Guiding Future Nurses Toward Purpose, Practice, And Possibility

Nurses save lives—and that simple truth reshaped Dr. Patrick “Dr. H” Hickey’s destiny five decades ago. Our conversation with Dr. H blends grit, humor, and deep professional insight to help you decide whether nursing is your calling and how to build a career that endures. We talk frankly about why motives matter, how to manage the emotional load of patient care, and what it takes to stand out when everyone has a strong GPA but little real-world experience.

We unpack nursing specialties in plain language—from Pediatrics, ICU, ER, and OR to Oncology and Advanced Practice—and clarify what credentials like CEN, CNOR, and CCRN actually mean for patient outcomes and career mobility. Dr. H breaks down education pathways with nuance: the speed and hands-on intensity of a two‑year ADN, the leadership runway of a four‑year BSN, and the bridge programs and tuition reimbursement that let you keep learning without drowning in debt. If you’re choosing your first unit or your first job, you’ll get practical criteria for evaluating hospitals: orientation length, preceptors, staffing ratios, infection data, turnover, clinical ladders, and the red flags buried in big sign-on bonuses.

A mentor at heart, Dr. H shares how to build a resume that speaks to hiring managers—service, leadership, nurse tech experience, study abroad, and even nonclinical work that proves you can multitask under pressure. We also explore global service learning and why supervised, international clinicals can transform confidence, empathy, and diagnostic thinking long before graduation. Along the way, we talk quality of life, faith, and the human touch—how a hand on a shoulder can calm fear and how boundaries protect both caregiver and patient.

If you’re curious about nursing in the age of AI, chasing your first offer, or debating ADN vs BSN, this episode gives you a clear map and the courage to follow it. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs clarity, and leave a review with your biggest nursing question—we’ll tackle it in a future episode.

Recommened Podcasts:

1. The Harlan Cohen Podcast
2. The Harlan Cohen Podcast (YouTube)

**This podcast was produced by Harlan Cohen ... to see it on YouTube access this link to Harlan's page: https://tinyurl.com/56zucsp2

I also want to thank our listeners for joining us as it is our goal to not only share with you our guest’s introduction to international healthcare, but also to share with you how that exposure to international healthcare has shaped their future path in healthcare. As true patient advocates, we should all aspire to be as well rounded as possible in order to meet the needs of our diverse patient populations. 

As a 50+ year nurse that has worked in quite a variety of clinical roles in our healthcare system, taught healthcare courses for the past 20 years at the university level, and has traveled extensively with my students on international service-learning trips, I can easily attest to the fact that healthcare focused students need, and greatly benefit from the opportunity to have hands-on experiential healthcare experiences in an international setting! I have seen the growth of students post travel as their self-confidence in their newly acquired skillsets, both clinical and cultural, facilitates their ability to take advantage of opportunities that previously may not have been available to them. By rendering care internationally, and stepping outside one's comfort zone, many more doors of opportunity will be opened.

Feel free to check out our website at www.islonline.org, follow us on Instagram @ islmedical, and reach out to me @ DrH@islonline.org

Transcript

Meet Dr. H: Nurse And Mountaineer

Harlan 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. I'm Harlan Cohen, and I'm so excited to share this conversation with Dr. Patrick Hickey. Dr. H, as his students call him, Patrick. That's what I call him. I've known Patrick for probably over 15 years. And he's such an interesting guy. Oh, you'll love this. He's been a nurse for over 40 years. So he started being a nurse before very few men were in this profession. And he has mentored tens of thousands of students. He also is an adventurer. He wrote a book called Seven Summits, a Nurses' Quest to Conquer Mountaineering in Life. He climbed seven peaks on seven different continents. He's someone who really has a deep appreciation of just living. I think that's also a big takeaway. And he's someone who's very passionate about the profession and helping students to figure out how to navigate their professional nursing careers. So you're going to get so much out of this. I learned so much. I know you're going to really enjoy learning about Patrick. And there are so many takeaways. Instead of telling you any more, I'm going to let you listen. Enjoy this conversation with Dr. Patrick Hickey. Today I am with Dr. H. Patrick Hickey, one of my favorite people. I've known him for, I don't know, has it been 15 years maybe?

Dr. H 1:26

Yeah, 15, 20 years, Harlan, kind of like an old married couple.

Harlan 1:30

It's great. You know, Patrick, in addition to being a nurse and mentoring tens of thousands of students, and our paths crossed at the University of South Carolina, where you were running, was the Capstone program?

Dr. H 1:46

That's right. Yeah. Capstone Scholars. Had a lot of different roles at the University of South Carolina in addition to being nursing faculty. I was the principal of a living learning community called Capstone Scholars. There was the Honors College, and right under Honors were Capstone Scholars. But the difference were you, we were just as smart as Honors, but we had a lot more fun. So it was a good, great, great cohort of kids. They spoiled me.

Harlan 2:09

It was great. And you brought me in to speak, and then Dave, Dave, who's the assistant director, right? Dave. Yeah, good memory. Good recall, Harlan. Oh, he was good. You guys are great. Is Dave still there?

Dr. H 2:21

Yeah, still there. Yeah, yeah. Still, still plugging away, making a difference in the lives of students every day.

Why Nursing: Calling, Myths, And Burnout

Harlan 2:26

Yeah, what's his last name again? It's uh David DeWeil. Yes. Yeah, good recall. Good recall. Yeah, you know what? I've I've always enjoyed talking to you. And and you know, Patrick also, we're gonna get into the nursing piece. Today, I want people to understand nursing. I want people to understand how to become a nurse, uh, why nursing is is something that is such an important part of people's lives and your lives, and also just how to be able to navigate that career path. I want to do, I want to do all of that, and I want people to understand how to stand out and how to make sure this is the right the right career for them. So, you know, we're gonna do that. And Patrick has mentored so many people over the years and has such deep expertise. So I can't think of anybody who is better qualified to really walk people through that that process. I want to get to that pretty quickly, but I want people just to understand a little bit about you and and who you are. And if if you can just give people like, you know, your your quick your quick summary, and it's hard because you've done so many extraordinary things.

Dr. H 3:34

Yeah, the quick summary is a challenge, Harlan, but I'll I'll do as best I can. Uh as you can note from the canadian as you can note from the stained glass behind me, uh Canadian by birth, got my American citizenship years ago, so I'm a proud dual citizen. Nursing wasn't on my horizon when I was in high school, really didn't know what I wanted to do. Uh, all my friends were going off to university, already knew their majors, where they wanted to go. So I took advantage of the guidance counselor in my high school. I don't know if they still have guidance counselors, but but if you do have a guidance counselor in your high school, take advantage of them. They're all knowing. Uh, this lady's name was Mrs. Lamb, wonderful lady. And I approached her and said, Mrs. Lamb, I really don't know what I want to do with my life. And I didn't take an aptitude test or anything. She kind of knew me. She said, Patrick, I think you'd work great in a prison setting. I don't know where that came from. Always had a fear of being locked up. I told her that's not going to happen. She sat there for a moment, looked at me again. She said, Patrick, I think you'd do great as a childcare worker. Again, oldest of nine kids, too many kids around me. I didn't think that would work either. Then she came up with a third suggestion that literally blew my socks off. And she said, Patrick, I think you would make a great nurse. Now, this was 50 years ago, when very few men, if any, were in the field of nursing. I didn't know if she perceived my feminine side. I don't know what she was saying when she recommended that I become a nurse. I wasn't happy about it. I do recall that I kind of stormed out of her office, and the last few words I heard her saying was at least give it a give it a give it a give it a chance. There's a recruiter here next week. Go listen to him. So I snuck into that room full of girls, the only male, sat at the back. That recruiter said three words that changed my life. Nurses save lives. Now, 50 years ago, we didn't have Gray's Anatomy. We had black and white TV. You know, we were brought up to think that it was just doctors that saved lives. I came home from that meeting with that recruiter, and I told my mom, the good Catholic woman that she was, Mom, I think I'm going to be a nurse. She said, that's as close to godliness as you can get. Now, when I told my dad that I was going to be a nurse, it was a different, a different reaction, much different than my mom's. He disowned me. He just he just couldn't fathom that his son was going to be a nurse because 50 years ago, again, there were very few, if any, males going into nursing. In fact, in my nursing class in Canada, we were five males out of over a hundred in the class. So we were in the minority. And as I've gone through teaching for the last 15, 20 years, we're still in the minority. So it is a challenge for men going into the nursing field. But again, I share that story, Harlan, because sometimes it's someone else that sees something in you that you don't see yourself. And everyone that comes into nursing comes in for a variety of different reasons. Some come into the field because it's a good job. The challenge with that, though, is there's a term in nursing, and I don't know if it's used in a lot of other professions, but it's called burnout. If you go into the profession for the wrong reason, you won't last very long, or it's going to be very, very challenging. So it is a challenge for students at a very young age to determine that nursing is or healthcare is what they want to do. My experiences have been many, a lot of students that have had either a medical problem themselves, a family medical problem, or have seen a medical practitioner treat themselves or a family member usually are very passionate about coming into a field where they've already been introduced to it. But the good majority of students that come into the field have never had an introduction to health care at their young ages of 17, 18, and 19 years of age. So it does become very problematic with what am I going to do in this field? Why have I chosen this field? What are the rewards for this field? I mean, monetarily, the money is much better nowadays as it was to when I went into it. Nowadays, graduating nurses are considered gold. They're highly sought after, and they have many, many, many more opportunities than what they did many, many years ago. But again, going back to what you originally said or queried, you know, how do they choose that profession? At what point do they know they're going to make a nurse? And I think that is one of the biggest challenges in the nursing profession today. We have very passionate faculty that have all come into the field and are able to be great mentors for these students, as long as the students approach those faculty members to seek out that guidance. And therein lies the problem. A lot of students are very fearful of going to faculty.

Mentors, Fear, And Emotional Readiness

Harlan 8:31

Yeah. I think there's there's a lot of different a lot of different angles to approach for students who decide to go into nursing. And I know that someone suggested it to you, and I know a lot of students I meet, you know, I'll ask them what their major is, and they tell me it's nursing, and I'll ask them, how did you decide to go into nursing? And they'll say, you know, my family said this would be a really good job. Nurses get jobs, and it's important for me to be able to get a job when I graduate.

Dr. H 9:07

We look at it as a profession. Yes, it is a job, but it is a profession also. And we we try to clarify that when we talk about the history of nursing. I mean, we're we're up there with physicians and lawyers and others, and and you know, if you if you look at the Gallup poll, you know, nurses have been rated number one in the Gallup Hole from when it started for honesty and ethics. So it's a very prestigious role that we're stepping into that a lot of students don't even know. But you're right, a lot of times it's a family member that says this will be a good job. And you're right, Harlan. I mean, there's always going to be sick people. I mean, logistically, you have a job for life as a nurse because there always is going to be an opportunity.

Harlan 9:48

And I think also given what's going on with technology and AI, when it comes to jobs where you need to have a personal touch. There need to be people involved. There's relationships, it's relational. And I think that those jobs and career paths are going to be ones that are going to be a lot more predictable, a lot more reliable. And in terms of nursing as a profession, you know, what are your thoughts? What have you seen?

Dr. H 10:18

Well, nursing as a profession is attracting more and more young people and mostly for the right reasons. I think students really highly respect nurses. They've had a nurse at some point in their lives. Just think of yourself and your kids. You go to the doctor, you have a nurse at some point in life. So every one of us in our own way has had a connection with a nurse at some point in time. And that nurse usually is a great role model. And, you know, when we're looking at role models and who we want to be when we grow up, here's someone that's that's already been in your life that you can look at. So it is a wonderful profession that continues to grow. We continue to have a need, though, in nursing. I don't know if nursing has done a good enough job at trying to attract more students to it because, as you know, we do have a great shortage of nurses.

Harlan 11:07

Yeah. When you are talking to students that are early in their academic careers, you know, first year students, second-year students, and they are planning to go into nursing, you know, what are some of the what are some of the questions you ask to help them to know this is this is a good path for them?

Specialties And Certifications Explained

Dr. H 11:34

And that is a valid point, Harlan. I as I mentioned earlier, maybe, maybe before we started recording, I do a lot of mentoring. And I I meet uh weekly with students that have that same question. Am I on the right path? What do I need to go into into this profession? Sure, I've got a great GPA, but I think nursing is much more than a GPA. How am I going to learn how to express my emotions? What emotions can I express? Can I cry? Can I hug people? Can I hold people? What am I going to do when someone dies? I mean, there's so much emotions. It's just like a roller coaster. And 18-year-olds aren't prepared for that. They don't know the questions to ask. So, what I do in my methodology of teaching is I try to put my 40 plus years of nursing out there. And I teach by experience, and I try to share with my students what my experience has been, knowing that uniquely each and every student is going to have to develop their own reactions to scenarios. For example, when someone dies. That's one of the biggest fears students have, what they share with me. They say, Dr. Hickey, I don't know what's going to happen when I have to deal with a deaf. Is there going to be a class on how to deal with deaf and dying? I mean, we we kind of touch on it. We don't have a class specifically on that topic, obviously, but we do bring up the subject and talk about it. So I relay my own experiences with deaf, dying, pain, and suffering, and how I, in my own way, connect with patients that are going through those situations or scenarios. And I put myself out there and I say, guys, here's what I do in these scenarios. Each and every one of you come from a different background. You all have different experiences. Some of you, God bless, may not have experienced death, pain, or suffering. Some of you have already had those tragedies in your life and you kind of sort of know how to deal with it in your own way. But I think by role-playing, by sharing our own lived experiences with students, we can help with the fear factor. And that's huge with nursing. I mean, I work with students all over the university setting, from English majors to geography majors, et cetera, et cetera. None of them have to worry about the things that nursing students have to worry about, which is the emotional aspect. You know, I was brought up not to hold or hug people. You know, we didn't say I love you and my family a whole bunch, but now I'm in a profession that kind of sort of, it's an unwritten, not an unwritten rule, but unwritten guidance that it's okay to hug people. It's okay to reach out and touch people. And to bridge that gap with students, I share with them quite often. I said, I always, in my patient interactions, reach out and I'll put my hand on their shoulder. Or I'll sit on the side of the bed and I'll put my hand on their hand. That human touch is so integral to the nursing profession. That patient does not want to be in that bed. That patient would rather be home with their family. So to have a sterile environment where you've got nurses and doctors all buzzing around you and nobody touching you, so to speak, in a human way is something that the students have to learn. And each of them in their own way gravitate towards that process once they've heard other people sharing what they have done.

Harlan 14:54

Yeah. That's a whole layer that I don't know if a lot of students have really processed, you know, what that means and being in those situations. When it comes to the different types of nursing, and let's just say, you know, I'm not familiar with nursing, I don't really understand the profession. What are the different types of nursing if you were to just, or of, you know, career paths that a nurse can choose?

Dr. H 15:22

Wow, it's it's limitless, Harlan. To begin with, to get into nursing, there's various programs. There's two-year programs, there's diploma programs, which they rarely have anymore. It's almost like a two and a half-year program, there's four-year programs. And then every student, once they come into the nursing program, have to decide which path they want to go down, which specialty they want to work in. If I had a dime for every student that said I want to work in pediatrics, I'd be a millionaire right now. I mean, God bless they all want to work with kids because it's fun working with kids. When I first started the nursing program at the University of South Carolina, one of my students was working in pediatric oncology. And I spoke to that student. I took her aside and I said, How can you work in pediatric oncology with these poor young kids that may not have their next birthday? She said, Dr. Hickey, just imagine how much love I can give them in the little time I have. So everybody in their own way has to deal with the scenario that they're walking into. But specialty-wise, you know, the sky's the limit from pediatrics to OBGYN to orthopedics to the operating room to the emergency room to advanced nurse practitioners to nurse anesthesiologists. There is something for everybody, no matter what your interests are, you'll never go wrong. And the beauty of nursing is you can work in a specific specialty like pediatrics for a while. And if that burnout happens, which happens to a lot of us at some point in time, you can switch to OBGYM, you can switch to emergency, you can switch to oncology. There's so many specialty areas. So within all those specialty areas are opportunities to get national certification to prove to your patient that you are a patient advocate. For example, I used to work in a trauma room setting as an emergency room nurse. I sought my national certification. I was a certified emergency nurse. So on my name tag would have Patrick Hickey, R-N-B-S-N-C-E-N. That proved to my patients that I went the extra mile to develop more confidence in my profession. And a lot of students, once they get into their specialty areas, will be able to prove that to their patients also by attaining national certification.

Harlan 17:38

Yeah. Let's just go through some of yours because I have a long list of letters. So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna mention each one. And I know what a lot of these are, but I think it's really helpful. So the first is RN.

Dr. H 17:53

Yeah, so I'm uh you know, so my RN was a I'm a diploma nurse, and there's not very many of us. A diploma nursing program is uh there's very few left in the Canada and the United States. It was a program where we went to school like the regular nursing students do, a two-year program, but the last two to three or even four months of our program was 40 hours a week working in a hospital setting. So when we graduated from the program, we already had the skill sets of a nurse. The students graduating today from my four-year program will have book knowledge, but they won't have clinical skill sets. The average student nurse that graduates now from a nursing program, again, has started very few IVs, if any, have put in very few foley catheters, if any, but every hospital knows that, and every hospital is prepared to put them through a two-month, three-month, six-month orientation program to give them the clinical skill sets that they need to function as a nurse. So the original RN uh behind my name was was was for the diploma nursing program.

Education Paths: Two-Year vs Four-Year

Harlan 18:56

Okay. I I want to go through your letters, but I want to just address something you just mentioned, which which I think is so important, is you have a lot of students who spend a lot of time and energy and money pursuing a career without having a lot of hands-on experience. And this is a question I have for nurses all the time, for people who are pursuing nursing degrees. And I asked them, I said, you know, how do you know this is what you want to do? Have you shadowed someone? Have you had those experiences? How important is it for someone who's committing to a nursing uh to a to a healthcare career, especially in nursing, to have shadowed someone, to have those experiences?

Dr. H 19:47

I I think it's huge, Harlan. It's integral to success in the field. The challenge, though, is you mentioned shadowing. Very few students have an opportunity to shadow. I I work predominantly with pre-med kids now. How do kids figure out they want to be doctors? Well, they should shadow just to see what a day in the life is. But unfortunately, here in America, it's very problematic because of HIPAA confidentiality rules and a lot of other barriers. So the average nursing student that comes into nursing has not stepped a foot into the medical field. They've seen it on TV. They've heard it from someone else. Maybe an aunt or someone is a nurse and they thought it would be a good profession. So in retirement now, I work for a company and I support a company called International Service Learning. We actually promote opportunities for students to travel abroad to an international country of their choice and get actual clinical hands-on care as a freshman, which is huge because I feel very strongly that at an early junction in your scholastic career, you should have a better clarification of what you want to do. You're not going to get that by just going to class and hearing lectures from faculty. You're only going to get it from an experiential opportunity where you have hands-on experience. And so it's sad, unfortunately, in America here, that that we are challenged with students getting their foot in the door with an opportunity to shadow because everyone's just so busy right now.

Harlan 21:26

How could that be? I mean, I know there's HIPAA laws, but like if you're a student who is in a college setting, I would think that actually getting into a hospital or participating in some capacity in some of the things that they're going to be doing for essentially their their entire professional career, if that's if that's what their specialty is, it's that hard to get access.

Dr. H 21:54

Well, no, it depends on the on the scenario, Harlan. I mean, here in Columbia, South Carolina, where I live, we actually do have a variety of hospitals, which they do have volunteer programs for student nurses. So we we try to push them into those programs. We try to direct them into those programs. But unfortunately, push comes to shove. And as you know, working with students yourself, normally uh first-year students aren't told to bring their cars to school. So now we have a transportation challenge or issue. Yes, there's Ubers or other ways to get there. Sometimes the opportunity may be late at night, maybe it's not as safe as it could be. But yes, there are opportunities. And as much as we promote or push them or recommend to them for the students to do it, we we can't force them. So unfortunately, a lot of students won't go through the opportunities that we provide for them. They may be busy, they may be busy socializing, they may be busy studying, they may not know or realize the value of doing what you said, taking advantage of a volunteering opportunity.

Harlan 22:51

Yeah, that's that's fascinating to me because I I just think it's so it's so helpful. I mean, at a minimum, I would say to those students, uh, talking to people who have been in nursing. And I suggest talking to someone who has been doing it for a year, five years, 10 years, and 20 years. Well, think of that.

Dr. H 23:14

That's a good point. Actually, the um director of nursing at a local hospital years ago asked me to come over and be the keynote speaker because it was nurses week, and I used to teach a lot about the history of nursing and having pride in your profession. And I told her, I said, you don't need me to come over and speak to your staff about the professionalism of nursing. You need my 18-year-old nursing students who are wet behind the ears to come and shadow your veteran nurses and let your veteran nurses look at these students and say, you know, I had that passion at one point. It may have gone away a little bit. I need to get that passion back. So it's the beauty of students working with veteran nurses, as you indicate, is they'll learn a lot about the future profession that they're stepping into.

Harlan 24:02

Yeah, I I think that's it's interesting. It's again for the students who are listening, it's it's not recognizing, you know, when you talk to someone who has been doing something for so many years, those people really appreciate your curiosity.

Dr. H 24:20

Well, every one of us, Harlan, to a T as nursing faculty, want students to come into our profession. We we don't want to weed anybody out. We want them to come into our profession. We want to open doors of opportunity for them. We want to share with them our our life experiences so they they know better where they want to go and what they want to do. Every one of us to a T in nursing, I know for a fact, my colleagues, we all want students to succeed and do well. And I always make the case. I joke about it, but I always make the case with my nursing students. I always say, listen, I'm gonna go the extra mile to help you and I'll provide as much help as I can. And I'm doing it because I'm selfish. And my students always look at me and say, Doug Hinkey, you're you're you're not selfish. I said, No, no, no, I really am. I said, I want you to do well because I'm making the case that at some point in time you're gonna be caring for me, my wife, my family, or someone else that's a good friend of mine. So in that way, I'm kind of selfish. I want you to do well because I can I can kind of create that that Kevin Bacon six or seven degrees of separation between us.

Harlan 25:23

Right, right. You don't want to, right, you really can't can't be an unreasonable professor and mentor because you know you're gonna look up and this person's gonna be walking in your room at two in the morning. They're gonna be uh they're gonna be the night nurse. They're gonna be like, oh, Dr. H. Oh, finally, payback. Smart. I get what I get why you do that. Yeah. Okay. So the RN. So I'm gonna, I'm going to stick to this, I'm gonna stick to getting through the different letters of your after your name. So we got an RN, we addressed that. BSN. What's BSN?

Clinical Experience And Shadowing Barriers

Dr. H 25:54

Harlan, the BSN is a baccalaureate of science and nursing. Uh, that's a four-year program. I went back to get my BSN when I was living in Corpus Christi, Texas. I had the wonderful opportunity to work as a nurse when I just started nursing on a medical surgical floor. Most of our nursing students today, they want excitement. They want to go straight to ICU, they want to go straight to the emergency room. But again, as I said earlier, all they have is book knowledge. They don't have a lot of clinical skill sets at that point in time on graduation. So what we veteran nurses always suggest is they get medical surgical experience where you earn your wings, so to speak, as a nurse. You learn how to start IVs, you learn how to give injections, you learn how to change dressings and how to titrate medicines, et cetera, et cetera. So when I moved from Canada and I did my first job as a nurse, I worked on a medical surgical floor. But I wanted to get into the emergency room, and the the nurse, the nurse manager at the time was actually a male. He said, Patrick, I want you to get a year of experience in medical surgical nursing. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to go straight to the R like every student does. But I listened to him, I did my year exactly to the day I came back. He said, I want you to get some critical care experience now. So I went to a coronary care unit. I worked for a year. Then I came back, he said, okay, now I'll take you into the emergency room. And when I started working in this, which was a level one trauma center, every hospital has a level according to the severity of patients that they take. A level one trauma center takes the worst of the worst, the shootings, the explosions, et cetera. To be a level one trauma center, you need to have an anesthesiologist, you need to have a trauma surgeon right there ready to do emergency surgery in the emergency room. So I worked in a level one trauma center in the emergency room as a charge nurse on the evening shift. Anything and everything that happened came in the door. But what was happening, Harlan, was I was seeing way too much death and dying. And I was starting to take it personally. Like, is there something I didn't learn in school that could could have helped me in that scenario to help a patient to live? So I always remembered in nursing school, they always shared with us, try to attain the highest level of education as you can. And they they they they made the case that more education equals saving more patient lives. So I went back to school and I worked on my BSN degree, which is my baccalaureate of science in nursing.

Harlan 28:17

Okay. How many years did that take?

Dr. H 28:19

Oh, that's oh, that's a normally it's a four-year program if you start out, but because I already was a nurse, I think it was only a couple of years at that point.

Harlan 28:26

And I know that that you know nursing is is not about getting paid. That's a byproduct of saving lives, is you're able to also get paid. But when you have these different credentials, does it increase your your pay?

Dr. H 28:40

Well, and I had the same conversation with a student just yesterday that I was mentoring that that went into nursing because it was a good job and she didn't know much more about it. So I we spent about an hour over coffee explaining more about her future profession. And I shared with her a thing in the hospital that most hospitals have, and it's called a clinical ladder. A clinical ladder, excuse me, within a hospital environment allows a nurse to progressively climb within the hospital environment. And going to your question about credentials, depending upon your level of credentials, is the level of pay that you will get. So if you come in with a BSN or a master's or a doctorate, yes, you will get paid more for those credentials or for those academic credentialing that you've earned.

Harlan 29:24

But that is something that could be done over the course of time.

Dr. H 29:27

Yes. And the nice thing now, Harlan, about hospitals, they want to invest in their nurses. And most hospitals now will have a process where they will actually pay the nurse to go back to school. So typically, my BSN, my four-year prepared nursing students will start working in a local hospital. After about a year, they can apply for the in-house tuition so they can go back and work on their master's. To do that, they have to sign some paperwork to say they'll work a little bit longer, maybe an extra year at the facility, et cetera. But it's nice to know that hospitals see the value. Again, of increasing the level of education of nurses. Again, going back to what I said earlier, more education saves more lives.

Harlan 30:09

Right. And I and I know that originally when I when I said, you know, talk to students, they'll say they'll go into nursing because their family said, you know, you'll get a job. And I could tell even by saying it that way, you know, your your your reaction was you're you're very controlled. This is not a job.

Dr. H 30:30

No, no. This is a job. I mean, you're you go to work, but it it's really a profession that you're stepping into. And we try to address what the one of the first courses I taught at the University of South Carolina was Introduction to Nursing. And I I explained to students this wonderful, beautiful profession that they're stepping into, and all the all the fantastic people that have made a difference in in the in the realm of healthcare. I mean, Florence Nightingale, the mother of nursing during the war, I mean, it was she that decided she made a difference in soldiers' lives. She was taking care of all these poor soldiers that were were wounded. And at that time, we didn't know much about sterility. And she would, at the time, we would leave a dressing on a wound for days and days and days. Well, a wet dressing on a wound harbors bacteria and people were dying from infections at the time. We didn't realize that. So it was Florence Nightgale that actually started changing dressings more often, started opening the curtains in the tents to allow more light and sunshine in. So there's been a lot of impact from nurses in healthcare over the years, and it just builds the profession of nursing that that we've initiated from day one.

Harlan 31:41

Yeah. It's interesting. There's so many different aspects to this. So BSN, and then you have an MS.

Building Your Resume And Network

Dr. H 31:48

So I again, when I moved from Corpus Christi, Texas to South Carolina, I actually wanted to go back to school and get more education. It was kind of frustrating at the time. I kept calling the College of Nursing because I wanted to continue in my nursing track. I already had an RN, I had a BSN, I wanted to get a master's in nursing, which is an MSN. Okay. But but for some reason, nobody would return my phone calls. So a colleague and another friend of mine said, Well, Patrick, you do a lot in the community. Why don't you pursue your master's in public health? So I called the School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. They answered my call right away, said, Come on in. I went in, spoke to them about it, and I started in the public health arena. So my MS is in public health.

Harlan 32:34

Okay. So a little bit different. Has that helped you? Does that has that provided value?

Dr. H 32:38

It's uh it's been very invaluable. I love my nursing side, but I actually like my public health side much more. Public health is population medicine. It's more about preventative health care. In nursing, I'm already taking care of somebody that's in the healthcare environment. In public health, I'm trying to prevent them from going to a hospital. So I went down that road with my master's in public health. My I went right from my master's in public health to my doctorate in public health. That's the DRPH that's behind my name. And my research that I did during my master's and doctorate was I looked at the barriers that Hispanic people have when they try to access healthcare. Because my observation was in my hospital, I saw these poor Hispanic people walking around. We had no signage in Spanish, we had no literature in Spanish, we had no interpreters at the time. And because my wife and I had backpacked through Latin America for a year, I had passable Spanish. So I would go up to them as a gringo and say, hola que tal, quiero ayuda, do you need help? And I would help navigate them. But I saw it was an increasing challenge. So when I did my undergraduate research or my graduate level research, sorry, I discovered there's laws in place that if you're a federally funded institution, you need to be providing services for people with limited English proficiency, which we're seeing quite a lot of today. So the master's in public health and the doctorate in public health, that actually gained me access to the College of Nursing because after I got my doctorate in public health, I felt it was my time to give back to teach. I wanted to give all this wisdom I've earned over the years back to my nursing students. But when I went to the College of Nursing, they told me I'd made a mistake. I'd had an advisement error, of which I'm sure you've heard of many times. And I said, What was that error? And they said, Well, to teach in the College of Nursing, your master's or doctorate have to be in nursing. Mine were both in public health. So when I started teaching, I was a postdoc fellow in the College of Nursing. And I went back to school and I got my master's in nursing, which is the MSN. So in the morning, I'd be teaching students as Dr. Hickey. In the afternoon, I'd be sitting with them as Patrick in the classroom. So it was kind of confusing for that first couple of years. But a lot of my nursing colleagues felt, you know, that nursing is a silo. You know, pure nursing is what you should should be addressing as you go through school. I see great value in having other degree pathways, in my case, public health. I think that degree in public health, the master's, and a doctorate is what led me to develop an international healthcare course at the university, which has led me to lead literally thousands of students to go to developing countries to get hands-on healthcare experience, all because of my degrees in public health. And then the combination of the public health and nursing is qualified me to do quite a lot, actually, at this point in time.

Harlan 35:34

So the public health was a result of someone not calling you back.

Dr. H 35:39

I know. Isn't that crazy? Isn't it crazy how we how we go down the pathways we go down? Nursing didn't call me back, so I went down the public health uh field for uh for a few years. But it's all good. I mean, I'm I'm glad it worked out the way it did.

Harlan 35:52

Well, I think it's I think it's revealing because a lot of a lot of students get really caught up in what am I going to do for the rest of my life? And you know, that thinking is is thinking that doesn't really get us the rest of our life. It just gets us to freeze because we have to live our lives and just go in a direction with an understanding that it will reveal itself if we can continue on that path that aligns with the things that you know are valuable, that provide meaning and mentors.

Careers, Quality Of Life, And Fit

Dr. H 36:23

Well, Harlan, so so much has changed over the years. You know, and in my I'm 70 now. You know, in my day, it was that 110% work ethic. You know, we work at a job, we stayed at a job for 10, 15, 20 years, we were loyal to the company. Now what you see is in nursing, I see a lot of it nursing actually, and and other students are getting out in the into their various professions. They work for a year here, then they go for another year here. That used to be frowned upon when they looked at your resumes, but now what I hear my students saying that are working in the nursing field, when the HR person says to them, well, tell me about this one year at this hospital, one year at that hospital, I'm kind of concerned by that. That's a little bit of a red flag. Their comeback now is, well, I got a year of experience in this hospital. I felt it would help me to go to this next hospital to get a year of experience there. And I think the year of experience I got at that hospital is now going to help me with my experience here in your hospital. So what I tell students all the time is they really need a little bit more of my 110% work ethic, but then I need a little bit more of their quality of life because what I see now, students are choosing pathways that afford them a quality of life that we never thought about. For example, as you asked earlier about the different pathways in nursing, a lot of times now they're looking at opportunities that give them a nine to five work week, no evenings, no weekends, no call. And who wouldn't want that? All of us veterans that have been here for a while have done that. We've worked the night shifts, we've worked, we've been on call, we've we've done all that. And we tend to want to make them walk through the same pathways that we went through, but they don't have to because they do have more opportunities.

Harlan 38:07

And it's a great takeaway of I think having a mix of talking to people who have been there and done it, who have a lifetime of experience, and then also talking to those people who are starting off, who are in different phases of their careers. I think that just as I as I put together this book and and think about you know how students can approach exploring careers, you know, there really are different stories. And I think you know, your humility and and you know the respect you have for I think new new professionals is something that that not everybody has.

Dr. H 38:44

And I I I like the fact that students are thinking more of quality of life. I mean, here in the United States or or Canada, the world, we all want a long life. But after having been in healthcare Harlan for 45 years plus, I realize what's most important is quality of life. I mean, here in the United States, Canada, the world, we're putting in pacemakers, we're putting people on medications, we're increasing longevity of life. But what's most important is quality of life. And I think our younger generation are seeing that. They don't want to put in the 80-hour weeks. They don't want to, they they put more value on having a family. And not that we didn't value having a family back in the day, but they're okay, I think, to maybe work for less money. You know, whereas on the night shift, they get overtime or double time. They don't care about that. I I want to control my life because when a student nurse graduates and they go to work, someone is controlling their life. Someone is saying, you need to work seven in the evening till seven in the morning, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Now, when you're 21, that kind of puts a damper on your social life. You want to get out there and meet people, and weekends are times when you do that. But someone's controlling your life and you have no control over that unless you pick a path that affords you the opportunity to work a five-day week, no evenings, no weekends. But when doing that, you may not be getting paid the money you could be paid in in a hospital setting, but so be it.

Harlan 40:16

Right. So you have to explore that. What's the CNOR?

Dr. H 40:20

So I'm a I'm a certified nurse of the operating room. So that goes back to your question earlier about the different pathways that students can take. When you go into a pathway, whether it's emergency room, pediatrics, oncology, critical care within that specialty in nursing, after you've worked in that specialty for at least two years, you can write a national exam to show that you have studied and prepared to be a better advocate for patients in that specialty area. So I wrote my CNOR exam, and now I'm Emeritus through the uh Association of Perioperative Nurses to show to my patients that I went the extra mile, so to speak. When I worked in emergency trauma, I was a CEN certified emergency nurse. People that work in critical care will have CCRN, critical care registered nurse behind their name, and every specialty, oncology, pediatric, etc. So when you go to a hospital setting and you look at name tags and they have all that gobbledygoop, a lot of it is just them showing that they've done a little bit more to be a better patient advocate. And that's what that's what the buzzword is in healthcare is being a patient advocate. We all want to create positive patient outcomes. And to create a positive patient outcome, again, more education, more training, more studying to learn more about what you're doing and how you can be a better advocate.

Harlan 41:45

That's great. I appreciate that. And I think that for anyone who's looking at going down a particular career path is to actually investigate what those letters are. You know, just going through your different letters and understanding each one is attached to an experience that led you to a place that helped you to grow in in so many different ways. I think there's so much power in that.

Dr. H 42:08

Well, Harlan, I I can compare nursing to being a pilot. I'm a I'm a I'm a pilot. And when you get your pilot's license, what was told to me is it's a license to learn. So as soon as you get your pilot's license, you can fly anywhere, do anything you want to do, but it's a license to learn. I look at nursing the same way. Once you get your nursing license, it's a license to learn. You just you just keep on learning. You don't get stagnant. There's always new medications, there's always new treatments, there's always new modalities. Every hospital keeps nurses trained on an annual basis. There's mandatory modules they have to go through. So nursing doesn't stop. The education doesn't stop when you when you graduate from school. It's just starting. You you get out of school and you go, oh my God, I thought I thought I was done with the books. No, no, no. No, the the education keeps on going.

Harlan 43:01

That's that's uh exciting to hear. I want to I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap things up soon, but I want to do a quick speed round of when you have a student who is, whether it's approaching graduation or earlier, you know, maybe their first year, second year, third year, wherever it is, at what point do you start talking about careers? And how do you prepare a student to be positioned to be in the best place, to have the most options, to get a job that really excites them and interests them?

Job Hunting: What To Look For

Dr. H 43:35

And that's a good point, Harlan. I had that conversation again yesterday with a student, and she asked, How can I better prepare myself for my future profession? So it depends on the program you're in, in our program, it's a four-year program, after a certain course in the third year, the students are allowed to work in a hospital as a nurse tech or something of that capacity. A lot of students will do it. A good number won't do it. They'll just continue to do their studies. But if you work in a nurse tech and you're interested in working in ICU, I always say, work as a nurse tech in the unit that you want to work in. The staff get to see you, they get to like you, they get to see your time management, your organization, your communication skills. Then when it comes time for being hired, you go to the nurse manager and you say, Hey, you've seen me work here for the last year, you know my work ethic. I'd love to be a part of your staff. That's how you get buy-in to your future profession by investing yourself and taking advantage of working on a unit before you actually get hired there.

Harlan 44:36

So that's one of the approaches is to become a nurse tech.

Dr. H 44:40

And then if you don't pursue that for whatever reason, well, if you don't yeah, if you don't pursue that, then building up your resume. I'm all about resumes. You know, when when students start as freshmen, I say, guys, let's start that resume day number one. What's most important in healthcare is service. Let's see you put some service on your resume. Let's see you get involved in student organizations, let's see you get leadership within those student organizations, let's see you study abroad, that makes you stand out. So everything that you put on the resume makes a difference when you go for that job interview, because if you just have a GPA on the resume, that just means you're book smart. Healthcare units want people that can hit the ground running. If you didn't work as a nurse tech, but you worked as a server in a restaurant, if you worked in some other capacity while you're going to school, that tells me as a nurse manager that you can multitask. So if I have a student that comes to me and they're graduating and they've worked as a server for the last couple of years of school and they maintain good grades and they did well, I know that person's going to hit the ground running. I want that person. But if they come to me and they're on the resume, it's just a GPA and they've done nothing else, I'm a little concerned. I shared with that student yesterday and that a lot of nurse managers, depending upon the scenario and the colleges, would rather hire someone from a two-year college than a four-year college. Because in a two-year college, a nursing program, those students may have a larger patient load when they're training in the hospital setting. In our BSN population, we're training those students to be, yes, good nurses, but also leaders. So they may not have the patient load that a two-year nursing program will. So for example, our four-year BSN students at the third year or fourth year may only have two or three patients when they're doing their clinicals. A two-year nursing student in a community college, depending on the scenario, may have five or six patients. Well, if you're a manager and you're hiring, who do you want? Do you want someone that's already been tested and challenged with handling five or six or seven patients, or do you want someone that's only handled two or three? I mean, both scenarios are a little different. Again, the four-year program, we're training them to be a leader. So normally within one or two or three years of being on a nursing unit, that BSN prepared nurse is now starting as an assistant nurse manager, then progressing to nurse manager, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of different scenarios there as to how they can, why they're hired on more so than others. And some of it comes down to their clinical expertise.

Harlan 47:22

I want to just clarify that because it sounds to me that it's more beneficial to be in a two-year program because you're getting more clinical experience.

Dr. H 47:30

Yes, and and that's a good point, Harlan. I I always address to my four-year students, why are you here? Why are you in a four-year program when you can be in a two-year program? A nurse is a nurse, is a nurse. So on a unit working together, a two-year nurse and a four-year nurse, they do the same thing. The four-year nurse, yes, is going to get paid a little bit more because of the extra years of schooling, a little bit more, not a whole lot, a little bit more. And yes, the four-year nurse is probably going to be tapped to move up the clinical ladder because of their four-year degree, but not necessarily. So it all it all depends on the individual. I'm not saying a two-year degree is better. A two-year degree gets you into the profession much faster. So the scenario I always use is if if you've got a sister or brother that starts in a two-year program, you're in a four-year program. By the time you graduate, your sister or brother that was in a two-year program has already been out working for two years and has already paid off their loans, et cetera, et cetera. So everybody in their own way has to decide why they want to take a two-year program versus a four-year program.

Harlan 48:42

Yeah. I think that if you're also at a if you do a two-year program and then you're working in a clinical setting and you then have another two years, in theory, you could prove that you are a leader and you can be mentored by the leaders in that particular unit, you know, seeking out mentorship and have that be something that could you know be equally beneficial.

Dr. H 49:10

Is that is that well there are there are bridge programs now. So the two-year nurse, once they start working, there are bridge programs to get their BSN. They actually make it easier for them because as I said earlier, we want to promote higher education. And again, limiting the students sometimes, Harlan, to the four-year program, as you know well from working with university students, it's the cost. Sometimes a two-year program at a community college is going to be much more financially feasible than going to a four-year university. So, again, a whole host of reasons and rationales why the two-year versus a four-year is important. But each person individually, depending on their financial situation, their travel times, family support system, et cetera, there's a lot of parameters that come in place as why they choose a two-year versus a four-year. But again, if you do a two-year program, there are bridge programs now that once you come into the profession, we will help you to get your BSN program. A lot of it's online now. There'll be a little bit of clinical experience, but it's it's all very doable.

Harlan 50:13

So, someone who is finishing their two-year program or they're on the cusp of finishing their four-year program, what are some of the things that you suggest someone look for in a full-time job?

Choosing Between Nursing And Other Fields

Dr. H 50:28

So a lot of challenges looking ahead. I always challenge my students to do the research. In healthcare, a lot of places will provide sign-on bonuses, uh, which sound great. Sign on to this hospital for 5,000 or 10,000, and that's huge. Students are thinking I can pay off all my loans, or maybe some loans. But sometimes those are red flags when you see sign-on bonuses. So you really have to do your homework uh on that.

Harlan 50:53

Uh what does doing your homework mean?

Dr. H 50:55

Doing your homework looks look at the the leadership scenario or the situation. Why do they have a sign-on bonus for a particular unit? Uh, do they have a lot of travelers in the hospital? A traveler is a is a nurse that that is is kind of a band-aid on a problem we have right now. They're they're wonderful, they're excellent people that have a wide variety of experiences, and they come and they they work in our hospitals side by side, but they're not committed to the hospital because they're only there for a short time. They're filling a void, and that void is a shortage of nurses. But doing your homework means looking at a looking at a hospital, going on tour, uh, talking to staff members when you're on that tour, uh, looking at the hospital, the reputation. Do they have, with everything being on the internet now, do they have a problem with infections? Do they have a problem with turnover of staff? So there's a lot of homework you can do in advance, but definitely going and putting your best foot forward and interviewing. Also asking if the hospital has reimbursement for higher education. Ideally, you want to go to a hospital that's going to reimburse you as you pursue your master's and your doctorate. Do they have a clinical ladder in place where you can step upwards within the hospital environment with your credentials, your national certification, and get paid more money? And then do they have childcare? That's huge. Very few hospitals have that opportunity. But, you know, I share with my students quite a lot, as future managers, you're going to have to get used to dealing with shortages of staff when your staff members call in sick. And a lot of times the staff members call in sick because they have a child at home that is sick. And I don't want to be sexist, but a lot of times it's the mom that goes home and helps with the child. Being a nurse, we're 80%, we're what, 90%, depending upon what you read. Female. So as a manager, you're going to have people calling in sick every day, and push comes a shove. You have to double up assignments. When you double up assignments, the data shows us you're setting somebody up to create a patient error, and that means a mistake. So there's a lot of dominoes in place. When someone looks at a hospital setting, you don't want to go into a scenario that's going to set you up to fail. A lot of students actually, when they graduate, Harlan, will go to a hospital or a facility where their friends are. Because with the young lady that I met with yesterday, she was all of 21. I'm 70. I said, Do you really want to go and work in a unit where it's all 70-year-old people? We don't listen to your music, we don't understand your language, or do you want to be with some people of your own age with a smattering of older people who are veterans who can train you? So a lot of things that they they need to look at.

Harlan 53:43

Those are all great factors. When it comes to choosing nursing, and this is a question, you know, I'm always curious about because with healthcare, you could be a nurse, you could be a PA, you can be a doctor, you could be, there's a whole, a whole different, all these different levels. And when it comes to someone choosing to be a nurse versus choosing another, another pathway, how do you how does someone know if if they should be a nurse or they should be, and I'm sure I'm missing some of the other healthcare options. You know, how does someone determine that?

Dr. H 54:19

It's it's a challenge that we deal with every day, Harlan. It's one that I take to heart because I try to introduce to students all of the other different specialties. I mean, from occupational therapy to physical therapy to pharmacy to PAs, you mentioned MD. And then even on the MD pathway, you have DOs, doctors of osteopathic medicine. In nursing, you have nurse practitioners. So there are so many other entities out there. The majority of kids that come to college either want to be a nurse or a doctor. They don't know about respiratory therapy. They don't know about physical therapy because they haven't heard about it. So I think when I did my medical mission trips, I tried to bring all these kids together that kind of sort of thought they knew what they wanted to do and expose them to a lot of other people and other professions within healthcare so they could better understand what's going on. I taught a course in the Honors College at the University of South Carolina, and it was just about the perioperative environment, in other words, the operating room, because a lot of kids wanted to work as surgeons, but they didn't know what the day was like in the day of a surgeon. So I would take them up to the operating room in the evening. I'd help them to learn how to scrub in and how to learn more about instruments and actually scrub in with doctors. So there are opportunities to learn about all the other professions, but I don't see it being taught very well at the university level.

Harlan 55:38

Yeah. So you really have to be curious and you have to walk into that office. And you said something really important before we started recording, is that you strongly suggest that first-year students start building relationships with their professors from really the the earliest opportunity, right?

Mentorship, Cost, And Scholarships

Dr. H 55:55

Harlan, I've had high school kids come to me asking me, uh, Dr. Hickey, will you be my mentor for the next four years? Yeah, that's huge. If I could I if I could leave the audience with one pearl of wisdom, so to speak, I've got many, would be to encourage your students to connect with faculty, make a connection, first semester freshman, and then meet with that person every semester, check in with them about your resume, check in with them about letters of recommendation. You know, one of the biggest mistakes students make, Harlan, and there's many, but one of the biggest ones is a lot of them are going on to grad school and they don't feel the need to develop a personal relationship with a faculty member who has to write them a letter for grad school. You know, the typical student will go to a faculty member and say, Dr. So-and-so, I had you for anatomy two years ago. Uh, you probably don't know I'm pre-med, I'm going to, I'm going to be going to college to be a doc. Can you write me a letter recommendation? Well, most faculty will say, sure, I'll do it, but their typical letter, which we never give the student, is going to be, yeah, Susie was great. She came to class, she got an A, she'll be a great doctor. Well, the committee that's reading that letter knows for a fact that faculty person does not know you from a hole in the wall. So students need to get out of their comfort zones, start early, meet with faculty, let them know their dreams, their aspirations, where they want to go, what they want to do. Let that faculty member open doors of opportunity. Then when it comes time for the letter for graduate school, that faculty person is going to write an unbelievable letter that the committee knows that this person knows who you are.

Harlan 57:33

Yeah, it's relationships and being curious. And the very, the very last thing, and I promise I'm gonna wrap this up, is you know, the costs. You know, it breaks my heart when students accumulate a tremendous amount of debt and then they graduate and they're you know getting paid enough or not even enough to be able to repay their loans. So when it comes to advising students and guiding students, you know, what are your words of wisdom in in terms of responsibly financing their education?

Dr. H 58:08

Yeah, cost is a huge challenge. Harlan, there's just not enough scholarships. I'm I'm one of those crazy few faculty that have endowed scholarships. I always tell my students faculty equals not much money, but I see the value of funding scholarships. As you know, I wrote a book about my mountaineering experience, which we hadn't chatted about. I wrote a book that did very well. It's called Seven Summits, A Nurse's Quest to Conquer Mountaineering in Life. All of the money from that book, all of my motivational talk money has gone to support scholarships for nursing students, but there's not enough out there. I encourage all my students to apply for as many scholarships as they can. There are scholarships if you apply for them. It may only be 500 here, a couple thousand there, but every every dollar makes a difference. It is a challenge. Uh, students have to have really good support systems. I really praise parents for seeing the value of putting their kids through school. I do see the value of kids graduating early, which I've really seen as of lately, a lot of kids that are graduating within not nursing necessarily, but even pre-med or pre-PA graduating a semester early or even a year early. And a lot of them have said, I'm doing this because mom and dad are paying a lot of money and they're doing it to save. So, you know, your trajectory in a four-year program does not have to be four years. If you do spend money on sorority life, that can cost a lot more money also. I mean, there are other ways that you can cut down on the finance. Myself, I was very different and unique in that I didn't have books for my class. I would put PDF articles up intentionally so students wouldn't have to buy books because they typically buy a book for $150, $200. End of the semester, as you know, they go to sell it back and they get what $25 or $20.

Harlan 59:54

Yeah. You are fascinating. This is such an insightful conversation. Um, even just As you were talking, I was thinking, first of all, you have so much knowledge and you're so generous with it. And then also for those students who are looking into nursing, investigating those two-year programs and really understanding those different pathways and also talking to someone like you. For someone who wants to talk to, of course, you, they can reach out to you. And you know, I want people to learn more about you. I'll include the book because you know, having climbed the seven summits, and you know, there's so much about Dr. H that that you know you you should want to learn and and explore. How does a student you know reach out to someone? Like, how do they find someone like you?

Global Service Learning And Faith

Dr. H 1:00:39

Well, I'd like to hope and think there's there's a lot of people like me, but unfortunately, I I don't see that in in my worker world. You know, students know the network, as you know. They can find student fac faculty that are student-friendly. There, there are some in every university. There's a rumor mill students will find them. I mean, I'm more than happy to put myself out there to help as many as possible. When I meet with a student, I review their resume. I actually tweak it and revise the resume. I provide volunteer opportunities for them. I give them names of contacts, other mentors, and I tell them all the time have have more than just me, have multiple mentors. And if you have multiple people, as you know, looking over your shoulder, then you're in a good place because you got a lot of people. But if you're doing it all on your own, it's going to be a challenge. Open yourself up to the opportunity to be mentored by other people. Get out of your comfort zone to go to a faculty member that will be a mentor for you and that will guide you through the next two years or four years. And I do like your recommendation, Harlan, about the two-year programs. I think it's smart. If you want entry-level nursing, affordability is an issue. You'll go to a two-year program, get your feet wet, and then take a bridge program and get into the four-year program and continue to build, get your master's and move on, move on up into nurse practitioner, where you actually have a lot more autonomy and a lot of respect in that role, also.

Harlan 1:02:06

Yeah, I mean, there's so many, there's so many different ways to navigate that path. The last thing, I know that you are passionate about international service learning, and I just want to make sure that our listeners know what that is. And also I know that you are going to be launching your own podcast, and I'm really excited about that. So, you know, in conclusion, will you let people know about ISL and what that is and and and how you plan on being there for them?

Dr. H 1:02:35

Yeah, I appreciate that, Harlan. So 20 years ago, I developed a course at the University of South Carolina. I saw the value of taking students to underdeveloped country to get hands-on healthcare experience, because as I said earlier, we just didn't have the opportunity here. It is a humbling experience. I've gone so many times, and I'm humbled every time I go on these experiences. The people have nothing, but they give you everything that they've got. And my students, some of them are very arrogant. I always share with them, you're going to learn a lot from these people and the countries we're going to. And they look at me and they say, Dr. Hickey, we're in college. They probably never even finished grade school. I said, You'll see. We come back from the trip. I ask, how much have you learned? Did you learn anything? All the hands go up. They share the values, the family, the love, and it's just an amazing experience. So, you know, it may not be financially feasible for everybody, but for student nurses or anyone starting in the healthcare field, if you need an experience that is going to help to confirm this is what I want to do, look for an international opportunity. You can go with friends, you can go with a program called International Service Learning, or you can look at other programs that are out there. The beauty of international service learning, though, Harlan, is it's not like a puppy mill, so to speak. I've heard some students come back from international experiences where they're prideful of seeing a thousand patients in a week. I don't think they really learned a lot if you saw a thousand patients in a week. Our model is one where we take our time, we do a head-to-toe examination, and the doctor gets the student nurse or the student PA or the pre-med student involved in the process of doing a physical exam, something that we don't see at all here in the United States. So there's great value in international health care. And I strongly encourage students to take advantage of those opportunities as they present them to them.

Harlan 1:04:23

Yeah, well, I am so grateful that you can share this. How do people find you? How do they find ISO opportunities?

Contacts, Next Steps, And Closing

Dr. H 1:04:31

Yeah, our podcast that you alluded to is going to be called International Service Learning, Experiential Medical Education. I'm looking to start it in in November. I'm going to try and capture the passion that students have either before and after an international healthcare experience. I'm going to be talking to industry leaders in education, study abroad, healthcare, spirituality. Spirituality, we didn't talk about it much, Harlan, at all, but spirituality and healthcare go hand in hand when you're dealing with patients. There's a great unknown in healthcare with a patient laying in a hospital bed. What am I waiting for? What what did that lab show? You know, was my x-rays okay? And and you know, I tell my students all the time having a deep faith is is very important as you move forward in this profession of nursing. It really helps you with your interactions with students. Yeah. I I'm out there, I'm available. I mean, drh at at islonline.org is my email address. And if anyone wants to shoot an email and uh wants to meet separately on Zoom or something like that, I I do that quite often and and I enjoy doing it and I enjoy making the difference with students because I I do it because I just don't think, as you said earlier, that there's enough mentors out there that want to uh put forth our profession. We all have busy days in our work-aday worlds, we all have our families, and I'm very, very, very fortunate to have a very supportive wife that that allows me this opportunity to do what I do with with mentoring. And and the way I look at it, again, I'm I'm investing in them. At some point in life, they're gonna take the time to invest in somebody else. And if we all did that, what a better place we would have.

Harlan 1:06:08

I don't think there's a better way to end this conversation. Patrick, Dr. H, Patrick Hickey, really enjoy visiting with you and thanks for being so generous. And thank you for taking the time to visit with me and to be able to share this with everyone. Really appreciate it.

Dr. H 1:06:23

Well, Harlan, I appreciate your your mentorship. You've been a good colleague and a role model, also sorts. I love what you're doing with students in university and a college setting. Uh, I love what you're doing, trying to cut down the fear factor, trying to promote students to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible. There need to be more people like you out there doing what you do also.

Harlan 1:06:44

Yeah, you're you're very kind. I have a hard time taking compliments. So thank you. And and I really appreciate it. I know everyone listening appreciates it too.