatient bedside nurse for over 8 years. She had served on a medical mission team in both 2019 and 2020. She graduated from an End-of-Life Doula Program in 2018 and completed the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course in 2019. In February 2020, she quit her job at the hospital to pursue a dream of hers to become an entrepreneur and create a program to help unfulfilled women create a personalized roadmap to pursue a career and life that is fulfilling and meaningful to them. Frances is following her heart and going all-in on a dream, and she wants you to know that you can do it too, as scary and uncertain as it may be. Follow her journey and get resources and inspiration at:  Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/elevatemyjoy/ YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwI03LWGQtHEBMOmhbkEYlg?view_as=subscriber Elevate My Joy Facebook Community – https://www.facebook.com/groups/elevatemyjoycommunity/ Song Be as a Lamp by Tara Ellis

Dealing with Trauma is an experience many caregivers may face. Trauma isn’t just about the type of injury a patient faces, but about how experiences overwhelm us. In this episode, Patrick shares a story of dealing with trauma as a nursing student. Patrick is an Adult Float Pool Nurse and an Adjunct Nurse Faculty member. He enjoys helping others get a clearer understanding about the nursing profession and helping nurses diversify their careers. Patrick is also a self-proclaimed bibliophile and is happiest when surrounded by books and the color green. You can learn more about Patrick on his blog at www.patmacrn.com or his social media accounts on Instagram: @PatMacRN and Twitter: @NursrPatMacRN

Death is not easy, especially for new nurses. And no two deaths are exactly the same. In this episode, Em shares her story of dealing with death as a new graduate nurse.   Em Cheng is a travel nurse from New York, currently traveling in Seattle, WA. Most of her nursing experience is in CVICU/critical care. After experiencing burnout, she transitioned into currently working in an ambulatory surgery procedural center as a traveler.  You can find Em and all her adventures, nursing and life outside nursing at @ExploRN_EmCheng on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube.

This inaugural episode features the host, Lisa LaBrie talking about what to expect from The Lamp and how the idea originated from a storytelling event with SheStories founder, Ehmandah Ramsey. Listen, as caregivers share real stories and real struggles from their everyday lives. Future episodes will be released biweekly starting March 20th.