111 - Stella Reid Pt 2: That’s How My Little Chickens Were Born

Continue with tenured nurse and Spokane, Washington native Honored Guest Stella Reid as she chats about the most powerfully traumatic last days in the history of practicum experiences, memory making, making the entire family feel seen, taking new nurses under our wings, us “older nurses” taking a good look in the mirror, and more!

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to part two of the Stellar Stella Reid Experience, where if you listen to episode one, you know that we got into probably deeper than we ever have before. Her family, how Catholicism relates to the Stella family, both her generation and the generations before. But now we're gonna get to the meat of the matter. I don't wanna waste any more of your time, her time, my time. I don't feel like we're wasting it. That was fun, Stella. Sometimes this is just like, I get you in studio. We get to hear Stella's stories. That's what I love. So more of Stella's stories coming relating to nursing. So let's start with you have kind of a second point you wanted to talk about there. And what it read was, what gifts do I bring? Are you talking to the manger? you talking to whatever? Tying it back, tying it back. Yeah. Well, okay, as you know, I have been at the birthplace for 34 years, starting my 35th trip around the sun there at the good old Sacred Heart birthplace. 35 years, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, it was my first job out of nursing school. I told you about that essay. That essay got me into nursing school. It probably helped get me into high risk labor and delivery at the University of Washington Hospital for my senior practicum. And that's I'm kind of referring back to that because I wanted to tell you about my last day there. So back in the 80s, because this was the late 80s, early 90s. It was really popular for all of the nurses back then were seeing nurse midwives and nurse midwives were doing home births. Okay. They were kind of just wrapping that up because of insurance reasons, but a lot of the community was doing a lot of natural home birth. And I knew that was something that I would never want to do for myself and that I didn't want to be a part of. And so I really was looking at more of the high risk and the complication and that kind of thing. I'm a little bit more of a an adrenaline junkie. But the nice thing about having all those granola nurses as my preceptors was they let me do everything. Okay. And I mean, they let me do it all. Really, they sat and had donuts and coffee all day and said, come and get me if you need help kind of thing. So which was great. But I was also at a facility that had OB residents. So we had we also had doctors, you know, kind of fighting for their time. as well as nurses. And so that was okay. But what I wanted to refer back to was my very last day there, literally weeks before graduation. And my very last patient came in for a blood pressure check and I couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. So of course I say, oh, I'm just the student, let me go get my preceptor. So then we end up having to get the senior resident and we have a lady who is 39 weeks along. who has now been told her baby has passed. So I have to go down outside the building to her husband who's in the car in the drop off area waiting because she just came in for a blood pressure check and I need to tell him that he needs to park the car and come inside. So it was one of those things where I thought, okay, why me? Like this was supposed to be like the happiest. Yeah. most best time of my life. I'm in nursing school. I'm in high-risk labor and delivery. I'm getting to do all the things that I want to do. And that was my last shift. I was not there for the delivery because my shift was just about over. But that's how I left my senior practicum. So moving forward, I interviewed, I got hired. And I really do believe, just kind of going back to that, This was all a God thing that I just happened to be in the right place at the right time interviewing with the right people. And it just worked out. I literally walked straight into nursing school, straight into high risk OB, graduated, passed that two day NCLEX and got hired directly into the birthplace at Sacred Heart. So, I mean, I could not have been more blessed. So. I'm not saying that was an easy walk or a straight line, but it was how I ended up there. And I've never left. So I've been in the same job that I had. I did one job interview and that was it. so where I'm going with this is that having had that experience and continuing on in labor and delivery, I have had a lot of experience in dealing with other couples that have gone through something similar like this. I myself had lost my first pregnancy at an early gestation, so I had my own experience. I know you and I have talked about your experience where you've lost a child. and we all have a dream and an expectation of maybe what that child's going to be that we now have to grieve. And what I want them to know is that it's okay for them to always keep that child alive. And so that's where my scrapbooking comes in. That's where my memory making comes in. I don't ever get upset if I'm assigned to a demise. actually... offered to do memory making to other nurses that might be assigned to the demise on the floor that day. In one experience that I had, I was not the nurse of the couple. I was basically the baby nurse and I came in to do the memory making. And I had been given some opinions of this dad who wasn't very nice. And I was just called that night that I took pictures and I edited them. And I went home and I put together this little scrapbook and I put the unedited and edited photos on a CD for this couple and I came back the next day and presented them with this little book and I told them that these pictures might be hard to look at. They might look at them today. They might look at them in 10 years. I'm not sure. They may never look at them. And that was okay, but that I wanted them to have these memories. And I put the disks in this little book and The dad, who nobody really enjoyed that whole weekend, fell apart and cried and hugged me and said that I was the first person that made him feel like a father. And that that whole experience of going through that as a guy, you're not the one carrying the baby, that sort of thing. And ever since that day, I just thought, okay, this is one of the things that I'm good at and this is something that I'm just gonna do and I just know that I'm called to be that person. So if I get that opportunity, if I'm on shift, if that is my assignment, or even if it isn't my assignment, it's something that I feel that I'm good at doing, I'm called to do it, I'm able to do it well, and it's a gift that I wanna bring. And it's interesting because this whole feeding our young thing, You know, another part of me that I feel I do well and I do a lot of nowadays in my old age is I'm a preceptor and I'm training a lot of the new younger nurses. And I've had one or two nurses that have either seen me in that role or been in that role with me because they were the nurse and they have wanted me to teach them. Like, how are you okay with this and how do you make that happen? you know, you're so good at getting these foot... prints or those kinds of things. And so I do think it's something that certain nurses maybe are better at than others, you know, and that again, I sort of use it as a calling. It's a gift I was given. I didn't ask for it. You know, I didn't necessarily want to be good at that. And, you know, here I was, what, 21 years old and my very first experience, you know, my last day of senior practicum. That's what I was handed and I had no idea how that was gonna be a positive in my life. But again, it was something that we could make as positive as we can in the situation. Sure, my heart just, oh, you talk about that dad, obviously, that gets my dad heart there too, like, oh my gosh. But you do bring up a very good point, that we make these rash judgments, even in situations that are not this dire, that you've just described. but where you go in and you get the report. You've been on the receiving end of that report where you're like, the mom is very flat or she has a flat affect and I don't know what's going on with her. She doesn't, da, da, da. We had someone just a week or two ago that they were very particular. They wanted to see the room that they were gonna go in. They wanted to see the NICU room that their baby was gonna go in, because they knew their baby was going to the NICU. They wanted to see this. They wanted it very demanding. And that's what was reported. from one nurse to another. And, but you know, and then, but when you take a step back, you go, my gosh, well this baby's got these issues that they already know are going to land said baby in the NICU. Ergo, they did not have, you you take a step back and you realize they don't have control of this situation and that fear, that anxiety, whatever is eating away at them, either consciously or subconsciously. What? demanding, all the controlling. So whenever you have those situations where you want to make a snap judgment, man, you guys just take a step back just for a minute. I don't care if you got to walk off the unit so you're not being bothered by anything else and just go, okay, what else could be at play here? Because we don't know everybody's story. Yeah. It brings to mind for me, Stella, two questions for you. And I don't wanna lose the power of the story you just shared, but I wanna step back a little bit to that senior practicum last shift. Did you have any moments in that moment? After that shift was done, were you like, I've picked the wrong field? Or did it solidify for you the desire even firmer to go into that field? Yeah, I think that the latter, it solidified it further for me. Again, I'm a crier, so I almost cried telling you the story. I can see that woman's face 35 years later. I always wonder, because I never stayed in that area or worked in that hospital, how did it go the next time? Because that is one benefit about being at Sacred Heart for 35 years is I have delivered rainbow babies of women. You know that there's a closet in antepartum named after me. Mm-hmm. March 7th was the anniversary of that baby's birth and passing. And I have been able to help deliver her son and she is pregnant again. That mama's pregnant again. And I have been invited again to attend her during her birth. And so you do, build those relationships. And for me, that's probably one of the biggest rewards is I have a select handful of patients that I've delivered their sleeping baby and that I have delivered their awake baby and that is their rainbow baby and I'm just I just feel super blessed that I've got to have that experience. You guys, mean, just listen. So many times on the podcast, let alone in your experiences, maybe at clinical and all the things we've talked about, those nurses that are older, jaded, wiser, know, but jaded, taking that burnout and being burned out for multiple reasons. This is not that point of this episode. But you're listening to a nurse who's been doing not only nursing, but the same job at the same location, same field. for 35, 36 years. And you hear the passion. You hear the... I'm gonna be the one. You hear the passion, you hear the compassion. And that's a rare breed, Stella. That's a rare breed. And you know that, you know that. I'm going to segue myself, Eric, because this is why I really wanted to be on your podcast is I do feel like I do have a special place there. I do deal a lot with the demise bombs and I like that. you know, kind of talking about that dad and how people sort of took that dad and you said, you know, none of us know what he was going through or what's going on or what his issues are. This is where I am super excited about you doing this Feeding Our Young podcast is that we have all these new nurses that come in and we don't know what obstacles they have climbed over to get to where they are. And, you know, we can be these nasty, old, jaded, burnt out nurses and not treat them well, or we can, you know, take them under our wing, get to know them, find out what makes them tick, what some of their obstacles were getting them there, and how do we help facilitate a little easier route for them. And I'm feeling especially glad about your podcast just in the last five years of COVID, because in that time, it's probably the largest amount of new orientees that I have ever precepted. yes. I've lost count how many new girls I trained, but it's kind of funny because, you know, I do, my kids call me the master interrogator. You know, I can get anything out of their friends. And, you know, I do, I do feel, do interrogate these poor girls and, you know, I know everything about their life and their family. And part of that is just trying to get them to open up and figure out how they learn and, you know, what speaks to them and what's important to them. But I'm also very invested in that, right? I'm not just like, ugh, I gotta listen to myself talk and train the new girl again. But beyond that initial training, right? That initial 16 weeks, I remember being that new grad in 1991 on the floor of the average age of 50, of all these 50 year old women. And I do feel like a lot of times I got chewed up and spit out and baptized by fire and all the things. And I think for myself, I just always said to myself, I'm not gonna let one of my kids feel like that. And I call them my kids, really I call them my little chickens. I'm gonna tell you why I call them my little chickens. No, no. So I was working out at the gym. with my orientees who are no longer my orientees. And I didn't invite Dr. Mathia or our schedules didn't line up or whatever. And she said, what am I, chopped chicken? And I said, I said, no, they're just my little chickens. And that's how my little chickens were born. So, you know, I just, I, you know, I want. to befriend these girls, I want to mentor these girls, know, some of them I'm the mother figure, some of them I'm the, you know, the big sister or the friend. I just want to be that safe space, whether they look at me as a mom, a friend, a colleague, a sister, whatever, that it's never not okay to ask for help. It's never not okay to need support, you know, it's never, you know. It's never okay for you to feel alone, right? And we've seen nurses come and go and we've seen new nurses come and go. And, you know, in 2020, we lost 27 nurses in the birthplace. When I joined the birthplace in 1991, it took me 13 years to get to day shift. In 2020, we had eight or nine nurses come to day shift in less than eight months, and we hired two of them. right off the street to day shift. And that was just unheard of in labor and delivery. People in labor and delivery didn't leave. That nobody, you you come like me, you come and you stay forever. And it's not that I expect these girls to stay forever, although I do. That is a question that I ask. So are you in, are you in Spokane for the long haul? How long are you going to be here? You know, I kind of want to know what, what, what's my investment looking like here? You know, how hard is this going to be? And you're going to. Yeah. How tight should those strings be taught? You know, but the other thing too is, and I'll use this as another example. So I volunteer, I'm a type one diabetic. I volunteered at a diabetic camp for kids with diabetes. And a lot of our nursing students could use that as a clinical or they came as support staff. And I remember them telling me while we're at camp, specifically by name, who the mean nurses on my unit were, who they came when they came to do their labor and delivery experience. And they were like, my gosh, it was so scary. We hated labor and delivery. They were so mean. And I was like, who was mean? Give me some names. Yeah, I'm going to take care of that. But I love to speak to the to the young nurses listening to your podcast. And I think it's great what you're doing. And I'm glad that they can be on here and be talking to you about the complexities of nursing school and navigating that. But who I really want to talk to are the nurses that are my age. And I want them to really do some self-reflection of what are you doing in the workplace? And I'm going to give you an example. I'm not going to say any names. I had surgery 15 days ago. And I was post-op, I don't know, five or six days, and three of my coworkers texted me about a situation that happened at work with one of my little chickens. And I was like, hell no. Mm-mm, mm-mm, that is not gonna fly with Mama Stella. So I did some investigating, I sent out a few more text messages, and some people had kind of heard, and... Some people had kind of commented, well, she was mean, she was rude, she was a bad word. So I decided to call the little chicken straight up myself and I talked to her and probably for over an hour on the phone and we had tears and we had some laughs. And I said, the fact that you called out and asked for help makes you a better nurse. Mm-hmm. there that day that talked about you. So we had an experience, know, a two year experienced nurse who needed some help because she wasn't quite sure, she wasn't feeling strong, and then walked up to hearing a very experienced nurse talking about her. And not only does that just kill it for me, like the whole my whole investment in training this nurse up for four or five months and continuing to try to support her. But it's just like, why? Why we gotta be like that? mean, really, okay, even if you're just having a bad day, it's like really as older nurses, we need to take a look in the mirror and we need to know that we're doing our best and that we're... that we're a safe space and that it's okay for people to ask us for help even if we're tired and we don't want to get up and go do it. And what it told this new nurse was, I'm never asking her for help again. So do you want to be known as one of the most experienced nurses on the floor? You know, been at that hospital more than 35 years. and you want to be known as someone who's not going to help you if you're sinking or you're afraid to ask that person for help, I don't ever want to be that person. I want to be the person that anyone's going to ask me anything, even if it's the dumbest thing like, you wipe my nose because it's going to drip on my IV start, know, kind of thing. So, you know, I just want us to be a safe space for these young girls, you know, and to build up their confidence. And the phone call turned out great and You know, the other thing that was said to me on the phone call was, I just don't know if I can still work here. OK, well, I don't want to hear that. Right. We are very specialized. are very, you know, our our acuity is so high nowadays. But this nurse has all the makings to be a great nurse. And her biggest asset is her desire to be a great nurse. And she just needed to feel validated that her assessment was the right one because she just wasn't sure. And instead she got made to feel less than. And I never want anybody to have to be made to feel like that because none of us are perfect. I'm the first one that will tell you OB will humiliate you and humble you in the blink of an eye. It doesn't matter. Does not matter. And I did tell a couple of stories to this young nurse about what I did. as a nurse of 25 years experience, you know, in some big blunders that I've had, you know? And there's never ever a place that you can't just say, hey, I'm sorry, I screwed up, if she did. In this particular case, she didn't screw up, she just asked for help. And she got made fun of, you know? And it's like, it's not okay, it's not okay. Yeah. It's that killing a career before it gets a chance. We've talked often on the podcast about killing a career before it ever gets started. You know, kind of putting the damper on a nursing student. But now you're talking about, you know, a nurse has been doing this a year, two years, maybe even five years. You're not going to know everything. You I don't like I've been a nurse 18 years. I don't know everything. Stella's been a nurse 35, 36 years. She said, you know, at 25 years, you're still making, you know, there's, we're human. And yes, you get to a place where, and I've mentioned this before as well, you get to a place where, yes, I kind of have most of the answers, but you never have all of the answers. You get to a place where you're like, you know, no, feel confident, know, comfortable slash, you know what I mean, competent in most scenarios that'll come up because at that point you've finally seen them or participated in them. but you never have all the answers. That's part of the whole thing, right? Like we all need to continually learn. And so I'll name drop really quick and I can't think of her name at the moment, but there's a podcast that I came across in my networking, all that business. Anyway, what this lady heads is something called the Ember Project, which you might've heard, Stella. I don't know, not necessarily the podcast, but the project. Because I posted something in our little... huh. nurses on the postpartum side, she was like, yeah, I that I had a patient once that was actually dialed into this, their resources and that sort of thing. But the Ember Project, the idea is it's young single mothers and trying to encourage and empower young single mothers who otherwise might feel the way society tends to maybe make some young single moms feel. So, have those small embers. It's like a small ember and you can go one of two ways. You can snuff it out relatively easily, or you can fan it and. Okay. you know, I don't care if our nurses have been there two, three, five, one, one year, know, six months, you know, still on preceptorship, been there five years. I don't care if you've been here a long time. Ask the question. And if you have a problem, you know what I mean? Like it's don't please, please, please, fellow nurses, not just where we work, but everywhere. Don't try and dampen that. Ember, don't try and snuff it out before it has a chance to grow and provide the light and warmth that our patients need. Well, my question would be this. What did you do to stretch and educate and, you know, teach up that nurse that day? Because talking smack about her did not do that. He didn't help her. Okay. What I like to do is one, you're not gonna embarrass somebody in the moment, in the patient room, whatever, but the sooner you can deal with something, especially if it was a patient safety issue, the better. Face to face is always better. But I also take a huge responsibility in and of myself. I'm back in the charge nurse role. And in that role, you make assignments. I also... feel it's very much my responsibility to not make leadership on our floor an elitist group. I believe leadership on our floor needs to be us more experienced nurses stretching and growing those up and coming nurses because we are all going to retire. I'm hoping to go in eight or nine years. And it's like, okay, so in eight or nine years when the rest of my grandchildren are going to be born, how are these nurses going to be trained up? Right? So I want those nurses that are in there right now, I want them feeling good and confident and being, you know, amazing nurses. And I want I want to know that that we've got quality people that are going to be taken care of. You know, my incoming grandchildren. And I always think of my patient like that. You know, it used to be if this was my baby, if this was me, you know, now I think of if this was my daughter, if this was my daughter in law. Yep. know, would we be giving the right care? Sorry, do hear the dogs barking? I don't know, you guys might hear that it wouldn't be the first dogs that are on the show. We've already established that. You finish your amazing powerful thought. We'll talk about the dogs here in a little bit. You may not have heard it anyway, so who knows? So anyway, I just feel like it is our responsibility as the more senior nurses, the nurses that are in those leadership roles of charge and team leader to assign these up and coming nurses in the roles where it is going to stretch them and it is going to encourage them and it's going to give them more opportunity to be in higher risk situations. but they're not gonna be the lead. They're gonna be the backup, right? So it exposes them to those high risk things. It gives them insight into the problem and then they get to watch how these experienced nurses come in and react, how the doctors react. And I will tell you, again, on how you look at things, this nurse that I was talking about that was feeling unsupported this day, She actually answered one of my emergency lights one day and I was so proud of how she came into the room and did what she needed to do to help me get out of the situation. Of course, I was taking all the credit for it. I said, man, whoever trained you did a really good job. You know, so it's like, but I do think that our responsibility doesn't end with the orientation. And I guess that's kind of my point is. we have a responsibility to each other. We have a responsibility to the human race, you know, to be kind to each other and to be uplifting, like you say, and to improve education and communication and all things. And I just, I'm super excited that you did the podcast. I told you I had no idea what FOY was. And then, but I have often used the phrase about why do we eat our own young, you know, and I'm just so glad that you could flip that into, need to feed them. And it's the perfect analogy, in my opinion. I think you're doing a great thing. And that's what made me wanna come on and kinda like say my thing, that we all have gifts, they're all different, my gifts are different than yours, but we all have a responsibility to these new nurses, even if you don't wanna be an educator. You're an educator, I'm an educator in my own way. I don't wanna be the educator that you are at the college level, but I like being the educator on the floor at the bedside. I often like to say, I'm gonna teach you how to do it the right way, cause it's my way. But I always tell them when I'm doing that, that I'm gonna tell them why I think it's the right way. And I do say to these new nurses, you'll come up with your own rhythm and your own way, but I'm gonna show you and tell you why I think my way is the best. Yeah, and don't lose that part of that. There are things that I do in my practice that I'm like, no, I have very strong rationale why I believe this is the right way. I'm open to doing things different if there's a better way, if I get a rationale. And that's kind of what we nurses do, right? That's what we're trained to do. But that's a side point. I want to piggyback on what you said about the kindness thing. Because like you said, I'm teaching at the collegiate level, whatever. You know what I mean? In that regard, it's an actual occupation for me. We have a lot of nurses that are wonderful and want to and desire to be preceptors, new hires, and or teaching, they're okay having students on a regular, just average work day. And then there are others that maybe teaching is not for them and they really are not excited about that. I've had one nurse tell me outright, it's not my job. It's not my job to teach somebody. And my response to that is, we're in a teaching hospital for one. But second of all, more than that, I understand that not everybody has that passion. I'm not trying to convert every nurse to become an incredible instructor. That's not my job. And it's also not the job of this podcast. That's not the whole heart of it. But that kindness you speak towards. If you even still, if you are saying, it's not my job to teach, I'm not good at teaching, I don't wanna teach, I've had a bad day, last night was horrible, somebody broke up with me, whatever, I don't know what the thing is. But now I have to have this little chicken follow me around. And I have to, it's, you know, the negative side of that, right? I am responsible to continually feed them and tell them what I'm doing and my gosh. At the very minimum, be kind. Just be kind. And if that looks like at the start of your shift, hey. And I've, where I come from, I've even had to, and I fully admit it, I'm gonna tell you right now, here's a little confession time with Eric and Stella, everybody. You have hopefully heard over, you know, over 100 episodes by this point, my heart towards nursing students. And obviously when you become the poster child for that, you know, there's a lot of assumptions that go with that. But even I have had an occasional shift where you're sitting, preparing for your shift, the students roll in, and you're like, not me, not today. Just not me, not today. Please not me, not today. And then you get a student. I've had that. I had that happen two months ago. And I felt horrible for it. But on the same token, every single one of us are gonna have those moments where we're like, I just need to not focus on other things that I needed to get that. But guess what? Suck it up, buttercup. I put on my big girl panties. I didn't let any of that out to the student that I had that day. And guess what happened? It was one of the most rewarding shifts I've ever had, period. Not because of any extenuating circumstances, but because when you rise to those challenges and you're like, okay, and I was honest with that student to start the day. I just said, hey, just so you know, this has been, I've had a rough 24, like whatever it is, I'm not going to take it out on you, but you're also not going to necessarily get the best version of me today, but you're gonna get the best version that I can provide of me today, and I hope that gets better over the course of the day. And I just, that's the heart. That's where I'm at. Be the best version of you for that student today, even if you're not great at teaching or you don't like teaching. By golly, just be like, hey, this is not my thing. I'm gonna be honest with you, but I'm also gonna treat you with kindness and respect because I want you to be a good nurse. I want you to come behind us and with us and whatever and take care of patients. Well, and the one thing that I would just piggyback onto that again is kind of what I felt happened this last week with me is your actions speak volumes to a lot of people and they're very far reaching because I'm sure the nurse that was not at her best that day had no idea how widespread that those actions were going to be taken. And I would be mortified, you know, if I was, you know, at Camp Stix and some of the nurses are telling me who their worst nurses or their meanest nurses were, you know, because that's what those kids remember. They remember who wasn't nice. They remember who they thought was mean. And then they say your name, you know? And if you have a name like Stella, there's only one. So you know if they're saying Stella, whoops. That's what I say. I'm the only male nurse on the postpartum side. You know, you got Matt on your guys' side and on the postpartum side we got me. And I'm like, I tell patients, I'm like, man, I can't get away with anything. You know what mean? Like you're either gonna love me or you're gonna hate me. the point is you're gonna remember me because there's me. You can be like, I don't even need to know his name. It's that guy. That guy either did ABX, but that's just it. And we remember, Stella, you're talking about going back to, you know what I mean? You remember getting chewed up. Every single nurse, I promise you. You talk to any single nurse. And we've said this before, there's one nurse on your guys' side, I love her to pieces. And we had this discussion one night, I said, you know, I'm like, no, this is why I'm like passionate about helping students, you know, like we've all been through it, so let's stop that, that ends with us. And she's like, no, that's precisely why I do it, because it needs to, you know what I mean, is that mentality of I've taken those chops, I've taken those licks, and now you get to earn your stripes too. The problem is, and there are generational differences, 100%, and this is not, I am not about to call my students snowflakes, I'm not about to call anybody's students snowflakes, because you hear that term as well. Generations have different things they gotta deal with. Individuals, like you said, Stella, you have no idea what someone has gone through just to get to where they are that day. So no, no, no, it stops with us. Yeah. You know, and again, I'll give you another quick example. My daughter took over a coaching job this year and she was super frustrated and a couple of the administrators were saying, well, you have three athletes that don't have their paperwork in. And she said, yes, sir, I understand. Their parents don't speak English. So, I mean, there's all kinds of things that we have no idea what was holding up that athlete's paperwork. Their parents don't speak English, you know. They need someone to help them fill it out, whatever it is. Again, doesn't apply to nursing, but can just apply to all levels of life that we don't know. And it doesn't take a lot to just be kind. It doesn't, it really doesn't, no matter what bad day you're having. On that note too, so to you nursing students, the other side of that is you show up, you do your part. Because the other thing is any nurse that can sniff within minutes of you being on the floor, not that you're timid, that's not what, but if you're coming in and you're like, no, I know all the answers, or I don't need to be here, I've heard of nursing students that have straight up told their nurses like, I don't have to do that. I've already done that before. And so I need to learn other things. I'm sorry, hold on back up. do your part you do that part. Yeah. Yeah, Stella, oh man, I could talk to you forever, but was there anything else you wanted to share on that? Feeding our young, eating our young experience, anything towards that topic before we wrap up in our traditional manner? Yeah, no gosh, I think we covered a lot, I think we did. And that's why I was like, we're gonna have fun in that first episode and we're gonna bring it in the second episode, like just bring it. And so with that, Stella, you chose three words to describe nursing school despite it being, you know, a couple years ago. What were those words and why did you pick them? Difficult. You know, I just remember being in class with all those med students, pharmacy students, dental students, and nursing students, and I thought, my gosh, what am I doing? It was very, very hard. Overwhelming, because like I said, it was a new age. Computers were coming out. That was new for me. I was working through college. That was new for me. And it just was very overwhelming. And then the last one I picked was obtainable. And that's what I try to move forward with and always tell my kids is it doesn't matter how difficult or overwhelming it is, it's obtainable. You just have to do it. And it requires, again, that effort on your part to just, it's not, this is not, you know, you don't go through nursing school and they just hand you a congratulations. You completed the course. You can now go take care of other human beings. There's reasons why you have to pass certain things and to be able to do certain things because do you want to be taken care of by someone who got a certificate that says, hey, good job, you know, go take care of somebody, you know, that sort of thing. So. Well, and I believe it's been been touted as one of the hardest degrees to achieve. So when you get to this point, all you little chickens out there, you did a good job because it was hard, you know, and you did it. Yes, and you're continuing to do it So Stella, for some reason we were throwing people off with all that talk and they just skipped to right now. I don't know why. But they, for reason, skipped everything else, and you have one thing you want to impart to them that they never forget after listening to your episodes. What would that be? that you need to put in the work and you need to stay focused and you need to stay kind. And if there's any overlap, your one piece of advice for fellow nurses all across the country and someday internationally if somebody happens to listen to this there. Okay, take a good look in the mirror at yourself and see how you want to be seen. So whatever that means to you, if you want to be known as happy, if you want to be known as friendly and kind, or if you want to be known as the crabbiest nurse on the unit, it's all going to be seen. So show up with that face on. And I like to say leave it at the door and bring your best to work. We're all there to work together. And I believe it's a team sport. And whether you're the nurse, the doctor, the housekeeper, the secretary, the security guard, I don't care who you are. I can't do my job unless you're there. And it's my job to be kind and respectful and clearly communicate with all of you and to thank you for your job and your service. for making my job easier. Because what I tell my patients when we do like nurse leader rounding and that sort of thing, we ask their experience and what went well, what didn't, et cetera. But I always tell them, you know, I'm like, it only takes one, one weak link, one, you know what mean, one bad experience. Like you're saying, it doesn't matter what field you're in. It doesn't matter what role you represent. You go in and you change a garbage can and you look sideways at somebody. You know what I mean? A patient's gonna remember that. So again, the motto is just continually come, be the best version of yourself that. day, whatever that looks like. And let's not snuff each other's careers out, please. Stella, you're amazing. Thank you. Stellar, Stellar, as always. Don't worry, I'm still working on getting Stella's epic password, so I'll pass that on in a future episode if I find it. But otherwise, have a great rest of your night, Stella. Thank you.