When Doctors, Nurses, And Systems Collide Over Autonomy And Accountability

We tackle three flashpoints in healthcare: the power struggle over nursing’s professional status and autonomy, the road-birth after a disputed OB discharge and what accountability should look like, and a hospital air-quality scare that pits staff safety against “normal” test results. We invite physicians, nurses, and parents to weigh in with personal experiences and practical fixes that prevent harm before policies catch up.

• nursing’s professional status debate and scope implications
• alleged physician lobbying against APRN and CRNA autonomy
• roadside birth after discharge and disciplinary actions
• bias, listening, and safety in maternity triage
• community feedback from physicians and nurses
• Nurse Jeffrey’s pivot, money, and meaning of “being a nurse”
• entrepreneurship as a path to reduce burnout
• Alaska hospital air-quality complaints and investigations
• transparency, testing limits, and interim safety steps

If you enjoy topics like this and you want to see other topics covered, let me know in the comments below. Let me know what you want me to talk about, what you want me to see, what you want me to discuss out here in the weird yet wonderful world of healthcare.

Chapters

• 0:00 Check-In And Opening
• 0:17 Is Nursing A “Professional Degree” Fight
• 1:47 Are Physicians Blocking Nurse Autonomy
• 2:27 Audience Feedback Invitation
• 2:27 Viral OB Discharge And Roadside Birth
• 5:30 Hospital Accountability And Policy Fixes
• 7:10 Bias And Safety In Maternity Care
• 8:20 Listeners’ Birth Experiences Prompt
• 8:21 Nurse Jeffrey’s Career Pivot
• 11:10 Money, Meaning, And Entrepreneurship
• 13:20 Air Quality Crisis At Alaska Hospital
• 16:20 Worker Safety Versus System Costs
• 18:20 Recap And Community Requests

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome in, welcome in with Joe Bakondar in. I got a lot of my mind, but I'm not here to waste your time. Let's get into it. How was your week? Let me know how things are going for you physically, mentally, and spiritually. I always like to check in with my listeners to see how they're doing before we get started with today's episode. All right, man. Right off the bat, so if you have followed anything within nursing or healthcare within the last week, probably week and a half, about whether nursing is considered a professional degree or not by the Department of Education. There's been a lot of talks and debates off of that. But what if I give you a twist? What if potentially the people leading that charge were not necessarily the people you think? What if it was within your own space, your own house, your own workforce? What if it's between physicians that started this? So I have a video to share with you guys. Her name is Takara, and we'll just kind of see what happens here. It's Takara, and she does a lot of nursing stuff, but she kind of shared a perspective I want to share with you guys. So let's let's see. Cool on GD, but tell your age, APR and beauty. It's in a good way, though. Docs, do y'all hate C RNAs? Let me know. We are off of that. So there's a lot. There's a lot. I don't know if y'all, some of y'all heard that. Maybe some of you didn't. Um we'll see how the video comes out. So basically, what she's saying is that doctors and physicians, they are lobbying for nurses not to advance, to not have independent practice. I don't know. I mean, seeing I haven't read the articles that um APRM Beauty had put out there, um, but it is interesting to say the least. I do have physicians that do watch this page and follow this page. I would love your feedback. I mean, do you want to see your nursing colleagues advance? Or is it only contingent on if they're at a certain level, if they're at a certain place, you know, like if they're just gonna get their MSc on here, like do you support them or if they're gonna get beyond that to where they're gonna get their doctorate? Are you are you kind of like against that? Let me know, man, because I think in this field, like there should be a lot more unity than what there actually is uh levels of healthcare. So interesting enough, let me know in the comments below what you guys think about that. So my next topic is doctor and nurse pair fired for discharging woman who gave birth eight minutes later. So let's let's discuss that, man. There's been a lot of things coming out recently about on the mistreatment of women in labor. And uh, I'm not happy that this is happening, but I am happy that we're having more of these stories. There's more of an awareness of things that's actually going on with maternity, maternity health. So let's discuss this, okay? All right. So, key takeaways here. We got um Indiana mother Mercedes Wells gave birth to her baby on the side of the road just eight minutes later, after she says she was discharged from the hospital. Video footage of her giving birth went viral, along with outrage over her mistreatment. The news comes along um alongside other alleged mistreatment of black women in labor, leading to some demand that healthcare professionals address racism and OB care. So, um, yeah, man, let's kind of talk about this more and more. Um, so only in a week's span of time, two stories of pregnant women experiencing significant gaps in health care have gone viral. The first occurred in Texas when a pregnant woman in active labor appeared to be dismissed by a triage nurse. The second incident involved Mercedes Wells from Indiana, who claimed she was sent home from Franciscan Health Crown Point Hospital on Sunday, November 16th, after going to the hospital the night before. A Facebook post alleges that Wells was checked in around midnight the night prior and was around three centimeters dilated. The next morning when the staff checked on her again and found that she was still at a three, she claims that the nurse told her she would be discharged. Another Facebook post by Wells' sister-in-law claims that the nurse who checked on her was also new and only had a few months of labor and delivery experience. Wells says that she was having regular contractions every four to five minutes apart and was never assessed or even visited by a doctor. Upon hearing that she would be sent home, the post begged that she begged the nurses to let her stay. Only eight minutes after leaving the hospital, Wells gave birth on the side of the road. The video of the incident which shows Wells being wheeled out of the hospital in distress and holding her newborn as the car barrels down the road quickly went viral, sparking immediate outcry. So Franciscan Health speaks out. Now the hospital where Wells says that she was discharged from has done a little discharging of their own, announcing they have fired a nurse and a doctor responsible for Wales' care. In a public statement, Franciscan Health Crown Point president and CEO Raymond Grady stated the video was difficult to watch and admitted that the hospital failed to listen to Mrs. Wells' concerns. We got the whole, if you want to read that on your own separate time, you can. As an experienced mother who publicly acknowledged having giving birth at a hospital with positive experience, she knew that something was not right. The statement continued. The CEO concluded a statement announcing three action steps following Wells' treatment. Cultural competency training for all labor and delivery staff. The physician and nurse directly involved with Mrs. Wells' care have been fired. A policy that all pregnant patients leaving the labor and delivery unit must be examined by a physician before they leave the hospital. And then there's a few other things too. It's just it's sad. There's a video on Instagram that you can watch. It's on ABC News and ABC 7 Chicago if you would like to watch that video. Pretty hard to watch, to be honest with you. Oh, let's uh let's come back here. So listen, there's a lot to unpack there. I've talked about in a previous episode about the discrepancy that you know, black pregnant women and discrimination and things that they faced. I can't necessarily say that this was necessarily the issue, but it kind of goes along with that. However, I am glad that there was accountability taken. It sounds like an investigation was done, and they concluded that unfortunately the nurse and the physician were in the wrong. The physician never saw the mother. Never saw. To me, I don't know about you guys, that is absurd. And the fact that they had to put a policy in place to be sure that you are seen by a physician before you leave OB, that is crazy. But at least it's in place now. But it it took it seems to me that stuff seems to be put in place after a terrible event has happened. So we have that. And, you know, because a lot of times we see statements that are pretty bland and they don't take accountability or they'll kind of say, we'll do an investigation, but you never really hear anything. But it's not like they got to the bottom of it, found that they were in the wrong and they wanted to make corrective steps in that regard. Now, how are you gonna compensate the mother? That that still remains to be seen because I would like to see that as well. How are you gonna compensate the mother because that experience should not have happened? I mean, I'm glad you're gonna make policy changes. That's great. But what about uh compensating the mother? So that's what I got to say to that. If you're a mother listening to this, have you had any problems um with birth? Have you any problems with doctors or nurses? Have you had a rough experience in your delivery and your whole experience with that? Let me know in the comments below. So crazy. Okay, next topic. So you're listening to this, and you chose a career path, you went to school, whatever it may be, you went to school for this particular career path, and then along the way, as you can continue your education, you decided that you're going to change career paths, you're not gonna pursue it any longer, but you made content over it, you made videos about it, you went live about it, you were explaining your journey, and then you quit. So some of you probably be wondering, what or who am I talking about? I'm talking about Nurse Jeffrey. Nurse Jeffrey was inspirational to a lot of people that I saw that, you know, he he got it from the mud, if you got what I'm saying. A lot of people supported him and his journey, you know, he documented his nursing school journey, and he persevered, overcame a lot of trials, became an uh an LPN, a licensed practical nurse. And uh it seemed like his career path that he was choosing was to become a registered nurse and then become a CRNA. And then recently he has come out and he has said that he's no longer pursuing that career path, and he has a side business, and that side business is doing very well, and he wants to focus and put more attention into that. And he got a lot of flack. And the reason I feel like he got that flack is because you know how I mean you you should know how it is. If if you are supported because you're doing one particular thing, which is nursing, and then you venture off, you do something else. I mean, you're gonna get flack. That's anything in life, really. You know, as long as you're on as long as you're doing what other people want to support you doing, it's fine. But as soon as you do something, you veer off, you do something different, you're gonna get you're gonna receive flack, you're gonna receive hate, you're gonna receive that. It's that's not just for nursing school. That's anything in life. That's anything in life. So that's one thing we can take from that. I think some people were probably pretty mad or whatever, fake outrage, whatever. I think they were pretty upset because they may seem like you don't really love nursing. You're not really in it for you're just in it for the money. So let's break that down. What is nursing? Well, at the end of the day, what if you break it down to the basic components, what is nursing? You're taking care of individuals. You're taking care of individuals within a particular specialty. So if you're OB, talked about OB, you're taking care of mothers and newborns. If you're taking if you are a page, of course you're taking care of kids. If you choose long-term care, you choose you're taking care of elderly adults, typically. So you can provide a particular care to a particular group of individuals based upon the area of expertise that you choose to pick. At the end of the day, this man is still a licensed practical nurse. At the end of the day, he can still choose to work in whatever specialty you choose to work in, and he's still a nurse. Whether he's an RN or LPN or CRNA, he is still a licensed practical nurse. He's still a nurse, he's still licensed. Now, I don't know his particular plans in terms of how much he's gonna work and or how much he's focused on his other job. Can I tell you something, people? If you want to chase your dreams and work, you you realize you can do both. You realize you can do both because nursing may be something that you enjoy doing or you may have a passion about, but you can have two passions. You can have something else that you, your career, something else that you love. So you you're allowed to do that. So, and then who's to say, like if it's successful business, that he doesn't do something else that ultimately ends up helping people? So that's what I have to say with that. And then the other thing, too, I said this in a quick video, but we are all in the business to what? Make money. We don't work for free. This country and America is way too expensive not to work. I mean, you you need to work. If you want to have any good quality of life whatsoever, you you need to work. Okay? We're all here to work, we're all here to make money. And unfortunately, you know, you got to make money in order to do the things that you want to do. Even if you want to be a philanthropist, a great philanthropist, you still need money. So whether you want to spend things selfishly or unselfishly, you still have to have money. So if he's making a lot of money with the side business, what is the problem? Are you jealous because you don't have a side business? You know you could go choose to do whatever side business you want to. You know, you can choose to take any passion that you're doing and choose to try to make it into a business, into some form of entrepreneurship. And I wish nurses would take more of an initiative to try to get into entrepreneurship one form of way or another. So maybe more of you should follow nurse Jeffrey's example and try to get you another business going. I mean, it worked for him. So why doesn't it work for you? So that's why this outrage with nurse Jeffrey to me is ridiculous. It is overblown, it is overrated, and uh a lot of you just need to grow up. A lot of you need to grow up. I mean, you're mad because somebody else chose a different career field and they're making more money in doing so. You sound like a child. Grow up. Okay. So let me know in the comments what you think about that. Had to go home a little tirade about that. Okay. Now the last topic today is 30 nurses report illnesses at an Alaskan regional hospital. I mean, that's 30 and plus nurses. I mean, you it's hard to get 30 people to agree. It's hard to get three people to agree on anything, but you get 30 nurses that are reporting something. So let's let's talk about it. Some key takeaways here. More than 30 nurses report symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, respiratory issues linked to potential air contaminants. Uh, Alaskan Occupational Safety and Health is conducting a second investigation following persistent complaints in the reports. Nurses advocate for relocating or shutting down. The Santa Pac medical waste system amidst ongoing health concerns. So, the Alaskan workplace safety regulators have opened a second investigation into air quality concerns at Alaska Regional Hospital after more than 30 nurses reported reoccurring systems they believe may have linked to hazard hazardous indoor air. Nurses have reported alarming systems, including headaches, dizziness, rashes, breathing issues, burning eyes, and lips. Your lips are burning? Okay. Sore throats and chest discomfort. With many cases concentrated on the hospital's second floor. One nurse identified as Amy Brown described a severe incident. We have had a nurse pass out and fall over a patient. We've had nurses with chest pain and cardiac symptoms that have been sent to the ER. It seems to be affecting everyone a little bit differently, and some people aren't having any effects at all. Many nurses suspect exposure to vapors from the Santa Pac medical waste sterilization system or its ventilation infrastructure. Others say they feel discouraged from openly discussing their symptoms or explaining the use of protective gear to patients. I can see that. Hospital response worker criticism. HCA healthcare, oh, HCA, that tells me, which operates the hospital, stated that it has run dozens of environmental tests, and all the tests have come back within the normal range. It is also said in abundance of caution we have refreshed and upgraded the area and disinfected the air handling system. Nurses remain concerned that the intermittent contaminants may have not been captured. Anonymous health reports filed in October, documented dizziness, nausea, flushing, raw throat, and slight brain fog. Even we're using a PAPR and tingling lips, mouth, throat, nausea while wearing goggles and an N95. So it there's a lot going on there. So this is a classic case of nurses versus the hospital, um HCA hospitals, shout out Florida. They are making it seem like it's gotta be made up or something is going on. Is it possible something else is going on? For sure, but when you have 30 nurses, I mean, we're talking, I mean, 30 people. 30 people are all experiencing these symptoms. I don't feel like that's made up. Now, what it probably is, is come down to expenses. It's expensive to change the infrastructure. I don't know their sanitization system, I don't know how that works, but I'm sure it's very, very expensive. It's probably a lot cheaper to have a test done. But at the end of the day, I mean, there's something obviously going on within this hospital. Obviously, to where it needs to be investigated and something has to be done. I mean, can you imagine you walk into a patient's room, you have on PPE, and then or N95, and then your patient's like, what seems to be the problem? And then you have to explain, like, it's the hospital. I don't know what it is. There's no, there, there ain't no, there's no airborne illnesses, droplet illnesses out there. It's just this hospital. There's something in the air in this hospital that I can't just walk around. That is insane. That's insane to me. Those unsafe working conditions, man. Like those workers, nurses and non-nurses, they deserve to work in a safe work environment. So I hope they come to another root cause because that that is a that's terrible. That is absolutely terrible. So y'all let me know in the comments what you think about that. I mean, have y'all experienced anything like that? I mean, I've seen a few things to where there's some things hazardous to work, not like that. I mean, I've seen like, you know, more so on the insect side to where there's wasps in the vents, or, you know, there's bed bugs or there's other things like that, but not to where um there's something in the air that's causing me to experience all these symptoms in the work environment. Uh unless marijuana counts. I mean, there's some people that that are really big on marijuana and I get a contact high. But if you want to count that, but if you don't want to count that, then I don't know. So let me know the comments what you think. So, I mean, we talked about, you know, more drama going on between maternity and people being neglected in their assessment. You know, nursing a doctor was fired off of that. We talked about how there may be an associate, there may be um some effort between physicians and them laboring to the Department of Education trying to keep nurses down, possibly. We talked about nurse Jeffrey and my opinion on him quitting our end school and how it really is nobody's business. And then we also talked about there's 30 nurses reported illnesses in Alaskan Regional Hospital. If you enjoy topics like this and you want to see other topics covered, let me know in the comments below. Let me know what you want me to talk about, what you want me to see, what you want me to discuss out here in the weird yet wonderful world of healthcare. But thank you guys for tuning in with Tribiconda RN. I'm glad you guys stayed a while, and I hope you guys have a blessed rest of the week. Peace.