Why I Won’t Be A DON And What Patients Teach Me About Care

A nurse filming herself while eating in a patient’s room sparked a bigger conversation than a single clip could hold. We dig into the ethics and optics of eating at the bedside—how small choices shape trust, how infection control and dignity intersect, and why the “do what you must” survival mindset can still cross a line. It’s not about shaming staff who are stretched thin; it’s about naming the tension and protecting patients while we protect ourselves.

From there we zoom out to leadership and ask a question many nurses quietly consider: is becoming a Director of Nursing worth it? I share what I’ve seen across long-term care facilities—the constant calls, the responsibility that never clocks out, and the pressure of state surveys—and why a bigger paycheck can cost a life you actually want to live. We talk candidly about who thrives in that seat, who shouldn’t take it, and alternative paths to strong income and impact without 24/7 duty.

Trust shows up again in the creator economy. When nurse-led brands fail to deliver products or repackage cheap goods at high markups, the damage is more than financial. It erodes faith in a community built on credibility. We walk through simple buyer protections and creator best practices so the side hustles we build reflect the values we bring to the bedside.

In the ER, pain management gets real. We unpack fentanyl fear fueled by headlines and explain how hospital dosing, pharmacist oversight, and protocols differ from street use. At the same time, we address drug-seeking behavior and how specific requests can raise flags. The throughline is communication: educate with clarity, offer appropriate options, and hold boundaries with empathy.

To ground it all, I share two patient moments that kept my purpose steady—a heart failure veteran who lit up talking Air Force life, and a patient with end-stage COPD who found joy in baseball highlights. Those conversations reminded me why I started and how a single connection can change a hard day. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a nurse who needs a lift, and leave a review with your own moment that kept you going. Your story might be the spark someone needs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Eating In Patient Rooms
• 2:05 Host Check-In And Setup
• 3:20 Ethics Of Eating At Bedside
• 6:15 Would You Be A DON
• 10:35 The Weight Of Responsibility
• 15:20 Nursing Scams And Trust
• 19:20 ER Pain Meds And Stigma

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

A nurse records herself eating in a patient's room. Some of you listening to this, you probably have already done this. Maybe some of you thought about doing this. Maybe you're a patient listening or watching this, and you've seen a nurse do this. Trying to, I'm trying to be real honest here. I've tried to be honest with my podcast. Eating on the go. I've eaten my car. I'm really trying to think of a time I ate in a patient's room. Sit down, you're eating in a patient's room. Now, some of you may be saying, Well, I've eaten in a pa I've eaten in an empty room, but there was no patient in it. But how many of you have actually eaten in a room right next to the patient? Welcome in, welcome in with your Wakanda RN. I got a lot on my mind, but I'm not here to waste your time. Let's get into it. Right off the bat, how you doing? Let me know how your week's been. Let me know how you're doing mentally, physically, spiritually, whether you're listening to this or watching this, I appreciate it, man. Right off the bat, man. Let's get into it. A nurse records herself eating in a patient's room. Now, some of you listening to this, you probably have already done this. Maybe some of you thought about doing this. Maybe you're a patient listening or watching this, and you've seen a nurse do this. Personally, I have never I I I was trying to I'm trying to be real honest here. I'll try to be honest on my podcast. I have eaten in the hallways, like eaten on the go. Um I've eaten my car, I've eaten in a break room. I'm really trying to think of a time I ate in a patient's room. Like sit down, you're eating in a patient's room. Now, some of you may be saying, Well, I've eaten in a patient I've eaten in an empty room, but there was no patient in it. But how many of you have actually eaten in a room right next to the patient? And then if you have, I bet it was long-term care. It had to have been long-term care. If you did it in another specialty, let me know. Because I'm sitting there thinking, I can't see you in OB having a pizza and you just eating along with a mother who just had a baby. You know what I'm saying? I I I just I can't see that. You know what I'm saying? I I just can't see that. But hey, maybe you have. I I just can't see it. So I've never done that. Let me know in the comments if you've ever done that because um I just saw this on the internet. I keep saying that it's a real, weird and wonderful world healthcare. Like there's weird stuff that happens all the time. Maybe this ain't weird to you, but it's it's i key weird to me because I I just never sat there and just ate next to a patient. You know what I'm saying? And then thinking about like what if the patient's NPO, what if the patient doesn't have teeth and they don't hang out dentures and then they're hungry? What if they didn't like what the meal that was served, but they like what you got? I don't know, man. It can get it can get weird in a hurry. So if you've done this, let me know in the comments below. I want to ask you guys, my audience, would you ever consider being a D-O-N? AKA Director of Nursing. Myself personally, I would never be a DON, and I'm going to explain why. My experience has come from watching uh previous DONs and other long-term care facilities. I've watched DON in, you know, I think it's like a 60-bed facility, and I've seen a DON at a veteran center that hosts like 140 beds. And just watching them, not that they were bad, I'm not trying to throw any shade. Um, it's just watching them and they were overwhelmed and overworked. Because when you are the director of nursing, you're responsible for everybody. Every single person, every single individual. That responsibility solely falls on you. And typically, from what I've seen, you know, when you have state survey, um, they come to check to see if your building has any citations or whatever. Normally you're the first person on the chopping block, it seems like to me. You holding all that weight responsibility seems like a lot. Um, uh you're you're up 24-7. Um, if something happens within the facility, the DON is notified. So it doesn't matter, like some of you want to go, you know, you at you're at the child's baseball game or something, and you're getting a call saying so-and-so fail, and then they hit their head, and then you got to come fill out a report or whatever. I I don't like that. I've seen DONs that are called late into the night. I've worked night shift and I've had to call DONs about certain issues. I I hated to call people to wake them up out of their sleep, but for me, it's just like that for me was entirely too much. But I know some people talk about the money. They talk about the money, the money, the money, the money, the money. I'm gonna tell you right now, there's other ways for you as a nurse to make good money and still have a better work-life balance. Now, some people don't care about that, some people just want the money, they don't care about the work-life balance. I'm here to tell you, at least from my experience, a lot of DON jobs, you're not gonna have that work-life balance, and you are solely responsible. Um, I the reason I was inspired to make this, um, not to rain on anybody's parade. I saw another nurse content creator. She was, hey, come look, come with me as I start my DON journey. And I was just like, man, sis, you don't know what you're getting yourself into. But let me know in the comments below. Do you have aspiration to be a D O N? Is it something that's crossed your mind? Is that something that you want to be? Because for me personally, DON, that's that's not on my list. It's not on my list, man. And if you ain't got the leadership for it, I just don't even try it. Okay. So, okay, man. I know people get scammed on the internet all the time. People get scammed, people, you know, think that they can trust somebody or they they they trust their favorite nursing content creator or whatever, and then they try to buy a product or try to support the brand, and then they end up getting shortchanged, or they're just they're not getting their products. This sounds kind of relatable. Well, this happened with this content creator named Nurse Bay, um who supposedly I've seen multiple individuals make videos about her and her uh scrub cap brand that she has. Now, listen, and I'm not hey, listen, listen, I haven't spoken to this person. I got a you know, an interview, but from what I've seen on the internet, that she is not delivering her products. She's just simply not delivering her products whatsoever. And then other people said that she like orders them off of another website like Amazon or Sheen or something like that, and she's just buying that and selling it at a higher price. Um you know, it it in this nursing space, you know, there's not a lot of nursing content creators. You got people who aspire to be nursing content creators, you get people who actually get a good following, and then you know, they put out their own merch and things like that. So hopefully, I I don't know, man. If this has happened to you, I mean, let me know in the comments below. Some of you probably like, I don't even know who this is. I I get it, man. Even though you may be a healthcare person, you're just like, you know, I, you know, you you know certain individuals, but supposedly this is going on. I look, man, it's it's immoral, man. Don't do that. If you can put out a product, make sure your customers can get it. Uh set up anyway, anyway. There's better ways to handle it than just stealing off of another website and then just reselling it. All right, another topic I want to get into real quick is so I saw, you know, let's talk about medications. Um, let's talk about meds real quick. Let's talk about um emergency room because, you know, sometimes people go to the emergency room, and some people have no clue what all, at all, about any meds whatsoever, and especially when they're in intense pain, their pain levels above a five, and then you know, they're they're gonna get more than likely something pretty strong. Um, they're gonna get scheduled uh narcotics, and it it's you know, people some people get terrified of it. Some people, you know, they hear things on the you know on the news or whatever. Like, for example, you know, um, I think I heard it more so in 2023, um, more so than now. But, you know, when when fentanyl on the streets was uh a big thing, people would come to the emergency department, they're in severe pain, um, and then the the situation warrants for them to have fentanyl for pain. You know, somebody comes in with a broken femur or tibia or something like that, and they're in severe pain. And fentanyl is a common medication that is given. And there's patients who have literally refused pain medicine, refused fentanyl because it's they saw they saw it on the streets, they saw it on the news, and they don't want that to be them. Um, patient education is clearly needed, and you give patient education in hopes that they will still receive the proper pain medication they need. If not, you use a substitute or an alternative to try to help them out. But, you know, I tell people the dosage, what people take on the streets, um, it's definitely not the same as what you give um in the dose in a hospital. It's not it's nowhere near, you know, it's been safely approved, it's been gone over, pharmacist reviews it. Uh it there's processes in place to protect patients compared to it being out there, you know, on the black market or something. So that education is definitely needed. Um, but then you have the other side to where people come in and they're just seeking. They want to just have fentanyl. And that if that raises an eyebrow of every healthcare person that's out there. That'll make anybody raise an eyebrow, and people will, especially when you start naming specific medications, you're just like, okay, I think I see where we're going here. We can't just start with Tylenol. We got to go all the way to fentanyl, or huh? Uh, you you won't perk asset. Oh, you won't you won't perk tens in 320, you know, uh 325 milligrams. So you you know your medications. You know exactly what you want. You think this is BK, you can have it your way, but you ain't gonna have it your way. You know what I'm saying? Um so there's the other side of it too. So you got patients that'll be scared to get any strong pain medication at all because of what they saw on the news, and or they're scared of being addicted to prescription pain medicine. Um, so the you have that aspect too, and then you have the other side where people want nothing but pain medicine. And I so anyway, if you're if you're a nurse, you're a nursing, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Um hopefully if you listen to this in your non-healthcare personnel, um, hopefully this kind of helps a little bit to clear that up. But yeah, yep, just a little bit of education goes a long way. So, you know, you know, uh sometimes I like to share um a little bit of healthcare stories, um things that kind of go along my my journey and some things that kind of help patients to see that, you know, we're we're we're human too. You know what I'm saying? Um before I really get into that, um there was a post going around about how, you know, this nurse said he never got a daisy award, but he's gotten many compliments from patients. So I too am part of the movement that has never gotten a daisy award. I've never gotten that, but I've gotten countless thank yous. I appreciate you being my nurse, I appreciate you being here. Thank you for being an advocate. Those things mean a lot more to me than a Daisy Award. Um, and really a lot of my nursing peers feel the same way. Not that the ward doesn't have any credence whatsoever. It's just it doesn't have the significance as maybe people think it should have. But it's the those compliments from patients and or sometimes compliments from peers go uh go really, really, really, really far. My advice to my nursing family that's out there, um, and if you're not a nursing family, you can take this advice as well. I remember I used to I read this book called Eat That Cookie. Eat That Cookie. And basically, it was it was basically about how learning how to take compliments. You know, don't turn away the sweet stuff, eat the sweet stuff, and take the compliment. So eat that cookie. Somebody gives you a cookie, don't turn away that cookie, eat that cookie. You know what I'm saying? I think sometimes you get caught up in your work world, you get caught up in what you do that you take it for granted. Those compliments can take you such a long way. And let me give a little piece of advice too. I know the journey can be difficult, hard, long, and tough. If you will write down those compliments from your patients in a journal or in a jar, and then when you are having a rough day, please go back to that journey or journal. Please go back to that jar because those compliments can help you in some dark times. When there's times you feel like nursing is overwhelming, and it definitely can be, or you feel like you want to quit the profession in its entirety, which I completely understand. I really do. Go back to those compliments. Go back. Patients, peers, whoever, man, you're getting compliments, please savor those and go back to those and learn to eat that cookie. With that being said, I had a recent patient that um having heart failure, and I'm taking care of her, and we're having small talk, and she tells me that she is um an Air Force veteran. And I relate to her. I said, hey, I have a brother that's in the Air Force. Uh, I believe she said she's done 10 years in the Air Force, and my brother is currently um, he's doing 10 years right now. He's on his 10th year currently. She's asking about his rank, and she's comparing her rank, and we're just chatting it up, man. We're chatting it up, talking about military, and the conversation is really, really flowing. It's going well. And she's smiling, and I'm glad I could be, you know, that person for her to just help her go, help her go through this rough time for her being in heart failure. Um, and so it it touched me, and also as well, that her daughter reached out to me privately and said, I am so glad that you are my mother's nurse. Because I can tell you guys are hitting it off, and that's not common for everybody. I thank you so much for being that nurse for her. And that meant so much to me. That meant so much to me. And I I I I appreciate that. I I enjoy that, I savor that because that's what helps make makes nursing more worthwhile. Out of all the chaos, out of all the things that we see go on on the news, because you guys, you're if you're familiar with me, I talk about all kinds of crazy stuff. I talked about a little bit of crazy stuff, but you guys know this is very, very light compared to a lot of things that I've discussed in the past. Guys, I mean, some of the topics I have talked spoken about spoken about in the past. I mean, I guess tell, I tell you what goes on um, you know, government-wise, you know, bill-wise, you know, stuff about AI. I tell you stuff about, you know, patients getting assaulted. I mean, I tell you, I mean, patients that are found unresponsive on top of roofs and, you know, just all kind of stuff, man, that I I I report. But sometimes I like to give you guys things that that are on the positive side. I try to, you know, but sometimes, you know, you gotta hear the other side too. I do want to share one more feel-good story, though. Very, very, very recently, um, taking care of a patient who's an in-state COPD. And he he's very sick, he's lost a lot of weight. And, you know, we've been talking and hitting it off and really, really just um, you know, building that rapport while I'm trying to give him the medications that he needs to manage his COPD and everything else. Um, but the one thing that we would talk about every time we we we get together, he loves baseball. Loves baseball. He has multiple baseball teams. You know, Yankees, Dodgers. Um there's a couple more too. Those are the two big ones I can remember. And, you know, I'm not a huge baseball person myself, but I wanted to watch, you know, clips, highlights, catch whatever I could just so I could come back and relate to them. And, you know, when the Dodgers won the World Series recently, it meant so much for us just to have that conversation about the Dodgers, man. I mean, think about N-State COPD. Every day it's a sh every day is a struggle. You can't breathe, you can barely talk, you can barely move, you can barely do anything. In-state COPD. And the one thing I could do is find some type of relatability. And if we just talk about baseball and that just lights up as a day, it's worth it for me. You know, especially if you have the patients that they're truly sick and they're not milking anything, you know, they they call they get on a call light or something, they really need help, or they call you for anything. I mean, they you know they absolutely need you. And to have a patient like that and to talk about something he enjoys and really seeing his smile and really just seeing him light up made a big just made a big difference for me. It it reminds me why I became a nurse. It takes me back to why I actually became a nurse. Uh, it takes me back to when I was in my very beginning stages as a NAT, a nurse's aid in training before, became a CNA. And I had a patient that, you know, she was like 75, 75, I believe. And I can't remember her her diagnosis, but she was long-term care. She would love, I mean, she would light up every time I'd come around. Um, she would save snacks for me. And, you know, she was the patient that I wanted to come to work and see and take care of. And uh, she was very cute, very adorable. You know, I remember she passed away from anemia, but she was always dear to my heart. She was always dear to my heart. She she, you know, kept me, kept me going in those very early stages. And so when I see patients that, you know, I can talk to and we can chat it up and everything, I I I love that. You know what I'm saying? I I love every bit of that. And I hope some of these stories motivate you. I hope some of these stories touch you. You know, um, this job isn't always easy, but you gotta find those things that keep you going. You gotta find it. I know some of you are listening right now, you're you're in a dark spirit spot, you're in a dark place. I'm here to tell you that you'll get through it, you you will overcome it. Hang in there. You you'll get through it. It's tough right now, but you'll get through it. Okay. Hang in there. Hang in there. And if you gotta leave the field, I completely understand. There's no judgment zone here. If you gotta leave the field, I completely understand. It's tough out there. Okay. But anyway, guys, thank you guys for tuning in, which you will kinda are in. Um, wherever you see this, man, please like, follow, subscribe. Um, and anyway, we'll check you guys next time. Love you guys. Peace.