Flight Nurse, Jennifer Caposella

Jennifer is an engaging person with a varied nursing background spanning almost two decades. From L&D, critical care, flight nursing, and now in a Director role, she tells us how her experiences made her a better flight nurse.  I especially love our 'Five Minute Snippet' at the end where we get to see Jennifer on a more personal level. Lots of laughs were enjoyed! For Jennifer's book recs, visit:  https://bookshop.org/lists/jennifer-caposella-bsn-rn-cfrn
Mental Health links:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Frontline Therapy Network
911 At Ease International 

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Transcript

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00:00] Michelle: In my interview with Jennifer Caposella, she provides concrete advice for any nurse to transition to flight nursing. Jennifer started her nearly two-decade career as a labor and delivery nurse. And after caring for critical antepartum moms, she made the jump to critical care and flight nursing. Along the way, she gained valuable experience, which has served her well in her current role as program director of a medical flight company. My time with Jen was both fun and surprising. Fun because we recorded in my closet. So there's that. And surprising because even though she's my sister, I never knew she had a childhood dream of becoming a pilot. And spoiler alert, she did it. I know you will find her intelligent, well-spoken, and engaging. Here is Jennifer Caposella. You're listening to the conversing nurse podcast. I'm Michelle, your host. And this is where together we explore the nursing profession one conversation at a time. Good morning, Jennifer. Thank you for joining me today.
[01:11] Jennifer: Good morning, Michelle. It's great to be here.
[01:13] Michelle: So we are just going to jump right in because I have been excited to interview you because of your varied role in nursing. And so we'll just jump right in and we'll talk about, how did you get started in nursing?
[01:31] Jennifer: Alright, well, I come from a large family and so I've been exposed to kind of the healthcare world for a while, growing up and looking up to older siblings that chose careers in nursing and allied health genres. I got started by having a goal to work in a labor and delivery setting. And so one of the first things I did was become certified as a doula. And a doula is a support person that would be with a pregnant woman throughout her labor and delivery process.
[02:11] Michelle: Amazing people.
[02:13] Jennifer: Yeah. So it's a unique group of ladies and I learned a lot from them, had no shortage of experience in the hospital that I worked in, and just really all different walks of life and trying to really support a woman's desire to have the birth that she's looking for.
[02:41] Michelle: Doulas are amazing and the mom really relies on them even sometimes more than her partner because sometimes the partners don't know what to do. And so everyone is looking to the doula to help us figure this out and they're just like a calming presence. So do you think that being a doula, your first entry into healthcare, do you think that influenced you to become a nurse?
[03:12] Jennifer: Absolutely. I worked closely with the registered nurses in labor and delivery and they would call me in to work with a patient maybe that didn't have a great support system with them or maybe a patient that really wanted to have an unmedicated birth. So they were going to need a lot more support during the process of labor and transition and pushing and delivery. So I really looked up to the nurses that I worked with. I just thought it was amazing that they're with this couple or this woman in such a vulnerable, exciting, sentimental, wonderful time of their life where they're going to remember that forever and ever. And you just wanted to really make it a great experience for them because, you know, women looking back 20, 30, 50 years, they rarely forget their birth experience with their children.
[04:11] Michelle: 100% true. Yup. It doesn't leave you very quickly, you know, all the pain and just everything that you go through bringing a child into the world. Absolutely. The birthing experience is something you can't compare to. And doulas are so important in that role as our labor and delivery nurses. So did you choose labor and delivery because of your experience as a doula, wanting to work with moms further?
[04:44] Jennifer: Yeah, I was so excited as a doula, knowing that getting into nursing school and progressing into different roles throughout nursing school. I became a nurse intern in my second semester of nursing school, and I got to do more things, start IVs, help in Triage, even assist in some precipitous deliveries that happened in the Triage area. And so it was quite exciting. And I loved the group of women that I was working with, and it was a really nice, easy, natural transition to step into that nursing role.
[05:25] Michelle: There at some point started getting really sick antepartum patients because as a nurse, probably your skills got so much better and with experience and all that, and then working in Triage, all of that stuff, and then all of a sudden you're taking care of antepartum patients in ICU. And what was that like?
[05:49] Jennifer: Yeah, so my transition out of labor and delivery and into the ICU didn't actually occur until the ten-year mark.
[05:59] Michelle: That I'd worked in labor and delivery. Yeah.
[06:01] Jennifer: So I worked a solid ten years and did push myself, volunteered to take care of sicker patients. Really had a desire to learn more about the pathophysiology and the disease process. And why does this patient have hypertension? Why is this patient going into DIC, really getting an understanding of a very critically ill or a high-risk OB patient? And so at that ten-year mark, I transferred full-time into the ICU, and it just became a natural choice to kind of assist with that in between patients. Maybe they didn't need to be transferred out to a tertiary center, but we could manage them in the hospital, they could be closer to home, and we still had ICU facilities to manage those patients. And I never really let go of labor and delivery. I kept labor and delivery part-time while I was really focusing on ICU full-time at that point.
[07:06] Michelle: So I'm trying to remember, did you do any flight nursing while you were in L&D, like with critical patients?
[07:15] Jennifer: Is that how yeah, so I didn't do any flight nursing at that time. But what I did do was volunteer to get in the back of the ambulance and transport patients. So I got a little taste of the transport world as far as moving patients that were incredibly sick to another facility. So, you know, in our local area, that was roughly an hour's transport to some of the tertiary centers in the neighboring city.
[07:46] Michelle: So now I'm trying to do the chronology of this. Now you're I see you full time. And then what happened? How did you jump into flight nursing?
[07:59] Jennifer: Yeah, so this is an interesting story, a little personal story here. I had been working diligently while in the ICU to get into nurse anesthesia school, and I had all the high marks, all the experience, and like many individuals, pass taken a steep turn in one direction or the other. Mine did as well. I was getting ready to enter my second semester of anesthesia school and had just a real personal ending of a personal relationship and had to think about with my children at the time and where I was living and all these different factors, how that was going to be possible for me to do that at that time. And after much heartache and thought, it was realized that I needed to shift gears and find something that would fill that void for me. That challenge of learning and intensity that I've always experienced in my career and flight nursing was right there. And it really wasn't an easy transition. But it was fairly seamless as far as the acuity of the patients that I've been used to taking care of.
[09:34] Michelle: Yeah. And I've wondered, so you're a nurse and you do the nursing thing, critical patient, which you'd have ten years of experience, not about you.
[09:45] Jennifer: I had about seven years. Yeah.
[09:47] Michelle: So you're already an experienced critical care nurse, but now you're in a fixed wing or you're in a helicopter. And so what did you have to learn in terms of flight in addition to being a critical care nurse?
[10:04] Jennifer: Sure. So being a flight nurse, you bring all that experience with you. You can't become a flight nurse by just waking up one day and deciding that's what you want to do. I know. So, you know, all the experience that I had over the years in labor and delivery, all the times I rushed into the operating room with a patient ICU and everything that brings and represents with those patients. So you bring all that experience to the flight world, and then you have a rude awakening of how little you actually know.
[10:45] Michelle: Oh, shit.
[10:46] Jennifer: Yeah. So it's definitely a humbling experience. You learn a lot about aviation and you learn a lot about weather, and you learn a lot about decision-making and critical thinking skills. And so not necessarily the initials that come after your name or your title. Those things are important, of course, but really getting a feel for what is the best thing for this patient at this particular time and really talking it out with your partner and your pilot and coming to the best, safest, least-risk situation that you can to move these patients. Because flying ICU, there's not many things that compare to that intensity when you're trying to work on pilot duty time and how much oxygen do we have on board, and are we going to need blood products for this patient, and will we make it to our destination or will we have to land short? And who's going to be able to handle this patient? There are so many factors to it.
[11:57] Michelle: Yeah.
[11:58] Jennifer: Okay.
[11:58] Michelle: So you mentioned pilot quite a few times. Obviously, when you're in an aircraft helicopter, you have a team, and so it's definitely teamwork. I do want to touch on the pilot thing in a little bit because you are a pilot, and I'm just, like, in awe of that. So I want to talk about that in a little bit. What advice can you give as someone who's lived this, who's made the jump from L&D to ICU to flight nursing? Like, if I'm an ICU nurse or if I'm a Med-Surg nurse and I go, man, I really want to do flight nursing, what kind of things do I need to do? What kind of courses do I need to take? What's my focus?
[12:52] Jennifer: Yeah, so you can prepare yourself in a lot of different ways for flight nursing. ICU nurses will already have the certifications that they need to take care of those patients.
[13:04] Michelle: Right.
[13:06] Jennifer: The ACLS and PALS for the pediatric patients, you do get a large amount of OB patients that get transported by flight. So that would be something that I think if you didn't come from that arena of nursing, that would be a great focus to do test questions on kind of high-risk OB patients and management of those patients.
[13:29] Michelle: Yeah. Or maybe like shadow, do some time in L& D or something.
[13:34] Jennifer: Yeah. You have to really search for the things that you're not comfortable with. So if you've never seen an amputation, if you've never seen a crushing injury, if you're not familiar with a burn patient, things like that that are very time sensitive, those are the things that you fly. You fly the things that are not going to have a good outcome if you put them in a long ambulance ride somewhere. Yeah.
[14:02] Michelle: So this is always kind of been in the back of my mind of, like, if you have motion sickness, is that going to just preempt you from being a flight nurse?
[14:17] Jennifer: I wouldn't say it would completely eliminate that for you, but you can't be.
[14:22] Michelle: Like, taking Zofran.
[14:24] Jennifer: There are times when flight nurses have used Zofran during very windy periods of time. There's also maybe recovering from ear issues if you have something like that. And then I did use Zofran there was a summer when we actually had to move out of our normal aircraft and into an older model. And it had a lot of vibration and you could also smell the exhaust. And so the exhaust is what got me. And you'd be on a hot summer day. 101 hundred-plus degrees.
[14:56] Michelle: There's no AC inside.
[14:59] Jennifer: There are some, there are in the basic ones that we use now. So, yeah, there are times when you haven't felt 100%, but you have to really check yourself at the beginning of the shift. And have I had sleep? Am I nourished? Am I hydrated? Because there's a lot of parts of flight physiology that will wear you out. Like anyone that's traveled, even on a commercial flight, you may only be on a flight for a couple of hours, but for some reason, you feel like you feel more now.
[15:30] Michelle: The altitude and the area. Yes.
[15:33] Jennifer: A lot of changes.
[15:34] Michelle: So along the same line, what if I have a tad of claustrophobia? Am I going to be okay with a really sick patient in a tight and closed space? Because I have seen those spaces and I've heard you talk about how much room you have in that space and it's like zero room.
[15:52] Jennifer: Yeah, it's definitely tight quarters. You become very good friends with your pilot and your partner. It's really like a family atmosphere for sure. You can say, hey, did you forget to put deodorant?
[16:06] Michelle: No.
[16:08] Jennifer: Or did you eat garlic? Yeah, but it's enough room to work. You work very efficiently. You don't take anything you don't need. You know where everything is, everything's tied down, nailed down in your pocket. You don't want any shifting of equipment or supplies that could potentially hurt you or a patient. So it's very efficient the way that the aircraft is loaded and packed. And you do get focused on the patient. So you've got a job to do and you're going to do the best you can during that flight with what you have. Yeah.
[16:49] Michelle: And hopefully they're short flights because you want to get the patient to where they go quickly.
[16:54] Jennifer: Yeah.
[16:55] Michelle: These questions are coming from someone who is a little bit claustrophobic and has motion sickness. And again, I'm always in awe of pilots and flight personnel. Paramedics, I was like, oh my God, how do they keep their shit together in that role? And like you said, your focus is the patient. You have to really focus on the patient and prepare yourself ahead of time, you know, with taking care of yourself and all those things that you said, too.
[17:29] Jennifer: Yeah. There's definitely times when you may not be crazy about the weather. It's completely legal. The minimums are good pilots, experienced, but it's going to add turbulence to your flight. And you know, you're going to be looking at the patient, you're going to be eyes down. You might not be able to look at the horizon for a while. So we have some little tricks that we use to kind of help each other so that we're focusing out on the horizon and not get two tunnel visions in the aircraft.
[18:03] Michelle: Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. Okay, so we're going to jump to your current role right now, and so tell me how that came to be.
[18:14] Jennifer: Sure. Well, I worked for a number of years as a flight nurse for the company I'm working for now, and I never had so much fun in a career, really, is being able to fly throughout California and just see so many things meet, so many great people, picking up patients from very small facilities, dropping them off at world-class medical centers. And so you see really everything in between, not to mention our EMS family landing on the side of the freeway, working with CHP, police officers, fire, everything. You can imagine. Just such an awesome group of people that are really out there every day, grinding, trying to take care of people, and trying to do it safely. So I have the opportunity after flying with my company for several years, to open a couple of bases in the Central Valley. And so that's kind of what brought me a little bit more out of the clinical role and more into a director role. So I kind of took that step up. I felt like I was ready for it at the time and just kind of needed a change. Still working in the same arena of nursing, but mentoring newer flight nurses. I did quite a bit of training of new flight nurses at that time and then just being a real resource for them in my leadership role. So currently I'm a program director and I'm over two different counties where we have two different aircraft and really just help to keep those teams motivated, sharing different safety practices and helping with everything that you can imagine in between.
[20:02] Michelle: Yeah. How do you think that your role as a nurse prepared you for your role as a director? What skills did you bring with you into that role?
[20:17] Jennifer: Sure, there's still for me, there's still a lot of the same facets of nursing, even in a director role. One of them is just great communication skills. Pick up the phone, send somebody a text, check on people. Another one is just prioritization. And this is working for a 24/7/365 company. For example, last night I was on a conference call at 11:00 at night because we had something happening in the organization and we just needed to respond to it immediately. And so sometimes in this realm too, our partners are pilots, which we deal a lot with the FAA, and it's a perfect example of last night, the FAA had sent something out and we needed to address it immediately. So it's not, I would say, the prioritization, communicating with people, trying to continually motivate a team as well. You know, the last few years have been very challenging for all people in healthcare. And so keeping people motivated, keeping people focused, and keeping your eye on the ball of what we're doing every day, moving these critically ill patients.
[21:41] Michelle: Yeah, I think that's so important as any leader in any organization, but really, especially in nursing and healthcare, we have been decimated as a profession. We have suffered a lot, a lot of stress, a lot of loss, and we'll come to that in a little bit. But one of the things I think when I think of a nurse moving into a management position, I think sometimes what nursing does not do so well is they take a really good nurse and say, you would be a great manager. And then they don't give this person, like, the resources that they need, the support that they need, the mentoring that they need, and they just see a really good nurse who is probably, has a lot of great, good leadership skills, and they say, you're going to be a great manager. Managing patients is a lot different than managing people.
[22:57] Jennifer: That's absolutely true.
[22:58] Michelle: And I see you, and I see a great manager, a great director. You have all those skills. So, like, how did you escape this? She's a great nurse, but God, now she's not a very good manager.
[23:15] Jennifer: Right. I think we can all look back at some point in our career or even in school with either a teacher, somebody that you didn't click with, somebody that you were like, gosh, I would never be that way if I was a teacher, or I wish I would never do exactly that's half of it. Right. So I think recognizing some of the negative qualities that I've had in bosses of the past and kind of eliminating that from my toolbox of how I would run my business and how I would want to operate as a leader for my people, and then I will say that our company did provide some leadership training. So the basics you can kind of get through with the help of HR. Some of those conversations you may not know what you can ask.
[24:12] Michelle: You can't jump from putting lines into. Like, now you're doing payroll.
[24:19] Jennifer: I would be like, how the hell do I do this? I'm working through a workman's compensation claim for one of my employees.
[24:27] Michelle: Yeah.
[24:27] Jennifer: So, yeah, there's a lot of things that you just have to okay, what do I need to learn here? And you just add that to your bag of tricks so that you have more experience.
[24:39] Michelle: Yeah. So you have your BSN. And I know this just because I know you're my sister and you were the one that actually inspired me to get my BSN. You were with me all through my journey with breast cancer. And then I'm a few months out of chemo with chemo brain. I can't think. And I'm looking at you and I'm like, she got her BSN that's fucking amazing. And so I'm like, yeah, I can do it. And I did it and everything. But along those lines, I was reading that the Institute of Medicine, had a 2020 goal, saying that 80% of the registered nurse workforce in the United States, want them to be BS and prepared by 2020. And of course, it's 2022, and we're at like almost 48%. I think it's like 47.5%. So do you think that this is still something that we need to be focusing on? We have a severe nursing shortage, kind of, why and why not? Do you think that should still be our focus?
[25:58] Jennifer: Sure. I think in general, I do believe that education is something that most people don't regret doing. I think the connections you meet in these programs, open your eyes to different things that you maybe didn't think you were qualified for before. The self-confidence of having the actual degree there that you can use in different ways. And I think we've looked back at research as far as BSN, nurses and patient outcomes were actually higher with BSN. So that is something to consider. I know many nurses that are very qualified and very capable without the degree, but I think when you really focus on bettering yourself, learning more, and the reason why best practices research yeah. Then for me, it's a no-brainer as far as pushing yourself to attain that.
[27:08] Michelle: Yeah, I'm with you in that I feel like the workforce is going to be better prepared, better at looking at outcomes, better at doing research with that basis, for sure. So we talked a little bit ago about stress and the stress of the job of a flight nurse, the stress of a job of a frontline worker. And we're doing this interview in May. It's Mental Health Awareness Month. Like, you know, we just have one month where we're going to talk about mental health, you know, all the other eleven months, screw you. This is the month that we're going to focus on. But stress is real. I've seen it affect my colleagues, my siblings, myself. It's really real. And so one of the main resources first for mental health is of course the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is like a 1-800 number. It's 24/7 free support. I was really excited to hear that in July of this year they're going to change that number. So you don't have to try to remember a number. It's going to be 988. So you just dial 988. It's like an emergency number. You get to talk to somebody who's a professional psychologist, social worker, and I think that's really good. There's some other ones that I'll put in the show notes that I just got familiar with. One of them is 911 at Ease International Free Mental Health Services for first responders in particular, and their families because that's another thing that we don't talk about as nurses. We have families. And I think when we're stressed, they're stressed, and it affects everything. And then the emotional PPE project which our hospital took part in, and myself and some colleagues and some other people that I know took part in this program, and they found it to be really helpful during the pandemic. So talk about stress and what we can do to mitigate some of the effects of it or manage it.
[29:38] Jennifer: Sure. Well, this hits really close to home, and the company I work for, we've actually lost three people to suicide in the last year. And that's just really in the region that I work in. So it's definitely something that's very attention-getting. We're looking at it on a lot of different levels. We're expanding programs within our organization to see what we're missing. Are we taking care of our people the way we should be and then giving resources, and not just as a flyer stuck to the bathroom wall that says, if you feel like you're going to hurt yourself, call this number, because I feel like we need to start before then. We need to make sure that people are getting what they need before it's a crisis situation. So we're looking at a lot of different ways of taking care of our staff. You mentioned earlier this pandemic and just the grueling amount of mental stress on top of patient load that these guys and gals have had for over two years. And just the constant, do you have your mask on? Did you check yourself? Have you checked your temperature? And that fatigue of the constant reminders and constant notifications, the testing, the family testing, have you been exposed? It's all very exhausting after a long period of time. And so we're really looking at ways to support the cruise and give them resources that they can use.
[31:17] Michelle: Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. We all need it. And like I said before, we need it every month of the year, not just in May. But I'm glad we talked about that. So I want to go back now to you being a pilot again. You have many accomplishments. This is one in a long line. And for someone who doesn't really love flying, I go, Why? And so talk to me about, like, why.
[31:59] Jennifer: Getting my pilot's license was something that I had wanted to do for a very long time, since I was a teenager, am very interested in aviation.
[32:07] Michelle: I never knew that.
[32:09] Jennifer: Very interested in aviation. And after becoming a mom and working and all the reasons why we don't go back to school or we don't do something that we've been waiting to do is we put other people before us. Right?
[32:23] Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.
[32:23] Jennifer: And so taking care of all those things that I believed needed to be taken care of with priority. Started looking at it, I think, 2019. And, you know, the world was just getting ready to change at that point. So I like to refer to myself as a pandemic pilot because I did all of my flight training during a period where work was very slow, and I mean slow as in a lot of telehealth and not being in contact with people if we didn't have to. And most of my customers and contacts became remote. And so a lot of the time that I spent staring at the windshield and in the car, driving back and forth all over the place, that wasn't happening. And it was like, wow, maybe I can switch gears and make something out of this time that I have. And so I did my flight training in 2020 and received my private pilot's license. So it was something that I had wanted to do for a decade and very, very proud of all the things that I've been able to do. It's one of the big ones for me that I was able to do that.
[33:40] Michelle: I'm so proud of you, too. It shows so much dedication and focus and drive and intelligence. Obviously, I've known pilots, like, they have to be on their game. As a person on a flight, I want them to be on their game. But there's so much that goes into one of the things that fascinated me was you have to be like a little mini meteorologist.
[34:12] Jennifer: Yeah, that's true. There is a lot about the jetstream and storms and humidity and barometric pressure. So you consider a lot of different things that people probably don't think of off the top of their heads when they're thinking about getting on an airplane.
[34:29] Michelle: Right? Yeah. So along those lines, I wanted to ask you this before, and I actually forgot, but in your role as a flight nurse, what was your scariest experience?
[34:43] Jennifer: So there's been a few I can think of. I can think of a handful of experiences that were scary, some having to do with a patient where time is absolutely ticking by and you're just saying a prayer in your head that we're going to get this person to where they need to be in time. As far as aviation was flying in a helicopter in the Watsonville area one day, I was with a very seasoned partner and pilot as well. We were doing everything we were supposed to do. It was a clear day. It was beautiful out. We were returning back from dropping a patient off, and an aircraft not talking on the radio came right over the top of a mountain range and we went into a dive. And the other aircraft managed to I still, to this day, like, in my head, I see the picture, but it was basically what we would call a near miss where I could see the rivets on the aircraft. I mean, it was a close call and we were clearly shaken up. Our pilot got us back to base. We landed, we reported it, we followed all the. Protocols that we were supposed to do. And I knew how significant it was when my partner loaded up his locker and went home for forever. He resigned from his position on that shift.
[36:11] Michelle: No way.
[36:11] Jennifer: And he said, I love you dearly. Good luck to you. I'm done. And so I was a fairly new flight nurse at the time, and you have to consider that your life is flashed before your eyes.
[36:27] Michelle: No kidding.
[36:28] Jennifer: So I'd say that was probably the one that comes to mind the most.
[36:32] Michelle: I have no idea. Okay. All right, so before we get to the five-minute snippet, which we get a much deeper personal look into Jennifer, the woman, is there anything that you wanted to talk about? Is there, like, what's right in nursing? What needs changing? What are we doing? Well, what do we need to work on? Did you have any thoughts on that?
[37:08] Jennifer: I just think that if you've been in nursing more than three, five years, we really need to look at our newer crop of nurses coming up, and we really need to motivate them, take care of them, encourage them, support them. Nursing over the years has kind of had an up-and-down reputation if you will. There's the old phrase of, like, nurses eating their young and personally never wanting to be that person. For me, when you see someone, maybe they don't have a ton of experience, but they're capable. They have driven. Work with them, mentor them, guide them, share with them. Don't let them make the same mistakes that you've made. It can be a very wonderful field when you're helping those to hand off, really, because you're going to be handing off to those people at some point.
[38:14] Michelle: Absolutely. 100%, what you just said. Nursing as a profession is the most trusted profession for the 20th year in a row, and that's saying something. The people that go into nursing, it's not just our job, you know, it's our life work. It's our passion. Most of us have wanted to do it our whole lives, and mentoring the new ones coming on board is so important. And I really like to have the philosophy that we're all students and we're all teachers. Can I learn something from a student nurse, being a seasoned nurse of 36 years? Absolutely. Can I teach something to that student nurse? Absolutely. We should be learning and teaching all through our careers. So I think that's so important. What you said about just taking them in, they are. They're the future, and we need to spend more time and focus on them. So I'm going to link your contact information because I know there's going to be nurses that want to contact you and get more information on how to I'm a flight nurse. What do I need to do to do this? And I'll link your Instagram. We are going to do something that's so fun. This comes from Travis Brown. He's a digital marketer for podcasters, and these are Pod Decks. And it's just so cool because you can customize these decks to whoever you're talking about. But we're going to take five minutes, and I forgot to bring up my timer here, which I'm going to do right now. And we're just going to get a little bit deeper into Jennifer the woman by getting to know her a little bit better.
[40:15] Jennifer: Okay.
[40:16] Michelle: So these are supposed to be kind of like rapid-fire questions. Don't spend too much time talking about them. We want to keep under our five-minute rule, so we're going to start with the first one. If you could sing a duet with anyone, who would it be?
[40:34] Jennifer: I'm going to go with the king of country, George Strait, because I love country music.
[40:40] Michelle: Okay. What do you value most about traveling? I know you love to travel.
[40:44] Jennifer: I love to travel. I love meeting new people, seeing new things, but basically being organized for a trip makes it go very simple.
[40:53] Michelle: All right. What international dish would you eat for the rest of your life?
[40:59] Jennifer: This is a good one. I would probably go with something spicy. Maybe Thai food.
[41:04] Michelle: I knew it was going to be Asian. I knew it. Awesome. If you had a full year off with pay, what would you spend your time doing?
[41:14] Jennifer: This goes back to the previous couple of questions. Probably eating and traveling.
[41:20] Michelle: Flying, eating, flying, traveling, and exploring. Awesome. What do people ask for your help with?
[41:28] Jennifer: So a lot of people ask me, like, what I think about this or, what's your opinion on this? And I always find that to be a compliment if they value something that they believe I have there.
[41:40] Michelle: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Would you rather be stuck in an elevator or on a Ferris wheel for 24 hours?
[41:49] Jennifer: Maybe the Ferris wheel, because there's some fresh air. Exactly.
[41:53] Michelle: Elevators would be a little bit stinky. Okay. What's your favorite vegetable?
[42:01] Jennifer: This is a good one. I'm going to go with Brussels sprouts, but they've got to be roasted, not boiled crispy.
[42:08] Michelle: Yeah. Awesome. Okay, if you could add one feature to airlines, what would it be? I want to hear the answer to that.
[42:19] Jennifer: Okay. So if I could add one feature to airlines, it would be I want to hear what's going on in the cockpit.
[42:25] Michelle: I knew it.
[42:26] Jennifer: Yeah, I hate not knowing.
[42:27] Michelle: Do they have apps that you can use with your knowledge of the pilot? Can you creep on them? Could you walk into the cockpit and be like, hi, guys.
[42:38] Jennifer: No, they would probably tackle me.
[42:41] Michelle: Air Marshals would get you. Do they still have air marshals? Okay. Would you rather take a train through the Swiss Alps or a boat ride down the Amazon?
[42:51] Jennifer: Well, I'm going to go with the train through the Swiss Alps because I have a few water issues.
[43:00] Michelle: That's another podcast. Oh, my God. What was the most expensive meal you've ever eaten out?
[43:08] Jennifer: Well, you tell.
[43:10] Michelle: I know.
[43:10] Jennifer: I'm like, oh, God, I'm thinking of a couple of meals. One was a steakhouse. That was the absolute splurge. And then another one was a Brazilian steakhouse, which was multiple digits. There was a party, a large party, but yeah, we racked up the figure.
[43:31] Michelle: OK, who is the one person you'd love to have as a mentor?
[43:36] Jennifer: Oh, my goodness.
[43:38] Michelle: I know. They're hard, right? They're like, so hard.
[43:43] Jennifer: I think, to our chief pilot in our organization, who is a personal friend of mine, too, and just such a great person that has a very long military background and can definitely lead an organization in a very positive way. So he's definitely somebody I would love to have mentor.
[44:07] Michelle: Most people. We need him in our lives. What's the most common reason for people failing or giving up?
[44:14] Jennifer: Great question. I think it's because things are hard and anything worth a damn is hard. Getting your BSN, being a pilot, CrossFit, losing weight, whatever it is, whatever. It's hard to juggle a family and kids and things hobbies. Those are hard things. So I think that's why people give up.
[44:39] Michelle: What's the highest peak you've climbed?
[44:42] Jennifer: For me, it is Mount Whitney. Oh, okay.
[44:46] Michelle: My other guest, Chris Patty said the same thing.
[44:52] Jennifer: Okay, yeah, I did have to. But Whitney beats it by 4000ft.
[44:56] Michelle: What would you write a book about in our last 30 seconds?
[45:00] Jennifer: Oh, wow. There's so many things I would love to do, like a memoir of my labor and delivery experiences because there's so many great, so many great experiences. Even adding, like, flight nursing onto that and just people that are in a tough spot and how courageous they are. So maybe a book of stories on courage.
[45:23] Michelle: I love it. I want to see it. And last question. What do you value most in a friendship?
[45:29] Jennifer: I love just being able to connect with people and yeah, keep talking.
[45:37] Michelle: This is worth it.
[45:38] Jennifer: Yeah. Just connect with people that maybe you don't talk to them in a couple of weeks, but you can pick up the phone and you can just take off and right where you left off. Yeah. And just having that experience with somebody else that maybe isn't a family member to kind of bounce things off of be there for you.
[46:00] Michelle: Especially not a family member.
[46:02] Jennifer: Right.
[46:03] Michelle: I love it. Thank you so much for doing this. You've been awesome. And I just can't wait to just talk to you again. And it'll be something behind the scenes. It'll be something like crazy stories, but thank you.
[46:23] Jennifer: Oh, you're welcome, Michelle. Was my pleasure. Love sharing.