What Happens When You Work While On Sick Leave, Cheer New Grads, Debate Youth Gender Care, And Ask Why Educators Earn Less

A nurse collects sick leave pay from one employer while working shifts at another and ends up sentenced, repaying funds, and suspended from practice. We open with that case not to sensationalize it, but to draw a clean line on ethics, policy, and why the short-term gains never outweigh the long-term damage to your license and your livelihood.

From there we shift into something brighter: a big salute to new grads gearing up for the NCLEX and the first year on the floor. We talk about choosing units that want you as much as you want them, why a great preceptor is worth gold, and how to handle that swirl of early questions—scope, documentation, provider calls, and team dynamics. If your dream specialty says no today, we map the “nearby path” that gets you there in a year, with less stress and more skill.

We also wade into one of the most charged policy fights of the moment: proposed federal moves affecting gender-affirming care for minors and the knock-on effects for hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid. You’ll hear a clear personal stance on minors, plus how bedside teams can stay patient-centered, law-abiding, and cohesive when values collide. No shouting, just straight talk about consent, standards, and protecting vulnerable patients while supporting staff through moral distress.

Finally, we hit the workforce choke point almost no one wants to fund: nurse educators. The numbers are blunt—faculty earn far less than bedside and management, programs turn away qualified applicants, and shortages deepen. We connect the dots on why pay parity, funded clinical faculty lines, and real preceptor support aren’t luxuries; they’re the only way to expand capacity and stabilize staffing. If you care about safer ratios and better care, you care about who teaches the next class.

If this conversation hits home, tap follow, share with a colleague, and drop your take in the comments—what change would make the biggest difference where you work?

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Listener Check-In
• 0:21 Sick Leave Fraud Case Overview
• 2:22 Consequences And Professional Fallout
• 4:18 Advice And Shout-Outs To New Grads
• 7:45 Preceptors, Support, And Early Career Jitters
• 12:18 Policy Debate On Transgender Care For Minors
• 18:30 Pay Gap And Shortage Of Nurse Educators

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome in, welcome in with your conda RN. I got a lot of my mind, but I'm not here to waste your time. Let's get into it. So, hey, what's up, y'all? Um, hope your week's been good. Hope you've had a blessed time. You know what I'm saying? I always like to check on everybody, see how they're doing. Let me know in the comments below. How's your week been? All right, man. So let's start right off the bat. Nurse sentence after working second job while out on paid sick leave. You know, in the previous episode, I talked about having a side hustle and having, you know, maybe a second job or some type of side hustle, right? But I don't want you to have a side hustle that ends you getting locked up and ain't gonna let you out. So let's kind of talk about it a little bit more. Um it's kind of weird, but hey, let's talk about it. So it looks like we have NHS nurse sentenced after working second job while out on sick leave. So key takeaways in March of 2022, uh NHS nurse Claire Dawson began sick leave from Fort Valley due to COVID-related illness and diabetes complications. I mean, it sounds legit. While receiving full pay, later reduced to half pay from Fort Valley, Dawson simultaneously worked agency shifts through Scottish Nursing Guild over um, looks like 6,600 pounds in additional income. She was sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid community work in order to repay 2,400 pounds to Fort Valley. Interesting. So, okay. Let's keep reading a little bit. She worked in the accident and emergency department at Fort Valley Royal Hospital, was convicted of fraud after an investigation revealed that she had been working shifts with the Scottish Nursing Guild while simultaneously claiming sick leave pay from Fort Valley. The misconduct began in March 22 when Dawson went out on leave, citing COVID-related illness and diabetes complications. She claimed to be sick while on her normal job, but went on to pay uh work for pay at Scottish Nursing Guild. Okay, okay, so we got the the short, short and sweet version of it. I mean, we can go through the consequences. For the beyond the criminal proceedings, Dawson faced separate scrutiny from nursing and midwifery counsel. The regulatory body discovered that Dawson had falsely stated on a job application in August 2023. She was not subject to any fitness to practice proceedings or fraud investigations. NMC determined her actions had been had breached fundamental tenets of nursing practice and were liable to bring the nursing profession into uh disrespute. As a result, they imposed a 12-month suspension from nursing practice. So basically, she okay, so the short and sweet, she's working for fraud, right? She she was performing fraud. Um just so basically she was performing fraud, right? She basically took sick leave, COVID sick leave from one job while she worked agency shifts at another job. And listen, yeah, that's fraud. I know some people probably may disagree. Funny enough, this isn't the first incident I've heard of somebody doing this. I I've heard of CNA's doing this as well. Or they're calling sick from one job and then go to the other job. So they'll get the sick pick sick pay from one job and then go pick up a shift at another job. A B is it happens every day. I'm just saying. Like it this ain't this ain't nothing new. Obviously, this had this occurred in the UK. Not, you know, this didn't happen in the United States where I'm from, but at the same time, yeah, you should have known better. I mean, you you took an extended leave of absence while drawing a check, and then you worked the other job. There's really not much more to add or say to that. But if you've done this, I mean let me know in the comments below. You need to do it anomalously, let me know in the comments below, whatever. But fraud. There's really not much else to say on that. So I do want to shift gears. First, I kind of thought about putting this to the to the end, but I feel as though it's important and I wanted to talk about it more so up front. Nursing graduates. So, right now, during this time, there's a lot of nursing students that are graduating from the nursing programs. So I want to give a big shout out to you guys. A big round of applause to you guys who are finally graduating from your respective nursing programs. I know all the hard work and dedication and trials and tribulations that you've you've gone through. I tell people, hey man, I love nursing school so much. I went twice. So shout out to you guys. I'm happy for you, proud of you. I know a lot of you the next step, you're preparing for the NCLEX. If you need help, I know a guy. So let me know if you need that below. But I do want to say too, after you pass your boards, you know, after you pass all that, my advice is to go to somewhere that you're that you want and somewhere that you're wanted. So go somewhere where you want to go, but also go where you're wanted. And also give a piece of advice to my new grads out there. If you apply for a job and you did not get that job, it is perfectly okay. It is okay. You may have thought about this specialty, dreamed about this specialty. You might, that might have been an inspiration where you got through nursing school, but it is literally okay if you get denied. It is okay. Some of you probably have guarantees from certain hospitals that yes, it's past your boars that will bring you on or will hire you and have you do, you know, some tech work or something. So some of you probably have some guarantees, but if you're not one of those people, don't do not freak out if you do not get the job. Okay. Hang in there, keep grinding. If you have to go to another specialty for a season, a year or so, get that valuable experience and then try to go back to that particular specialty that you're interested in. So don't let's let it be the end of the world. Okay. Don't let it be the end of the world. Just hang in there. Also, if I were to give another piece of advice to new grads, try to find you a good preceptor. If you can find more than one, that is great. But I'm gonna be realistic. If you can find a great preceptor, that would be great because when you come out, you're brand new. I mean, it's a you're just it's a big scary world out there, right? You're just scared, you just got your license, you don't want to lose your license. What can you do? What can't you do? Am I doing this right? Are my coworkers gonna like me? Um, do am I taking care of my patients right? And, you know, is it can I communicate with the doctor, you know, my documentation, like all these things, right? You gotta like it's just seems like it's completely overwhelming. So, what can help that is having uh, number one, a good preceptor, and number two, a good support system. I mean, if you can find a couple coworkers that just will help you, that not necessarily your preceptor, but a couple people that can help you through the step-by-step-by-step processes of the ups and downs of your particular specialty and and all that, that that's great. That is my advice as well. So hang in there. At the beginning's kind of wonky, kind of rough, but just hang in there. I just want to give some advice to my new grads and give a big shout out to my new grads because I did not want to skip y'all. I did not want to skip y'all. Some of y'all have followed this channel, some of you guys have participated in my lives. I try to give you guys a lot of encouragement and hope. So I just want to give you guys a shout-out, man. I want to give you guys a shout out and I appreciate you guys um including me in your journey. I'm humbled to be a part of your journey. Um, so thank you for including that. And yeah, shout out to you guys, man. Okay. So we're flipping this in another direction. Um, this is very controversial, and I know this right here is going to have a lot of people in their feelings one way or the other. So let's go ahead and discuss something that's very, very in the news right now. It's President Trump moves to ban gender care, transgender care for minors by targeting hospitals. That is the particular topic. And we're gonna go to the particular article and we're gonna talk about it just a little bit. I'm not gonna go into the whole, whole details of the article. We're just gonna read it, what it says, and then kind of go from there. The Trump administration health officials announced Thursday that the federal government will block transgender transgender care, my tongue, my gosh, to children by targeting hospitals and doctors that prove it. New proposed rules prohibit hospitals from participating in Medicare and Medicaid if they provide care such as puberty blockers and surgeries for transgender minors and would prevent federal coverage of such treatments. These procedures failed to meet professionally recognized standards of care. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said calling many types of transgender care malpractice. Medical professionals are entities providing sex-rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards of health care. Um there's certain medical groups that denounce the announcement, say they intrude on physician-patient relationships and jeopardize care for everyone. And I I have read through this, and I just to keep it real with you guys, um I wish I could read it and say it was not, it's not bias, but it it is bias, and it's just it just is what it is. So I'm quickly back. Because if I read through that, just you know, it gets quotes from a a physician and you know, certain groups that support, you know, support transgender care, and it just goes on. Here's what I will say, right? Wakanda, what what where are you at on this? My position is very simple. For all my people who are transgender and you want to change your care, you want to change whatever is going on, you're a grown adult. You do what you want to do, you do what you have to do. My stance with children is I don't want I don't agree with that with children. I I I don't lose people that's fine. I just don't believe children should be involved with that. If you ask me what kind of why, um it's very simple. Because they're children. They're still a child. And maybe we have different definitions of what it means to be a child and what does that look like? What does that entail? I do know a child trusts adults to help them through the early processes of life. Shoot, adults are trust adults to get through the regular ins and outs of life. So so much more a child. And a child, I don't think people understand. Children go through a lot. I think as the generations get older, I think there's still a lack of awareness on how much a child actually goes through. But I think some of the generations may be getting better. Um, I think millennials are starting to have a better understanding than the previous generation. Children go through a lot. I mean, with the rise of social media, I I can't imagine. I mean, I mean when I was growing up, I mean, we had, you know, MySpace, right? And, you know, eventually Facebook. But even that is not compared to what kids have access to today. These kids have access to so much more than what we had access to. They're exposed to so much more information than what we had access to. And, you know, the days of kids just go outside and play with play with toys or go stay inside, play with toys, or go outside and ride a bike or jump on a trampoline. I mean, that's just that's just not the whole child experience, man. Like, there's a lot of social aspects. There's a lot more anxiety. There's a lot more mental health that's going on with kids. There's a lot of mental health going on with kids than what's discussed or what's talked about. And I just feel as though that because kids are going through a lot, they need adults to be there for them and support them. These kids also need a chance to learn, grow, you know, change up. You know, they have a, they have, they should have the right to make a decision and then change their mind or be redirected. I mean, that's what parents are supposed to be there for to help guide kids in the right direction. And I feel as though that sometimes these decisions get pushed on to children because that's what they want to be. These adults, like this is what I want to be. I'm gonna push this on my child. So my position is very, very simple. This isn't a left thing, this ain't a right thing. For me, it's this for me, I look at it just a human thing. I just believe children should be left alone until they are fully consenting adults. I mean, these kids can't even smoke, right? Can't drink, right? Can't go to the military, but they should they're allowed to be able to have gender changes. I think not. I think not. So my position is simple. I don't have to read from what an administration says or the opposing opinion of that administration. This this is my, I just wanted to give you guys the article. And then you listening, you watching this, I wanted to give you my side where I stand. I mean, I I have some deeper things in terms of where I stand religiously, where I stand as a black man in the black community. I mean, I could dive deeper into that, but just keeping it on the surface. This is where I stand. If you want to dive deeper into that, we can dive deeper into that. But that is completely where I stand with that. So, y'all let me know in the comments below. If you want to talk, you want to talk about it, we can. If not, that's cool. But uh that's my that's my stance on that. Next topic, man. So nursing educators. Oh, nursing instructors, nurse educators. It says that the article says that we need more nurse educators. Why are they being paid so much less? Have you ever thought about being a nurse educator? Or you thought about being becoming an instructor? And you know, talking about my nursing school graduates. But have you thought about it? You know, kind of let me know, man. Let me know in the comments below. All right. Key takeaways. Study finds that on average the annual salary of a nursing faculty is$8,677 lower than all other nurses. No. A 2023 study by the AACN found that the average National Nursing Facility vacancy rate was 7.8, equaling nearly 1,977 full-time vacancies. Nursing programs turned away 65,766 quality qualified applicants from undergraduate and graduate nursing programs in 2023. So look like there's a significant difference in salary. Utilizing the data from the 2022 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, the study used descriptive statistics and Chi Square tests to compare unadjusted salary differences in demographic and professional characteristics between nursing faculty and other nurses. Overall, the study found that the average unadjusted annual salary of nursing faculty was um 8,677 lower than all other nurses. So it was go down. It is listen to these numbers. Listen to these numbers. We talk about why is there a lack of nursing educators? Here's why. So we have 18,000 less than staff nurses. We have pretty much 20,000 less than charge nurses. We have pretty much 28,000 less than frontline managers. And you want somebody to take pretty much$20,000 to$30,000 less to become a nurse educator. Most people are not doing that. That's why there's not enough nurse educators. The data made it clear that comprehension remains a significant barrier to building the nursing faculty workforce. The David Armstrong project director at Center for Healthcare Workforce Studies, nurses who are highly educated and experienced often have to accept the pay cut to teach the next generation. If we want to expand the nursing program capacity and address workforce shortages, we must ensure that academic roles are financially competitive and professionally supported. Absolutely. The average age between 47 and 61 years. Degree requirements with an increasing number of accredited programs want doctorate-prepared educators. For that pay, ain't nobody gonna do that. Most uh MSN and DMP programs are producing um nurse practitioners over educators. The number of MSN nursing programs is significantly lower than other MSN degrees. So, okay, so okay, so few other reasons. Let's talk about this real quick. According to the AACN's report, um, the faculty shortages, the top reasons for not accepting our qualified applicants. Other reasons included clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptor, and budget restraints. Of those applicants denied admission, close to um 5,500 qualified master applicants and almost 4,500 qualified doctor applicants. BSN enrollment is slightly higher than the previous year, but it's markedly down from the peak in 2021. The bridge RN to BSN program enrollment is down and decreased for the fifth consecutive year. Direct entry RN program enrollment has remained steady. Master programs for nursing decreased by almost 1%, a third of the decline. PhD and nursing programs declined by 3%, marking the 10th year of decline. DAP and enrollment increased. Okay, so let's then talk about a few of these real quick. A lot of numbers, information, a lot of that going on there. But here's what I take from it. It's the pay. It's the pay. I mean, if you open up, I'm telling you, man, money can solve a lot of problems. It can't solve everything, but it can solve a lot of problems. We can talk about classroom space, we can talk about preceptor sites, we can talk about all this other extra stuff. But if you pay more, people will say, I don't care about none of that. I will work with that because the money is worth it. People do it anyway. Nurses, CNAs, techs, therapists, ETC, people go to not so great situations every day. But guess what? The money's right. So they're gonna go. So let's not make it seem like it's just all these other reasons. The number one reason is because people aren't getting paid.$20,000, almost$30,000, is way too much. You know, you say, hey, I want you to take$20,000 less to go do something else. Woo! Unless you got multiple screens of income or you got a nice partner that's providing you money, or sugar mama or sugar daddy, you you just ain't gonna be doing that. You're not gonna be doing that. So that's the big Reason. But then there's some other things I find to be very interesting to me. There's a decline in programs. They talked about there's a decline in bridge program, RN to BSN. You got a decline in BSN programs. I mean, you're talking about a decline in all these programs. I'm just like, y'all, the writing's on the wall. Unless there's a better, unless healthcare as a whole gets better, unless there's more incentives, unless there's better protection, people will not be in this field. They will not be in this field, y'all. They will not be in this field. That's what those numbers show me. That's what those numbers clearly show me. And yeah, they said it might be an increase in DMP programs. I mean, that's that's cool. I'm I'm happy for that, sorta. Kinda. But all in all, I mean, the rest of the program numbers are still going down. I mean, the people are just not going to these other programs. It doesn't matter. MSN, BSN, at bridge programs, they're not going. It's not happening. That's what I take from that. You know, you want more clinical educators? Y'all better open a pocketbook. You better open it up because I'm telling you, just being off on holidays or whatever, that ain't gonna cut it. Which a lot of teachers still gotta work through the holidays, too. But that still ain't gonna cut it. But if you're a clinical educator, let me know in the comments below. How do you think? What do you feel? Is it worth it? Is it not worth it? I mean, all my all my instructors out there, let me know in the comments below because it's hard out there. It's hard out there. It's hard out there. All right, man. So, quick recap. In this podcast episode, we we talked about um nurse sentence while working her second job while on paid sick leave. We talked about how the Trump administration is moving to ban gender, transgender care for minors by targeting hospitals. We talked about the need for educators out there and why are they being paid so much less. But we also talked about my nursing school graduates. So once again, shout out to y'all. If you enjoy topics like these, you want to see me talk about other topics, please let me know in the comments below. You're free to message me, uh, hit me up wherever you see this. So, yeah, man, I appreciate you guys for tuning in with Joe Bakondar in. I love you guys. I hope you guys have a blessed rest of the week, and I am out.