Wakanda's Wrld
This channel is primarily informative within the weird and wonderful world of healthcare. I discuss how to improve the wide world of healthcare along with up to date information. I love to have different guest from different walks of life within healthcare. For podcast guest inquires reach me at shanklindj@yahoo.com
Wakanda's Wrld
The Hospital Hustle: Your Six-Month Plan to Millions
Ever wondered how some nurses break free from the burnout cycle and build real wealth? In this eye-opening conversation with Larissa (NightNurse305TV), we dive deep into the strategic mindset shift that transforms ordinary nursing careers into launchpads for financial independence.
"I'm not a nun, I'm a nurse and I'm a hustler," declares Larissa, challenging the traditional view of nursing as purely a service profession. With 13+ years of experience across multiple specialties and a successful pivot into real estate and entrepreneurship, Larissa reveals her unconventional approach to leveraging hospital experience. Rather than seeing bedside nursing as just a job, she reframes it as a strategic six-month reconnaissance mission to build valuable connections, identify market opportunities, and acquire free professional development.
The hospital hallways are filled with "walking millionaires" – doctors, administrators, medical device representatives, and veteran nurses whose networks and knowledge can fuel your next venture. By approaching your clinical role with entrepreneurial curiosity, you position yourself to identify healthcare gaps that could become profitable business opportunities. Whether it's assisted living facilities, referral agencies, or specialized care services, Larissa breaks down how to translate bedside experience into business models that solve real healthcare problems.
Beyond business strategies, we explore the importance of financial literacy, AI competency, and maintaining professional standards while advocating for substantive issues like nurse-to-patient ratios and standardized education. This conversation isn't just about making more money – it's about reimagining what's possible when nurses bring their clinical expertise into entrepreneurial spaces.
Ready to stop trading time for dollars and build sustainable wealth? Follow Larissa on TikTok @NightNurse305TV and join the growing movement of nurses who refuse to be broke. Your clinical skills are more valuable than you realize – it's time to leverage them beyond the bedside.
https://linktr.ee/WakandaRN
We. When we're talking about expanding nursing and getting nurses paid more, getting nurse practitioners you know certain rights are getting paid more. It has to go back to the standardization of education, right? If too many nurses go out into the ether doing you know God knows what a whole bunch of foolishness, it does not reflect well on nurses, right, or as a whole. And this way we can't demand more because here they say oh, your cohort's over here. They don't even know what they're doing. So why should we pay you more? Right, we need to get under the patient ratio. I'll get nurses not be broke. So you know what I'm going to say, something which I think you may disagree with, and I'm going to explain why I still push it.
Speaker 2:I think Welcome man, Welcome man, Come to a friend what your Wakanda are in. So I'm glad to have you guys today. So introduce yourself, let people know who you are and what you do.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody. So my name is Larissa. I'm also known as NightNurse305TV on TikTok and, I think, a couple other places, oh, youtube too. I've been a nurse for over 13 years. I was a travel nurse for over eight years. I've worked in multiple different specialties it's probably easier to say the places I have not worked, which is straight PEDS, psych, cath lab, or and OB or LND. Never worked in those areas before. Before I used to be a charge nurse, a nursing supervisor. I used to work for the Department of Health as an educator, so I've done a lot within the a nursing supervisor. I used to work for the Department of Health as an educator, so I've done a lot within the realm of healthcare.
Speaker 1:Prior to or right before the pandemic started, I started to transition myself into entrepreneurship. I knew my time was coming. Nursing is not set up like how my mom was. You know, my mom's been a nurse for 30 years and she's going to finish her career as a nurse. That's not the same for myself or many others. So I got into real estate. I bought my first property. It was a duplex. I inherited a triplex and then I bought an apartment which brought me to six, and I've been doing short-term rentals, midterm rentals, since there I'm dabbling in some independent living and currently I work for myself. I'm a board certified acute care nurse practitioner and I lease myself out to a couple of different companies. You know earning my income there as well as making social media content.
Speaker 2:So you sound like you got your hands full.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I know. So how do you balance all that?
Speaker 1:It's hard and you know, one of the one of the downsides to being ambitious and having access to opportunity is that you think you can do more than you actually can.
Speaker 1:So, one of the things that I urge people is like which is what I try to focus on now? Pick one thing and laser focus on it. Right? You know, in my youth which for me would be like my 20s, you know, the world was my own, so I was trying too many different things. Lucky for me, some of it worked out, but I missed a lot of opportunities because I didn't hyper-focus. I think that's what it takes to take you to that next level. That next level means you're bringing in $50,000 a month, $100,000 a month. It requires laser focus on this one thing. Once you get that up and running, you get the cash flow from it. Then you can branch off to other things. It would probably be best if the other things you branch off are related or indirectly related to what you're already doing. It makes things easier.
Speaker 2:You said that you missed opportunities. What opportunities that you feel like you've missed?
Speaker 1:Oh, boy, a bunch. So back in when I was in the height of my travel nursing era, where I used to work like two contracts at the same time, sometimes I would end up at the wrong hospital. And because I did a contract for six months working at two hospitals across the street from each other in the Bronx and sometimes I was so all I did was work. You know, rest in peace to my grandmother. She would wake up at five, make my dinner, press my uniform and, with the support of my family, that's how I was able to do that. And then these are two hospitals I worked at for a long time. So the people know me. When people like you, not that you get away with a lot of things, but people let you slide If you are nice, if you're likable and you're a good worker. And by the grace of my grandmother, my mom helping me and my supervisors, who knew what my mission was, I was able to work. I worked 55 days straight, no break.
Speaker 1:And I worked six months, yep 55, 12 hour shifts straight, no break, and I did six months. I worked like that for six months. I was able to pay off a decent part of my student loans. That's why I got the seed money to buy my first house. I was able to do a lot of stuff with that money, but one of the mistakes that I made was this was during like 2016, 17. This was kind of like the height of the social media era on Instagram, and I faced a lot of oh my God, people are going to see me on the internet. What if somebody at work saw it?
Speaker 1:You know what I mean A lot of like imposter syndrome, where during that time, when I scale back the second contract, I should have just had my four day work week and then spend the other three days focusing on that right. I created a travel nurse course back in like 2014, 15, way before the pandemic. That would have been very instrumental and informative and instructional and I got curve, I curve, you know, curve by imposter syndrome. So that's one of the mistakes that I made, which was you know, you can still hold down your men and maintain your full-time job, but if you want to go after something, you have to double down, you have to put your effort in there. You don't cause your own burnout, which is what I did.
Speaker 2:So before you continue so some people may not know what imposter syndrome is Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 1:Right. Imposter syndrome is basically when your brain tells you you can't do a thing. Your brain tells you you're not supposed to be in a space. Your brain tells you the people that you know are going to see your one random video online. Well, with TikTok it can't happen, because TikTok's algorithm is something different.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Back then me posting on Instagram or me, you know, focusing more on sales and marketing and like making content on Instagram I was just so preoccupied that one of my co-workers would see my work or see me talking about this course, and it just caused me to not really push myself and put myself out there. So that was a missed opportunity.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay. So let's get to the point. How can nurses not be broke?
Speaker 1:How can nurses not be broke? So you know what I'm going to say, something which I think you may disagree with, and I'm going to explain why I still push it. I think nurses should go work all nurses should go work in the hospital for about six months to a year. That's how I feel and I'm going to explain to you why. You need to reverse your thinking about what your purpose of being there. When you go there, you already have your plan. The reason why I tell nurses to go work in the hospital for at least six months to a year.
Speaker 1:Most nurses that look like me or look like you don't come from a background where they have a network of people behind them. Right, Right, In Jamaica they call it like links. Right, you have to have your links to do things. Who you know is how you get to places and how you make money. When you get into the hospital, your mindset should be how many different relationships can I relate? Because you got to think about it.
Speaker 1:Inside of a hospital, there's walking millionaires in there. You got your nurses who've been there since they had pensions. When they leave their millionaire status, their house is paid off. That's a bank right there. They still get in pension. Their 401k is flooded. These people have money. Right, You're around doctors and surgeons and fellows. You're around people in the medical device arena of healthcare. You're around CEOs. You're around vice presidents. You're on managers. All these people have access to literal wealth and literal wealth of information. So the reason why I tell people to go in there is go and be around these people and see if you can soak up as much information as possible. The second reason is more of a selfish reason. Navigating healthcare currently and will become more difficult for the common person.
Speaker 1:There is something to understanding and knowing the knowledge of how a hospital works. Right, your patient comes in through the ED. They say last known well was at 3 pm. It is now 5 pm. You have a very short window now to figure out whether or not they're going to get the AltaPace or something like that. There's a series of events that must take place that if you're in a hospital God forbid where the people are not on point, you as a nurse who's been there before, you know what's supposed to happen. You can advocate for your loved one or yourself. Right, your loved one is on the unit. The doctor's supposed to round. You see them come in, they're not really assessing. Nobody's looking at the wound. Things are happening. You have the knowledge to speak up. Other people have the discernment. They just know something's not right when you work in the hospital. You understand the flow who's supposed to come, who's supposed to go to what unit, how to navigate certain things. That's an asset for yourself and your family member. Even if it's for that, I think that is something that is very strategic and has a long-term return on investment, just for those six months to a year.
Speaker 1:The other thing is, if a nurse wants to become a millionaire and they want to predicate that off of a healthcare background, that's one of the best places to be. You're connecting with social workers. You're connecting with case managers. You're connecting with chronic care managers. You're realizing in that market that you work in, there may be a deficit there. There may be not enough independent living facilities. There may be a need for ALS. There may be a need to service veterans. They say you work at a VA. You know a lot of veterans can't find housing.
Speaker 1:This is a good way to network, get the information, do background research, do recognizance, make relations. So all you need is that six months to a year. Now you're leveraging that information, that experience, for a lifetime. So stop thinking about it as you go in there and you're going to be on med surgery. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:You're going there, these people they're going to. If they pay you $35 an hour, they're going to extract at least 75 from you. You need to flip that. If they giving out, if they paying for the pals, if they paying for the ACLS, take it. If they paying for the, they're going to cross train you on a different unit, go and float.
Speaker 1:People don't like to float, I get it. It disrupts the. You know, you know your routine and stuff like that. But when you float, you meet travel nurses, you meet other people that you would have never otherwise ran into. That can put you on to gain. You see what I'm saying. So the mindset needs to be different.
Speaker 1:Right, You're going in there, you're going to do a recon. Right, You're going to fill your resume up with all of the free stuff that you would have otherwise had to pay for, and then you formulate your plan based off of getting that information and whatever ambitions you had, and then you get out and you start making some more money. So for me, that's foundational to never being broke, Understanding that you need to make sure you're formalizing relationships. I have not officially applied for a job without one of my friends calling me and be like hey, go do this. Blah, blah, blah since 2000 and probably 16. All of my opportunities to make money, specifically in healthcare, comes from people that I've met years ago. I still talk to people like hey, Larissa, these people are hiring, this is what I want. Say this, Tell them, I sent you Boom, that's it.
Speaker 2:So I know you're going to keep on elaborating on that. So it sounds like there needs to be a shift of mindset or a change of consciousness how people view their place of employment, because right now it feels as though that people go in they're just clocking in and out they're going to take care of the patients and they've kind of shut their eyes off, their minds off, to the other opportunities that surround them. I don't think a lot of people look at it as, oh, if I get my ACLS and PALS paid for, I can do something else extra with that, or pay attention to the other roles and see what needs need to be met elsewhere as well. Because I'll be honest with you, through most of my healthcare career I had that same mindset. I was going there, I'm clocking in and I'm clocking out.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until I took what people call the soft nursing job. I took a school position job where I learned about ROIs, I learned about leads, I learned about companies. You know I was learning these different terms. I was like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, I can take these and I can apply them to my own personal business. You know what I'm saying. So how can nurses staff begin to change their mindsets that are just clocking in and out? What can they do to have this awakening or awareness about?
Speaker 1:So let's take it down to first principles, the very basic ideas. If people come sometimes I do one-on-one, sometimes I do live trainings or sometimes I do workshop the first question I ask every single time is why do you want to be a nurse? And then I ask them where do you want nursing to take you? Those two questions together right, put you in the mindset that you need to have some sort of plan. Right, because a lot of people get into nursing and they don't know what exactly it is right, I know we talk a lot about this soft nursing thing and da-da-da-da, but four out of five nurses, or eight out of ten nurses, are going to end up at the bedside. Okay, that's where they're going to end up, whether it's in subacute or whether it's in acute care.
Speaker 1:Then after that, when you really look at this realistically, right, if you're not in a place, like you know, that has you know laws to protect patient ratios, like Cali or Oregon or Washington, you're going to get burnt out by year five, even if you do the three years, you're going to get emotionally burnt out, physically or mentally burnt out, or all three you're going to go. You know bingo, you're going to get all of them. You know what I'm saying. So once you do those two questions, the second question you need to do, the second thing you need to do is an activity which is a self-assessment, which means what type of nursing are you interested in? Right? Some people I've met people before love med surge. I know people talk about MedSearch. Shout out to all the MedSearch nurses.
Speaker 2:Yeah shout out to them.
Speaker 1:MedSearch is not for everybody, okay. I've seen they've taken nurses out of the ICU and the ER and put them on MedSearch and they could not last a 12-hour shift, okay. However, as you already know been in the industry for so long MedSearch is not created equally everywhere, right? Not every MedSearch is the hood or is the stroke right. So one of the things I tell people to do during that self-assessment is start talking to nurses. What is your idea of what a nurse does right In your market? Is there only one hospital? Are there multiple hospitals? How much do they pay, right? Is it a big hospital? Is it a little community hospital? Is it a bigger hospital? Do they have like the little one-person units where you can go work over on, you know, endoscopy and the cath lab, nuclear medicine, all of those other things, right? So I think nurses need to start from first principles, very basic, asking themselves these questions and then aligning themselves.
Speaker 1:Tiktok is great for this, right? You can find your videos, you can find my videos, you can find a bunch of other videos and connect with the people. I talk to my people in DMs all the time. Now, recently I may be a little late because I'm running around doing a whole bunch of things, but I do respond, right, and I do encourage people to email me, where I send them back lengthy emails with links in there and stuff like that, because my mission is simple right, we use social media. I think people need to take activism in all of its different forms off social media, and the way that you do that is by directly connecting with people. Now you could bring the horse to the water. They're the ones who got to drink, so I'm going to put the links in there. It's up to you to click on them. So there is also that.
Speaker 2:So how can a nurse get started with business? What advice would you give to?
Speaker 1:them. So, first thing, like I said before, I think that they should. If they're graduating school, they need to get into the hospital for six to 12 months and they need to make sure that before they get in there, they have a list of things that they want to accomplish. I think the first step is, if they put you on a tele floor, you need to know the top 10, 20 medications, top 10 to 20 procedures, top 10 to 20, top 10 to 20 diagnoses. Reason why is you can make money from being a subject matter expert, right? So if you know your lane and you know your lane very well, it's going to broaden your opportunities thereafter. Okay, the next thing that they need to do is when people come on your unit and they're in a field or on a floor or talking about something you don't know about, the minimum you should be doing is air hustling, getting information right.
Speaker 1:That's where a lot of ideas come from. You see somebody coming from BD or Medtronic. Go talk to them. Hey, how'd you get into this job? How do you like it? That's the second level of things, right? The third level is you got to get good with money. It doesn't matter if you make a million dollars or a thousand dollars. If you don't know how to spend that little bit of money, it's a chop right then and there so getting-.
Speaker 2:Repeat that again, repeat that again.
Speaker 1:This needs to be discussed because it is very pervasive throughout the nursing community. Why? Because the way we make money. You can go on the clipboard app. You can size it up. You want to go on a trip to Greece? It costs you three grand. You can see exactly how many extra shifts you need to do to pay for that. Right, each shift pays for a thing, so you may spend the money and be like you know what, I know how much I make. I just need to go do that and then we get stuck in this revolving circle, right? So good money management needs to be in there as well. And then the next thing is you got to look at the trends, right? Fortunately for us.
Speaker 1:Being in healthcare, people always want to need healthcare services. Whether it's a nurse coming to your house, a CNA coming to your house, procedures always going to get done. People are going to need help with medications all of these different things, right. Some of these needs you can fine tune on by being in the hospital and seeing. Right in your market, right, the same people come in all the time. Most of the time, right. They're coming in for the same thing If it's related to housing, if it's related to they can't get the proper care at home or something, then what do you need to do?
Speaker 1:Then the cards are telling you, the tea leaves are telling you a business related to this is going to solve this problem, because that's what business is solving problems, right? So you're getting first-hand experience about that right. And then from there is, what are you good at right? It makes no sense. People tell me all the time you know, just do an ALF. Alfs make a lot of money. I have two friends right now, that one is on their fifth, another person is on their second. It makes a lot of money, but for me and the way that I'm set up, it's not an ideal match for what I got going on right now, because you need to be close to the ALF, especially when you're getting it off the ground. So that goes back to that self-assessment piece. Yes, something is a good idea, but is it a good idea for you, and is it a good idea for you right now? You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they underestimate that aspect.
Speaker 1:They think because like oh, somebody else is doing it, then it's a good fit for them, and it's not always the case. It's not always the case, right? So, for example, let's backtrack to the ALF idea. I think that if you are a nurse, you should explore assisted living or family care model of business. Right, because the sheer fact that you are a nurse is going to be a part of your marketing, which is why I tell people to work in the hospital. Because if you live close to like, for example, I'm originally from Miami. Shout out to the you. You work at a university in Miami. You work at a Shands, you work at a Jackson Memorial, miami. Shout out to the? U you work at a university in Miami, you work at a Shands, you work at a Jackson Memorial. The brand of the hospital follows you, right? So you open up an ALF or you open up a business and you have your little blurb about you on your website that you worked at these places.
Speaker 1:People say, aha, certain types of despite, whether people say good things or bad things about it. There are certain hospitals where, if you're in the healthcare field, people know you're certified. There are certain hospitals where, if you're in the health care field, people know you're certified, right. Because the level of care, right, the complexity of the level of the current administration that is going to be there, because, whether they put the money behind it or not, people are aging and they need help. That's just the end of the story, right? If that is too much for you, go back to first principles. When I say first principles, I mean breaking everything down to a fundamental assessment. Right, the bricks of it all, the foundation of it all. Okay, assisted living how do people get there? They get there from a referral agency. Maybe you should open a referral agency, bringing it back to why it's important. Working in the hospital, if you just worked off a med search floor or maybe a 23 hour observation floor or something like that, and you worked in case management, or you're cool with the case managers, or you know the social workers or whoever it is, that's a good segue into inserting yourself as a middleman through the referral agency. Maybe you don't have all of the capital to start the ALF, but a referral agency don't take a lot, right? You need a website, you need an email address and you need some connections and some marketing tools. Boom, you're in business, right. So, and then there are other things that people can leverage themselves on into. I think right now, if you are a nurse and you're looking to make more money and maybe you want to go the entrepreneur route, working within a corporation whether it's your healthcare corporation or some startup you need to learn AI. That's important. Okay, you got to learn AI Because, think about it and chat GBT is not enough, but chat GBT is a step.
Speaker 1:If people are really using people are like oh, I use chat GBT every day. Yeah, you are, but you're probably using it wrong. Right, chat GBT? Even though it has, you know, we could say, infinite amount of knowledge, it's still only as good as the prompt. Right, your result is only as good as your prompt. You get better at prompting by prompting the LLM every day. Right, to move on from chat GBT. Right, there's also Grok. Despite what you feel about its main person, it's still pretty robust. Okay, you got Gemini, you got Anthropic.
Speaker 1:Explore all of these things. Right, they're MIT and Harvard. Offer some free courses. If I was a new nurse and I was having a hard time getting a job, I would probably go on there, do those courses and what, put it on my resume and go out of my way to talk about it in the interview, because all hospitals want to include more AI, because, one, it's the future. Two, they want to save more money. By you doing that and connecting all of those things that I just said together, that makes you an ideal candidate right, because you're seeing what they're seeing right. So those are some of the things that you can do in order to better yourself for the workforce, because go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I've seen other entrepreneurs talk about that you need to get ahead of AI, because if you don't use AI, you're going to fall behind.
Speaker 1:You will fall behind in entrepreneurship and I, every day, I use Notebook LLM every day. I keep up with the news about what's going on. I think that's really, really important. If you are a nurse and you're looking to make money, you need information quality information so that includes staying up on what's happening in the world, within healthcare, within technology, within the government. Sometimes the easy way to get that information is by talking to people that read a lot, right? People that work in hospitals, like doctors and stuff like that. They're, by nature, nerds, right? Nerds read and they digest a lot of information. They do, they do, they do.
Speaker 1:And this is why I tell people to air hustle. I'm not saying people to be nosy, but if you see someone talking about a topic that you're interested in or you never hear of, you know, perk up yours and see what's going on and then you go off on your end and that'll be the genesis of you going to do a little research on your own Right. Use those opportunities to teach yourself, right, because that's how you make more money. Right, knowledge and solving problems Right. You don't know if it's going to be solved unless you do the research or you're out talking to people.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you had said earlier about this current administration. So what about people who are kind of like well, I'm thinking about starting a business, but then I see the news and they're scared of tariffs. What do you think about tariffs in this current?
Speaker 1:administration regarding that topic I mean. So a lot of the things that I'm in and the people within my cohort are in are service-based businesses, right? So, as far as the tariffs are concerned, we would be indirectly affected by them, okay? So, for example, one of my other jobs is I'm a property manager. So I manage my six properties and then I have five others that I manage for family members and friends right, the tariffs would affect us if we were going to furnish a new property or we need to buy new things, right?
Speaker 1:So say, somebody came, they stayed and the bed broke or whatever, then we would have to order it. It would cost a little bit more. Would it be a prohibitive cost? No, right, maybe I paid, you know, $99 for a bed from Amazon. Now I got to pay 150. I don't like that. But it's not something where we were, you know, I had like a medical device company or something like that, and all my stuff parts come from China. Now that whole load is stuck in a dock because you know, say it was called it was costing me $20,000. Now it's going to cost me double to clear, right?
Speaker 1:So, as far as nursing is concerned, that that's why I feel like we're in a really good niche, because the one thing that the tariff tariffs may be adjacent to is immigration. A lot of the people that work within healthcare come from other places, okay, so that may cause an issue. It may cause an opportunity. May cause an issue, right. It may cause an opportunity where your rate of pay may go up because now you have less people in the pool. If you're running something like an agency and you hire a lot of people that are immigrants right, and it's harder for them to navigate their communities because they're on the lookout for this, that and the third, that may cause a big issue, right.
Speaker 1:If you are offering a service-based business, right, and that service is being offered by people and you can't get people, you don't have a business anymore. But, speaking directly to the tariffs, it's going to hurt people in their everyday lives. So it's not going to necessarily affect business owners for sure. Business owners that are service-based businesses are going to feel some effect, not as much as the people that are product-based, but in our everyday lives things are just going to become more and more expensive and then there may be a degree of scarcity, depending on what they say next about the taps, right, because a lot of our goods and food and stuff comes from other places, or at least the things that they use to grow and cultivate or whatever comes from other places. So that may affect us on a personal level. They used to grow and cultivate or whatever comes from other places.
Speaker 2:So that may affect us on a personal level, right? So let me, let me get your thoughts so.
Speaker 2:I saw something on TikTok not too long ago. There was a particular content creator that talked about ghetto nurses, ghetto, ghetto nurses with the glam and the long nails. And what are your thoughts? And she's not the only one that feels this way, obviously she's. She's one of the people that came out and just said it. So what are your thoughts on people who feel this way, about nurses who, you know, they get their makeup done, eyelashes, they got the nails. You know, how do you feel about people who criticize nurses who appear this way?
Speaker 1:so I could be a little loquacious. So I'm gonna give short answer and then long answer on right sentiment, wrong time. And let me explain. So most places you can't wear long acrylic nurses like there's. There's no way you're a nursing, you got nails. It's not happening, it's a chop right the long hair down. Gotta put it up, because a lot of uh floors have certain protocol and the hospital itself has their own thing going on.
Speaker 1:I think her video kind of got not necessarily blown out of proportion, but I think she was talking about a very specific incident where she was talking to another nurse practitioner and I think the nurse practitioner came on the video and it's just her overall presentation. That is, you know, a degree of professionalism that we should all have, because it needs to be maintained in the traditional sense, because we're looking to grow and expand and we need people to take us seriously. Now, as far as patrolling people's appearance, I think that we have more important things to focus on right now. Right because, say, for instance, I were to wear this, this hair I would never wear in a place like the er. You worked in the er before. This is just not that you come in like this, but by the time you get cracking.
Speaker 1:It's just not feasible right exactly right and I pull the wig right off. So I think, like in every in, in every day, even though you see the nurses present like that on social media, I believe that once they're actually on the unit working, there's some changes being made, specifically when it comes to the hair, the you see the nurses present like that on social media. I believe that once they're actually on the unit working, there's some changes being made specifically when it comes to the hair. The makeup that's a different story. You know the eyelashes I personally wouldn't do it, just based on the fact that I've worked in multiple different ICUs.
Speaker 1:A lot of things happen in the hospital. You know this thing spraying here, there and there. We're not wearing the protective goggles. I'm just. You know, I have a thing about my eyes. I don't want nothing in it. The girls they got the special shampoo, they'll take care of it. And then I talked about the nails. A lot of times it's just. You know, there's only certain places you can get away with that and it doesn't necessarily pertain to direct patient contact.
Speaker 1:But the thing that really ruffled a lot of feathers and why I also chimed in is I think she's reacting to a very specific culture of nursing where she lives, for example. If anyone worked in Miami, you know well. Whatever it is, there's a certain group of nurses where the clothes are so tight you can see what them girls have for breakfast. That's that would be regarded as unprofessional, right. You have a certain other group of nurses that come in. They smell of cigarettes, the hair is a mess, the clothes look like they got into a fight in the parking lot. That's a degree of professionalism, right. So I think where she may have went wrong, even though let's base the argument of her coming from a good place and she wants to champion the profession, right? Why isn't she mentioned in all these other scenarios, right?
Speaker 1:It could be. Maybe that's not what she sees every day, right, but overall, I just think that now's not the time for that. Right, we need to be focused more on these cuts being made to Medicare and Medicaid and cut to the NIH. If you work in a big teaching hospital, that's a cut to you. That's a raise that you're not getting. That's one less CNA that's going to be working on your floor. That is the increased likelihood of you being laid off because those federal funds keep the lights on in a lot of these big hospitals where a lot of people want to work.
Speaker 1:Right, that should be the focus, and that's one of the problems with nursing that I have we be focusing on the wrong things at the wrong time and then we don't coalesce around the ideas that are spread throughout all the different little pockets or cohorts of nurses. Right, we all agree that patient ratio should be a thing. Everybody should be one band, one sound on that. Right, we should all agree that the education needs to be standardized, and the reason why I'm so big on that one is it directly affects the money. I'm always going to go back to the money. Listen, I'm not a nun, I'm a nurse and I'm a hustler. I'm here to make money, okay, if you know me in real life and I've taken care of you.
Speaker 1:Have you worked with me? I'm a good nurse, I take care of people, I love old people, old people love me, but I'm not doing it for free and that's a hard boundary for me. Ok, so when we, when we're talking about expanding nursing and getting nurses paid more, getting nurse practitioners you know certain rights again paid more, it has to go back to the standardization of education, right? If too many nurses go out into the ether doing you know God knows what a whole bunch of foolishness, it does not reflect well on nurses, right? Or as a whole. And this way we can't demand more because here they say your cohort's over here they don't even know what they're doing.
Speaker 1:So why should we pay you more? Right, we need to get under the patient ratio, the standardization of the education. Everybody needs to get behind that and then we can move on to talking to you know about hair and nails and stuff like that. But in my experience I don't see an overwhelming amount of these things happening day to day where we need to be having like this great conversation about it, right, even if the girls coming here they're putting it up, the girls that work in the different areas of patient care. There's regulations in place where you know they're going to get written up. They're not maintaining those long nails taking care of your every day and day out in majority of places.
Speaker 2:No, okay, okay, yeah, I do appreciate you sharing those thoughts. So, larissa man, this has been pretty fantastic man. So where can people find you? Where are your socials?
Speaker 1:So currently I am on tiktok at night nurse 305 tv. Please be careful. Um, uh, they have some impersonators on there. I gotta send a letter to tiktok again. Oh, you know that I guess that's. I don't know. Maybe I'm doing something right while people are trying to clone my account or whatever, but it's uh, night nurse 305 tv. I have 80 000 followers, so just make sure you look for that one. Okay, and then I'm also on YouTube, but YouTube is a lot of work. I don't know if you're on YouTube. It's a lot of work. It's not for everybody. So you can follow me over there. I'm gonna get my YouTube game up, but it ain't going to be right now. It's not for the YouTubers.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, well, yeah, listen, man, we might have to do a part two or something in the future.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. This was fun, you know, as you can tell, I'm a bonafide yapper, so when New. York and Miami collide. You know, one thing you're going to do is be yapping. So that's good, but this was great.
Speaker 2:I love it, man. I got to have my New Yorker. You're my first New Yorker I've had up there. So yeah, new York, yeah, shout out to New York. I heard you mention Bronx earlier, so Big time.
Speaker 2:But all right, larissa, we're all at you. So, my followers, make sure you check me out, all right? So follow me on YouTube. Wakanda RN Instagram. I'm on best buy now. So now you may be listening to this from God knows where now. So now I'm on Apple, I'm on Amazon, zik, everywhere. So if you listen to this, you're here for the first time. Give me a follow. You can donate to the channel. My link should be in the description below, and we try to have all of our socials and links below in this podcast episode. So definitely check her out, give her a follow, give her some love. She's putting her own to a lot of good game. So y'all be looking out man. Y'all be looking out man. All right, man. So thank y'all. Thank you guys. So much for tuning in whichever comment I ran, and until next time, y'all be blessed.
