All right, let's do it. All right, Welcome back to Nursing Uncensored.
Guys. It is episode two of season ten. I am recording only
for the second time in the Chicago studio. So it's evening and we've got
a great show. We are talking to the friend of the show. You
may know him as the boot Nurse. We're going to be talking to Kevin
Gibson. He is a multifaceted person and someone that I'm proud to call my
friend. He is a nurse, an NCLEX coach, he's a Navy vet,
he's a dad. He's an award winning author, which we're going to
talk about, and he's an all around I love this word, nurse preneur,
not just an entrepreneur like as Sue first are entrepreneur, a nurse preneur.
So we're going to welcome Kevin to the podcast. Kevin, what's upped?
First of all, that intro just gave me goosebumps. I love that.
I love it. You earned it, you earned it. I just
said it in nursepreneur. That's a It's definitely multifaceted and anybody can do it.
I'm nothing special, but I definitely put the work in for that,
and so I like nurse preneur for sure. But yeah, well thanks for
having me once again on your show. It's I love being on these with
you, so I appreciate it. Yeah, we keep up with each other
on social media, but it's always nice to have an actual face to face
conversation and catch up because we haven't really done a big catchup, and you
have had so much change since we've talked, like what like a couple of
years ago something like that. I think it was like it was twenty twenty
one, so it was almost three years ago. Gosh, think about what
life was like. No, don't think about what life was like in twenty
twenty one. And I take it back, but we're in much better places
now. I think that's true for me, and I think that's true for
you, and I hope that's true for the people listening here as well.
So let's rewind. Let's back it up a little bit. Last time we
talked, you had like we're either just about to start ICU or had just
started ICU, And I know you've talked a little bit about that experience on
like your Instagram channel and probably your other social media as well. Well,
let's back it up, because we for months were like, oh, you
got to come back on the show and talk about your ICU experience because you
are no longer in the ICU. Is that correct? That is correct.
I am no longer in ICU. Okay, So can we break that down
a little bit. Can we go back to the early days of ICU and
just talk for a second about what that experience was like for you. Yeah,
so, of course everybody know, I was very gung ho about going
to the going to the ICU, and I I made it very apparent for
that to happen. I went to the ICU, and it happened just so
happened to be. When the second wave of COVID started, it was very
chaotic. It was very chaotic, and it was very I wouldn't say unorganized,
but it was. It tried to be as organized as possible, but
it was just extremely chaotic on a lot of the things that were that were
happening. That's how I would literally say my very first aspect of working in
a medical ICU, not necessarily burn IC but the medical ic you at a
different facility than that I was at. It was wild and I don't know
about the facility that you were in. But in my hospital, the medical
ICU is where we saw a lot of our COVID patients, like our ECHAMO
patients are prone patients. Like it was some pretty serious business. Like even
after like kind of the first wave and everything had settled down, it was
still pretty gnarly. I know that I did the crash course in the ICU,
like I'm progressive care. I've never done ICU, and that time where
they were like, here's how you tied right to med and you get three
gos at it with a nurse before you're like doing it. So the terror
that I felt was incredible. So I can only imagine walking into that.
Now you're an experienced nurse, you're not a novice, so of course it's
for someone I imagine that has at least some ICU experience. But like,
I know you've talked about your situation with like your preceptors and how that was,
and I think that's like a hallmark example of what the chaos is like
in a situation like that. In the ICU, I saw that a lot
with preceptors where I was in Progressive care. Just you want to talk a
little bit about that like your your pilethora of preceptors. Yes, if anybody's
ever seen my wife with the ICU videos on Instagram or on TikTok, I
said that I had seven. I had to do a recount, and there
were nine. I went to find with them. And first fifteen minutes I
walk into that ICU during like my orientation, somebody dies. I think the
first day we were in there, like when we all walked in there,
like new to that hospital. I think, like, Egiene, we're from
three to five people died from COVID related issues, from being intibated, hemodynamic
on stability or instability. I'm sorry, so this is all kind of wildness,
but yeah, I had I had a preceptor who didn't know she was
getting a but she didn't know that she was getting a new hire, And
when I walked up and showed up, she was just like, oh what,
So she didn't know I was supposed to be there. And then within
the first thirty seconds of me talking to her, she was just like,
oh, I don't know why she gave you to me because I'm going a
PRN WHOA. See, that's already a terrible situation because you feel unwanted they
feel overburdened. A statement like that, I don't know why she gave you
to me. That's already I don't see the purpose in this. It's already
like dismissive of you. So you're already like, Okay, what the fuck
am I doing here? For no? Absolutely, And that's how I felt.
And the thing that really trips me out is that I have an educational
background as an instructor and as an educator, because I was a master instructor
while I was in the Navy, and I've been an educator for I just
hit nine years in January. So the fact that somebody who was a preceptor
had the audacity to open up their mouth and to say something to somebody who
is new that you've never met before, it's wild to me. And of
course, just like everybody else that's new, I'm like, I absorbed that
and I was like, Okay, I don't know you. I don't know
what you've been through, I don't know what you're going through. I'm just
going to take that one for what it is, and then we will just
keep it. We'll just keep it moving. And then it was more everything
was task driven. It wasn't necessarily the why. It was more of hey,
we need to do this, Hey, we need to do this,
and I'm just like, okay, yeah, that's how my first day was.
They're not putting the energy into you. They're not saying this is how
the culture of this unit is. This is how you manage these patients,
this is how you time manage. That's the kind of stuff you need.
You can look at the task list in your charting system, like you can
figure out when your meds are due. You don't need a preceptor to tell
you that. You need someone to help you get the flow of the unit
and to learn the specialty. I have less experience as a preceptor, but
I've been a preceptor also for years. Even when because I just like last
week, got a surprise student. It was just for a few hours,
but my initial thought was, oh, this is going to be exhausting.
Yeah, like, I don't have the energy for this. But I would
never say that to this eagerly excited student who's like hoping that she doesn't get
a bitch to follow around, So to create that anxiety and a student like
that, or not even a student like someone, you are a student in
that moment because when you do have things to learn in that setting, But
to say something like that is like too immediately to put a pin in their
balloon and pop it on way to Not only that, but even if you
are PRN, you're still going to be working on a unit PRN. So
now you've just chat in the well that you'll be sharing with this person that
you have to work with, so to speak. Just bad class move all
the way around. Terrible. Yeah, so that was day one, right,
wow, Yeah, that was day one, and there were just it
wasn't just that hospital. It's just it was a national thing. It was
a worldwide thing. But I can only speak specifically for my part of the
world. And during that time, it was just everybody was feeling it.
Every It didn't matter where you were, but everybody was feeling it. And
it was a second wave, so it was more deadlier than the first one.
We did date it. They didn't know how to treat it. They
were using what they found to treat the first one to treat the second one.
Uh, not reemda Zevie. Oh my god, it was room Zevere.
That's what it was, just just all those things and then I don't
know, it was just chaos. And confusion, burnt out on, appreciativeness,
just everything that you could think of. Yeah, it's when you work
and work and you never feel like you're getting caught up, and then all
of a sudden you're like, oh, cool, it's going to get bad
again. Like I haven't even caught my breath from the first round. And
I think that you're right. It was national. It wasn't just like an
isolated incident. It wasn't just your experience in the ICU. It was happening
everywhere. And you had that experience with other preceptors as well, right like
you had somebody else that was like peace out, I'm out of here.
Oh yeah I did. And it's crazy because out of the nine preceptors that
I had, there was one that I verbally and openly said that I would
like to stay with her and shout out to Amanda, Amanda, if you
ever listened to this, just now, I love you. And when I
said hey, she said she would precept me because she's exactly what a preceptor
is. Very was very, was teaching, was coaching, was calm,
was was heartwarming, was not like she was everything that you could think of
on an educator's aspect, and I was like, I love it. I
love that shit, I love it. That's my education is just the thing
that just really it's just a great feeling for me. And so when I
had it, I was just like, hey, I would like to work
with her, and they were just like, well, you're going to nights,
and so they just completely disregarded they disregarded everything I said my feelings.
That was one of many times where I would express myself and it would just
be disregarded, and I was just like, okay, cool, Just like
that little spiral notebook you got, I'm just right. I'm just taking down
notes for when the time comes, because it's no matter of it's not the
matter of if I leave, it's a matter of when I leave. And
that was just one of the big things of the reason why I left.
And I feel like, as nurses, we do need to take note of
these things, because these are the things that create toxic workplaces, that create
burnout, and you need to recognize them as early as you possibly can,
because you don't want to notice this two three years down the road when you're
like, why have I been dealing with this for all this time? Like
why have I been dealing. But yeah, it's a shout out to Amanda
the preceptor. By the way, wherever she is on day shift, got
a lesser. She's a nurse practitioner now, oh rightfully. And it's wonderful
that she's taking that knowledge and she's bringing it into advanced practice. But it's
also sad that there's one fewer preceptor at the bedside, because it's always the
good preceptors that are like onward and upward, there's always a new influx.
I wish there were more. But for those of you that are listening to
this that are like, I think maybe I would like to be a preceptor,
yes, you would if you're thinking about it, if you think maybe
you'd like it, if you think maybe you'd be good at it. Might
not be good at it on day one. I keep doing it, get
used to it, learn, listen to other people. You will get good
at it. And it is a satisfying skill. Like when you spend a
shift with a student and at the end of that shift or at the end
of that practicum or whatever they're doing, they're like, this was the best
experience. It gives you this feeling of satisfaction. Okay, all the bulls
should I put up with? It's worth it, Like when I have somebody
that actually feels like what you're describing, where it's like, oh, I
finally have somebody that I feel like I can learn from. I'm sorry that
was taken away from you, but it sounds like, yeah, was just
like one more nail in the coffin for your time in the icue of one
of many, and just for all the listeners that are out there. If
you're a new student, or even if you are a season nurse, just
know and first season nurses you should already know this already. But a good
preceptor can make a break a new grad. Yeah, And I really need
for everyone who was in that position to realize where you came from and to
not forget where you came from because a lot of people, a lot of
people are just like, oh, I'm here. Fuck them, they'll figure
it out. The nursing profession is in dire straits right now, is and
it's visibly out there. So you being how you are towards these new,
bright eye, bushy tailed people that want to be a part of this profession.
And it's the same thing that I say when people argue that they don't
have kids, so they don't want to pay school taxes. It's the same
argument. You are responsible for the next generation of people that are surrounding you.
Do you want to be surrounded by a bunch of incompetent morons? Or
do you want to be surrounded by people that have skills and empathy and critical
thinking? Like you're training the nurses that are someday going to be your coworkers,
your coaches, your managers, your advanced practice nurses. Like, these
people are going to keep moving up in or at least being around in healthcare.
So your team, like whether you're training a nurse that may go off
and work a job somewhere else, or whether you're training and pre accepting a
nurse that's going to work on your unit. Who are training the people that
are going to be standing beside you when the shit hits the fan? Do
you want them to be horribly trained? Probably not, I'm guessing not.
Don't horribly train them, not one per I agree one hundred percent with that.
I know there were multifactorial reasons that you left the ICU. Now,
some people love the ICU and they've worked there their entire careers. How did
you know this wasn't the place for you. Like what made you go,
Okay, this is game over. I need to plan on my exit strategy.
There were a multitude of things from just my really bad sleep patterns because
I was working at night. I was about to become a dad, so
I didn't I didn't want to work nights. I believe we as people shouldn't
be working nights anyway. But then again, hey, what's part of the
profession. You got to work both sides. I didn't like the and but
the biggest thing, two of the biggest thing, but one of one of
them was that when you express yourselves of your concern nobody listens to you.
And for the fact that I didn't get listened to for my concerns, I
have a problem with that because if I'm telling you that I'm having a concern
and then something happens that is out of my control, i e. If
somebody dies, then that's something that's going to wail my conscience for a long
time. And it's going to be something that I've told you guys in writing,
by the way, in writing about how the problem that I'm having,
And so that was one second thing is the level of continuity, the having
the same patient over and over and over to where you essentially start to learn
the full body assessment aspect behemo dynamics. Hey, if I have a DKA
patient, give somebody a DKA patient for a week. But in the hospital
that I had, it wasn't like that. It had everybody there, so
there was no continuity of care. Versus if you go to a level one
trauma facility, they have those floors where you could have five or six KA
patients that are right there. That's well, in my opinion, for myself,
that was my first mistake. All new nurses go to a level one
trauma facility. If you can just just go fu. You're hearing it from
me. But the thing that really broke the straw, that really broke the
camel's back was and I did a TikTok on this as well. Where I
had they gave me three patients, two were intubated and one was essentially had
just got done with dialysis. Yeah, your eyes are fued right now.
Yeah, that's not listen. I've seen it to where this ICU gave this
gave two critical care patients, two of them that were intubated and then one
not only was getting actively getting CRT, but then it was actively on a
balloon pump and no and not me, but I saw somebody else. Yeah,
but for the experienced nurses, you shouldn't. No one should ever be
that way. I don't care how much experience you have. You can't be
in three places at once if you have three high alarms going off at the
same time. I agree. So it's not about how good your time management
is. If you have three patients d SA adding at the same time,
if you have three patients trying to rip out their ET tube at the same
time, it doesn't fucking matter how many years you've been a nurse. You
cannot split yourself between rooms. Yep. I agree. Look, I've had
three patients that were on they were spaced in between three rooms, and then
another one that was on the other side of the floor. Oh hell no,
And I was just like, wow, so why is this happening?
And then in Texas we have what we call save Harbor and that and for
those that don't know what safe harbor is, that is where you can report
on safe patient nurse ratios in case of something that happens out of your control.
So if a patient dies or if they're critical and you're in a room
that's way across the floor. So essentially it's to see why you cover your
ass, right, Yeah, But the straw for me was those aspects of
patients. Me advocating for my patient, nobody listening to me. And I
said, to this patient who just got finished with getting dialysis, he's he's
he's untundent, real slow. The dialysis nurse apparently word of mouth is that
he's known to just draw so much fluid from people so fast and not put
it back, and I'm just like, or not put it back at a
rate, and then they're just just looking like that, and I'm just like,
Okay, I need to tell somebody this. So I told charge nurse.
They were just like, we need to we need what do you think
do we need to keep them or do we need to get rid of them?
And I was just like, oh, we need to keep him,
and they were like, oh, we have a surgical patient coming up,
so we need to move them. And I'm like what, So I'm just
like, we shouldn't move him. So I advocate for my patient. Once
again, no one's listening to me. So I'm advocating for my patient,
advocating, and now it's just like, how is he doing? Now?
Can we move him? I'm like no. And then the third time they
were like, we're going to move them anyway, and so they were like,
so, just get them ready to report and I'll take him over there.
Then they took him over there, and I'm like, okay, I
wrote it in the note and I said what I said, what she said,
all that stuff. And then they bring up a surgical patient. It's
probably about midnight, and it's a septic patient, somebody who was actively in
sepsis. Now, the issue with somebody who was actively in sepsis was not
my issue. The issue was when I was asking for help, no one
helped me. That was the issue. I have had hemo dynamically on stable
patients at that point, but nothing to somebody who was actively having sepsis to
this point, and so that's something that was new to me. So I
was like, hey, so I'm not really sure help me right vent management
I could do all that stuff, and I'm just like, listen, so
there's some stuff that's not really vibeing with my mind. Right now, I'm
gonna feel overwhelmed. And they were just like, no, you got it.
You're like, I'm telling you, I don't. I don't know what
the fuck I'm doing. My exact words, I have my pull my mask
down, and I told her everything. And then at that point, angry
black man the stereotype or what is it, an angry black man or aggressive
male that's on the floor, and I'm just like, oh, so now
you hear me as I'm being aggressive to you. But whether I try to
talk calming to but like when I was telling right, when I was trying
to tell you, as a civilized human being, you weren't fucking listening.
Yep. And that's what happened. This is nobody was listening. So that
was probably the worst one of the worst nights I've had because I never felt
I never felt so alone. And not only that, this was the most
critical patient on our floor, who was the furthest away from the nurses station,
so he was all the way by the trauma elevators and we call it
Narnia because it was cold and it's dark back there, and he was by
himself and it was just me. So you're by yourself, by myself with
three patients that are now antibating. One of them actively had COVID and he
was gonna he was at some point going to pass away. He was,
but he was still intibated on the presser's And then I had another guy.
I'm sorry, the second guy, he wasn't intibated. He was withdrawing from
opiates or something like that. So he's a dude who asked pulling us fully
cast at her, out standing up, pissing all over, agitated. Yeah,
I couldn't even couldn't even go to the bathroom without somebody. When me
coming back there, and then you see him standing up pissing on the floor,
blood all over the floor, and two other nurses and they're helping them.
I'm like, what in the fuck just happened here? Bro? I
was gone for fucking five minutes and he was there. They were cool though,
they were fine about it, but it was just about the whole situation,
and long story short. Luckily, there was a travel nurse there who
I love. Her name is two I spelled Thhu, being ICU nurse for
I think ten plus years at that point and was amazing. And she was
like, come on, come on, I got you. She had already
had two bene patients on her own. She was just like I got you,
and like I said, it wasn't the aspect of me doing all those
other things. It was about the fact that when I had questions about anything,
people just said figure it out. And that sink or swim shit.
I don't know. I don't know where that originated from, but fuck all
of you. Yeah, And here's the thing. If you're on the other
side of that, if you're the person that can't breathe, do you want
your nurse to just be like, maybe they'll call, maybe they won't,
maybe they're busy, maybe they're won't they aren't the rest of the nurses or
kicking it at the nurses station. I just want to give a little PSA
to all of our new grads, our new nurses, our nurses that have
been in practice only maybe a short time or maybe a year or two.
If you see someone that is fucking drowning, don't wait for them to ask
for help. Go help them. If you're not helping them with what they're
actively doing. Make sure their other patients aren't falling out of bed de satting.
Do they need to be changed, do they need suction? Are there
meds all hours late, check into this, be a good It's not just
about being a good coworker. You may hate the guts of the nurse you're
helping, what you're ultimately doing is saving the person on the other end of
that like care. So I'm sorry, but that's our responsibility as nurses.
When we sign up to be nurses. We don't just sign up to be
nurses to the people we're assigned to that night. That doesn't mean that you
have to run nuts. You got your own shit to do. I get
it. Sometimes everything's on fire and it's everybody's trying to get their own stuff
done. Yeah, but if you're just like on your phone, you're looking
at Zilla on the internet like you're dreaming of the two million dollar hole you
can't afford to buy, get off your ass and go replace that bag that's
about to run dry. Okay, that's my PSA, Thank you much.
No, I get it, And like, for the most part, all
nights, I was very good at that, especially the best off of my
patients. I would walk and I would hear pumps going off, and I
would like, Hey, so and so is this yours? Hey, your
pump is out? Hey, I changed your pump for you. Hey I
did this, Hey I did I was one of those people. But then
it's just like the moment that I ask for help, they're just like,
oh, no, you got it because you already know how to do it.
I'm just sighting that's a toxic. That's a toxic in it. I'm
glad you're out of there. So, by the way, I just I
want to just interject one thing. I don't mean interupt. We have on
my unit. We're a pulmonary unit for pulmonary hypertension. We give a medication
called flow land. It's an IVY medication has a half life of six minutes.
It can cause rebound hypertension and really put that patient in a bad place.
So, like we're told at the start of every huddle of every shift,
if you hear that pump deeping in nine, I don't care who you
are, you go in and restart it because we have six minutes before we
have dire consequences for that patient. So anyway, I just wanted to say
that to people like, you may not know what's running. It might be
their hepburn drip, it might be their pressor it might be like might just
be a TKO sale who knows, well, check it out. Check it
out. If you're walking by and you don't have anything going on, check
it out. Okay, yeah most of the time. And if your unit
is the type of place where no one would ever do that for you start
shopping for a new job. Yep, Okay, then you started. You
did. You started looking for a new opportunity thing else. And that was
actually I think day four or four, and I was just like, I
needed that and I needed to go I need to go away. So I
think I had like four or five days off, but I had my reserved
duty that weekend and I was just so pissed off, and so I I
messaged a manager and I was like, hey, are you busy? So
I left my reserve unit meeting or whatever I had going on, and I
went straight up back up to the hospital uniform at all and I don't try,
I don't walk anywhere in my uniform. And she was just like,
hey's everything okay. I was like no, and so I told her flat
out. I was just like I hate this place, I hate this fucking
job, and I'm done. And she was just like, oh my god,
why, And I was just like, oh, and of course,
what do I do? I breacoping the fucking book that I have a list
of things, and I was just like, this person is trash. This
person is trash. How exactly do I go through all this? I asked
you about this? And then specifically, there are things that she said to
me verbatim that I wrote down and I repeated them back to her. These
were months later, and she was just like, wow, my god.
And then at the end of the day, she was like, what do
you How can I help you? And I was She was like, do
you want to go back to days? I asked you to go back to
day's long time ago, and you told me no. Oh, I asked
you for more time for something, on something, and you told me no,
too little, too late. And even if she had put you back
on days for a little while, how long before they flipped your aspect Tonight's
how long before it starts off over again? Yep? And so that's exactly
what happened. And she was like, I could put you on days,
I can you know for blah blah blah. I did what maybe two like
my next set of shifts were like days, and I think by the end
of the first day, I was just like, I'm done. I'm just
going to finish out these lasts and I told her, I was like,
I'm done, and she was She's like, where do you want to go?
And I was like, I'm going to go back. I want to
go back to the o War. And I knew the director that lived in
that lived that worked in the war, and he was like, come on.
And I finished out my last shift, and then that following Monday,
I went to go see him. I was waiting to do. There was
some other paperwork that needed to be done. So I worked in pack You
for about two months three months, which was fine. I loved pack You.
Pack You was the holy grail in my opinion, and that then my
son was born, so I was gone for that. And then when I
came back after those two weeks, I started working in the Oar and I
were to the Oar from April of twenty twenty two, so yeah, April
twenty twenty two essentially until now. What was the transition like, as you
like, not so much like the actual functional transition, but like, how
did you feel doing this? I hope you would have a sense of cool.
I took control of the situation that wasn't serving me, and I changed
it. But like, how did that feel emotionally for you? Because obviously
you wanted to be in the ICU, you went there in the first place.
Yeah, what were you feeling throughout all of this? A lot of
people don't realize. I've had people that flat out come to me. They
were like, bro, if you couldn't hack it, just say that now.
It was just like, it's funny when people on the internet can just
say what they want, yeah, without consequence, right, And I was
like, okay, But I had already worked in the ICU a little It
was like a year and three months at this point, and then earl year
two three months at this point, from between the burn ICU, the medical
ICU, and then floating down to neuro and so I was just like it
was time to go, because I know mentally I wasn't there anymore. And
when I transitioned from that, it was more along the lines of for a
short period of time, is oh my god, what are people going to
think of me? But then I said to myself, no part of me
gives a shit about what these people think about me, because in the end,
mentally if I can't take care of myself, I definitely can't take care
of my patients the correct way that I want to. And that aspect of
me being emotional about it was very short lived during the transition, because one
thing that people don't realize is when you're a nurse, you're versatile and you
can essentially go anywhere. So my frustration was very short lived. And it
wasn't the specialty that you couldn't hang with. It was the really not helpful
people, and you could who's to say a few years from now, and
I'm not saying you, well, well, in theory, you could go
to a different hospital with a different culture and a different group of people and
thrive in the ICU. It really is about time and place and the people
that you are surrounded by. So I think that it's good that you had
the perspective to be like, this just wasn't for me. I hope that
other people feel that way, because it's true. People are going to be
like, oh, you couldn't have it. You know what, you go
do it. You go do something where people are like sabotaging you and not
helping you. And those people that are like, you know, Christened by
fire or whatever the word is. You're not a better nurse because you had
to struggle the whole way through. Imagine how much better you'd be if you
were supported and encouraged and taught and given the tools you needed upfront, and
you didn't have to fight for every fucking skill you have. Sorry, I'm
cursing a lot. I'll clean up my act. No, I won't.
I'll never up my act. Wearing like a sailor I love it. Yeah,
So I want to jump forward a little bit because I'm really excited about
the work you're doing away from the bedside. Yeh, You've got You've got
like a whole new universe that you've created for yourself. You've got the ill
you talk about it. We'll talk about your online endeavors a little bit for
those I'm sure a lot of people already know, because I think we a
lot of audience. But talk about what you've been doing online. Yeah,
So I before I do that, one thing I will say about that.
Yeah, sorry, Well, one thing I will say about the ICU is
that the majority of people there were great. It's the system, yeah,
of how the hospital ran, which was which terribly sets everybody out for failure.
But anyway, so that's and when you have management that doesn't listen when
you say, look, there's a flaw in the system, there's a flaw
in the way it's being trained. There's a toxicity in the culture here because
maybe I spoke a little harshly. Maybe it's not a group of people.
Sometimes there is. Sometimes there's a group of people that are truly toxic and
they feed off of each other and they run and clicks, and it can
be very like that. Like I've experienced that in other units, and I
feel like it's more in critical care. Like you don't find a lot of
bitchy sorority like clicks in Medsurge, at least I haven't in my experience.
But then when you get up into the critical care, higher stakes ego,
like they're like I remember going to SICU floating there and going into huddle and
people are like fighting to take the sickest patients. Now that's not my mindset.
I don't walk into a unit and go I want the sickest son of
a bitch in this hospital. Like that's not But these are all people that
like want to go to CRNA school. They want to like they want to
lamp up their skills, and like they want the person that's on CRT and
they're on like six press or like, I don't thrive in that environment.
But there were people that were like clawing over each other metaphorically trying to get
these patients, and they didn't want the patients that were just like stable vented.
They use some horrible terms to talk about those patients. So that's a
culture that doesn't make sense to me. Like I get it, but I
don't get it for sure. But yeah, I feel like it's a bit.
The culture's a lot of pieces. So I wasn't trying to crap on
a particular group of people. So you escaped a situation that was not ideal
for you, and now you are in a situation that is ideal or seems
very ideal. Seems like you're thriving. I love it, actually, so
I and other people love it too. I'm seeing the rave reviews you're getting
and the people that are emailing you and being like, Kevin Rocks, why
do you rock? Kevin? I was just born that way. No,
But when I was working in the Oar, I ended up falling in the
Oar. Oh, and I actually ended up like hurting my back, and
not only hurting my back, but also I had to have surgery because I
had a torn meniscus after that. So when that happened, this was in
February of twenty three, so it's been a year. So when that happened,
I was just like, I need to think about I need to think
about something else because not saying that the bedside is just not for me,
but it's just like my love for wanting to be at the bedside is just
it's started. It's just dwindling. And like I said, I've been an
educator for quite some time, and I was just like I had a and
I struggled to pass the in clicks. So I was like, you know
what, let me start coaching people. And I had already essentially been coaching
people before that anyway, and I know we talked about that before. So
I started coaching more people, and then I eventually created my own essentially formally
created a coaching program and Inclex, an enclex preparatory program where I do three
recorded videos for really high topic type of questions, high topic hype of content,
and yeah, essentially last year I started an Inclex course that's really great.
I think about that and I'm like, that seems like a lot of
work, but you put the work in, and you have a lot of
people that I love scrolling you. I took a gander at the Instagram post
you put up, and there's a lot of people that are really excelling,
like passing their endclus after using your program. And you do live streams like
you go through questions online, you post them their YouTube, so like people
can even go back and review that stuff. I as I've talked about this
before, I love enclex review because I was a nurse, especially as a
specialty in art. Especially as a specialty nurse, you lose a lot of
stuff. Yeah, so this is this is valuable content and it seems like
you have fun doing it too. I love it. I enjoy it.
So that's the thing is like people don't realize how hard the work is to
open up a med search book, cite everything, create the content, create
the power points, then record it and I do my lives. And I
enjoy doing my lives because I love to talk shit to people, especially when
people come into my lives telling me that the questions are easy and that you
would never see these questions on inclex, and I was just like, how
can you never see these on inclex? The National Board has ten, like
over ten thousand types of different types of questions, everything from very extremely easy
questions to very hard questions. So for you to say that you never see
it on inclex, somebody who only took it once at eighty five questions have
no idea what the other ninety nine percent of those questions are going to ask
you. So I'm glad that you know that you'll never see it, clown.
But I love getting on TikTok and talking shit to people. It's funny.
I'm see that and wrong, and sometimes more wrong they are, the
more confident they are. Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, it's true.
And also, who's to say that one of those quote unquote easy questions
isn't going to give you a foundational piece for something that's going to come up
in the futuregon, And it's there's no shame in it not being that easy.
That's why we're all here exactly. And it's all about, like you
said, laying a foundation. When I get on TikTok and I do these
lives because I do them. Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays at five thirty Central time.
I tell everybody, I'm like, listen, there are people that are
here who literally today just open up their mouth and say that they wanted to
be a nurse, and the algorithm heard them, and then here I am.
So you have Then you have people that are who are doing pre ricks,
people that are getting into school, people who are actively in school,
people who have graduated failed inclects multiple times and are now already a nurse for
a year or a season. Nurse, I get nurses that have been in
there. I am nurses that are in there that have been nurses twenty thirty,
forty years, and that a message me and say thank you for taking
care of us. And I was just like, I truly love doing everything
in collects because number one, it was my struggle. But then number two,
it's just a little better to teach us than us exactly exactly, And
any nurse that is a good nurse is going to know that there's no point
at which you stop learning correct forever learner as we are. Yeah, even
if you stay in the same specialty for thirty years, you're never going to
master everything, master all this pathophysiology. You're gonna have a different person present
each time, and that person's going to be unique specimen, so to speak.
So so yeah, perish the thought that you've ever reached a point where
you needn't learn it anymore. Right, So, how did all this translate
into your book? Oh that's right, Oh that's right. I wrote a
book. I almost forgot I did. And it was funny because when I
posted a years like that's awesome, and I was like surprise, Oh I
know, I was like, wait, where the hell did that come from?
A lot of times I feel that I have imposter syndrome, but then
I realize that I have been on this journey of becoming a nurse nurse preneurship.
Not a year, it's all it's been. It's literally from the day
that I opened my mouth, and I was in twenty twelve when I said
that I wanted to be a nurse. Everything that's encapsulated from that day all
the way until today where I'm talking to you, is encapsulated of what this
book is essentially going to mean. So I wrote a book and it's called
concer It the Journey to Passing the End clicks and it's not just going to
be just a regular run of the mill book that you can buy at Barnes
and Noble, Walmart, Target, or wherever you buy your book from,
because that's where they're going to be. But it's not, Hey, it's
all about test strategies and stuff. It's about the true journey of studying for
this end clicks and why I failed, not once, not twice, three
times, what I did to conquer all of the things that were going on
in my life, to include the chance of being transferred to a ship that
was going to a that was going to deploy, my relationship that was very
much on the rocks and very much affects everything that I had going on,
me transferring to a new duty station and all that stuff. Like the military
loves the fact that you go to school, but they don't give a shit
about what you have going on if the mission does not entail of what the
mission has going on. So I had to think about that. And then
it's about the fact that it's just me not knowing what I didn't know and
applying that to my success. And one of the things that will also be
in the book was we'll talk about the having a mentor like a mentor of
some sort. Everybody that's listening to this, I don't care what you're trying
to be in life. I don't care if you're trying to be a CRNA.
I don't care if you want to you want to be a nurse practitioner.
I don't care if you want to be have a doctorate and underwater basket
weaving. I don't care what it is. Find that individual that you would
love to emulate and be in the position and follow them and ask them for
guy, And that's what happened. I opened up. Not only did I
open up my mouth, the clouds opened up and was just like, there's
this person for you. And that happened. And the moment that happened is
where I started to see where I was faltering. And you have to be
able to be coachable and you have to be able to accept that I call
that. I finally got off of my beach and a lot of people were
just like, what does that mean, Kevin. Let me tell you,
Adrian, I'm going to tell you right now. I'm a military guy.
Especially I was in the Navy. I keep saying I was in the Navy.
I was in the Navy. But I was in the Navy, and
Navy was pretty much what I lived by. And if you don't know the
story of the Invasion of Normandy in nineteen forty four, when the Allied forces
invaded France to stop Hitler from doing Hitler things, the beaches of Omaha and
Utah Beach where the bloodiest of essentially that assault, and a lot of people
died on the beach, and there was a good saying that happened was there
are two people on the beach, those that are dead and those that are
going to die. So I use that, and I use that narrative to
tell you that if you are have somebody who are if you're someone who is
not successful at that exam or just anything in life that you're trying to accomplish,
there's either one or two things you're gonna do. You're gonna stay on
the beach, or you're gonna run through the gunfire and you're gonna be scared,
and you're going to accomplish your mission. So you have a better chance
of living by running through the gunfire, running through all the hell, being
scared, doing it with the chance of succeeding, rather than knowing that You're
not going to succeed by staying on your beach, So what do you want
to do? You're going to stay on the beach and not progress or are
you gonna be scared and go that way? Force progression? You tell me,
and most people are just like, I want to get off my beach,
then fucking get off your beach and let's go. Stop, let's go,
and let's get to work. And that is the premise of this of
this book. So it's supposed to be inspirational and motivating and of course with
tips of the things that I did wrong and how to do them right,
time management support system understanding and CLEX style questions, understanding the content, how
to apply it, what the test is asking you, understanding the GAMECLEX test
plan, and then recreating the testing center along with other things that are going
to be in there. So that is how all of that translated into this
book. I'm still caught up in the metaphor, I'm still like that hit
me in the fields, Kevin. If I'm not being facetious, yea.
If you've never seen and if you've never seen Saving Private Ryan, I have,
Yeah, I have opened the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan the first
forty when they open up. So I've only watched that movie one time.
I can't watch it more. Les Once is enough. And you know,
for somebody who's been to war, but not in that aspect, not in
that aspect, but somebody who has been to war, I can understand the
fear that those men went through. And I know this is probably they're just
like, Yo, that's ridiculous for you to say and put in that analogy.
I was just like, but is it the Because that's what I understand,
and for what I want all the listeners to understand is that you put
yourself in those men's shoes, but you put it to whatever issues that you
have going on. It's the same exact concept. Those men were scared out
of their mind. And the only thing I heard somebody say, we got
to get off this beach. And they got off the beach and they were
victorious. So do you want to get off your beach and be victorious or
do you want to stay watching everyone watching everyone else live? So you tell
me. But like I said, if you everybody, if anybody wants to
get the real true analogy, watch the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
You'll probably only watch it once. It'll probably make you cry like a baby
like it made me, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. It'll
hit you. It'll hit you more in the fields if you go and watch
it. So get off your beach. Get off your beach. It's in
a less powerful way. I've said to people, time is going to pass
anyway. Wouldn't you rather pass it doing something that you love or that's going
to pay off. You can sit on your ass. That's time is going
to go. And that's what I said. I've worked more doing this program
and coaching and tutoring and doing these live sessions, especially on the back end.
I've worked more in the last year hardcore than I have in my entire
adult life. Honestly, I believe it, because that's what stops me from
doing educational content is the citation, getting it right, making sure. I'm
always like, man, what if I cite information wrong? That? But
you're off the beach and I'm still on the beach and off of it,
like I'm literally essentially, I like I'm in the middle of the beach.
I'm and I'm out in the open, and those comments are coming in.
That's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. Thank you for telling me that.
So now I can go back and I can clarify, and then I'll
look in the book or I'll be like, Okay, I see where I
misworded that. Let me go and let me fix that word, you know,
because everything is trial and error. Yeah. Absolutely. Do you go
like and I try to tell people, Hey, do you go to Nurse
Mike and do you open up your mouth and say that to him? Or
Hey, do you go to Inclex High Yield and say that to doctor z?
Or hey do you go to Mark Klemick, do you go to Remar,
do you go to do you go to Kaplan and you tell them that
an hours? Or are you rude to them like that? You know what
I'm saying, Hey, don't do that. Yes exactly. But then again,
like I said, I'm in the middle of my beach, and until
I conquer this beach, just like I conquer my exam, I'm still going
to be put. I'm still going to be getting the comments and I'm still
going to be getting the bullets raining at me until I conquer it. I'm
glad you know that you don't have to just I'm one of those people that's
still learning not to be like, oh okay, okay, sorry, I'm
still very much learning not to be that person. That's all. Am I
wrong when I'm not? Sometimes I'll be I could be absolutely correct, and
I'm like, oh you question yourself. Yeah yeah, even when maybe I
shouldn't. But that's a skill that we just need to keep developing. And
again, lifelong student, never done, never absolutely and it comes with time.
Yeah, comes with when I when I very first started doing this,
I had people that there were just like you're a fraud, You're a scam.
And I was just like huh, and I was like how I was
like, am? I was like, I go live from times a week
and people see me. Most people that are scams you don't see them.
But whatever. Sure, yeah, yeah, you're like I'm actually putting the
work in. Yes, And the book is like I'm pre sale now or
pre sale so you can actually pre order the Kendle version right now on Amazon
and for all my digital friends. Yeah, for all my digital friends.
So you can actually pre order it right now on Kindle through Amazon, but
through my website, the bootners dot com slash Books, and you will see
my glorious face there and the cover and my scrubs with my with my head
cover. I think I have my fanny pack on. By the way,
if you don't have a fanny pack, get one. Don't care what nobody
says. Real men and women wear fanny packs. Let me tell you.
Let me just take a minute to tell you about my fanny peck journey.
So I had one for work, and honestly, I peel a lot,
I drink a lot of water. I do work a job where I am
able to pee most of the time, so I'm blessed. But I was
having a hard time dealing with the taking it because I how do I even
qualify the let's just say, let's just say, I'm not one that can
just like drop troal with the fanny pack hanging there, like I can't do
that. And I was having so much complication with doing the whole draw string
and the fanny peck and the couldn't do it. So I wear I clip
a series of things to my shirt collar. People are actually make fun of
me. I should make a video someday about all the crap that I clip
to my shirt collar I have I do. People are so I have certain
people at work that'll be like you got any new gadgets on your shirt today?
People are like, how does your shirt stay up? And I'm like,
I got secrets. I have secrets how I keep this all on place
side. But yeah, so instead of having it around the waist, I
have everything up top. But I don't know, it's just how I've always
done it. Whatever works. Yeah, I wish I could do a fanny
pack. I would love to be able to do a fanny pack. But
I'm one of those people that I have sixty eight pockets and every pocket has
a designated set of things in it so that I always reach for the right
pocket to get the right thing. Nice. Like I said, hey,
for whatever worked for you. I just I felt the need to defend myself
on the fanny pack thing. I was like, I tried it. I
swear I tried it. Once you figure out, once you figure out the
system that works for you A and as long as it's cool and it doesn't
it's not hurt. Nobody hurting. Hey, look do you Yeah, they
did the thing on my unit last year. The year I can't remember,
but it like they it was when high school. They do like best dressed
most likely to be president most likely to like, I won the Mary Poppins
Award, the nurse with the most shit in the bottom of our endless pockets.
Yeah, and it's so funny because people all the time will come up
to me and be like, I know, you gotta fill in the blank
here. And if it's not in my pocket, it's in my bag.
People will be like, you got a coppahma stacks, you got some cobain,
you got a paper clip, you gotta screw, you got an eyeglass
crew driver, you got some ibuprofen, you got some cedrons for me,
You've got it. You got some extra nail files, and I got it.
I got it the endless Harry Poppins bag. So yeah, that'll be
in in my other life, it was Mary Poppins. Nice. So yeah.
So people can get your book, they can join you for your sessions.
You said Monday Wednesday Friday. Yeah, it's Monday Wednesday Friday at five
thirty on on TikTok. And that's where I just go through. I just
go through questions for about an hour and then I do a Q and A
after that, and I try to answer as many questions as I can and
let people know that if you need an Inclex course, I have a course
that's available that's on demand that has two different Inclex reviews in there, one
based off of the client needs like management of care, pharmacology, swan and
so forth, and then I do a new generation one. So I have
sixty plus videos in there right now. So I let them know that they
can go and get those reach torone, Like, I have a bunch of
stuff that whatever you want, come hang out out and people can find you
every where. You're on TikTok, you're on Instagram, you're on YouTube,
you get your website. Yeah, so you're a man of many hats.
You're also in your free time. You're like, you don't have enough to
do already. You are a man of many hats. And I tip my
hat to you. I just heard my geriatric neighbor. He plays drums in
the basement. He just started playing the drums. God bless him. I
think that's our cute to wrap ups. Oh my god, I think I
can hear it. Can you? Oh he just stopped? Oh yeah,
I heard something. Yeah. So we have a couple that live blow us.
We live in a two flat, just like on the edge of Chicago,
and yeah, he plays the drums in the basement. Sometimes he's and
he hits the whole catalog. Sometimes he's playing to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sometimes it's
TLC. He played Waterfalls for a good few weeks. He's done. He
does rock, he does hip hop, he does old standards. He hits
the hippie circuit hard. So he just I'll have to figure out what tonight's
hold on. He started again with yeah, all right, on that note,
thank you for joining me. Yeah, absolutely, I said, like
I said, I appreciate you. I appreciate you for always inviting me to
the podcast and it's always fun. I'm actually surprised you don't hear my son
screaming. He was screaming at my door earlier. I'm glad that you didn't
hear him, because he would walk in here with no shirt on and be
what's going on here? He could be the youngest guest I'm nursing uncensored.
I was gonna say, you're one of the elite members of the Return Guest
Club. There's only there's a few, but there's not a ton and so
I was thinking, like, if people have come on, it's like the
SNL club where if you host five times you get like a jacket or whatever,
so you have something else to aspire to, as if you already haven't
accomplished enough in life, you need to get your five times guest jacket for
the nursery. Look, I'm Outlook, I'm always humbled to be invited to
anything. I don't need a jacket. It's just to the fact that you're
still you're still creating your tribe and around people that are just great for you
for growth. Like I said, I appreciate it and I love it,
and it's always been it's always a fun time when I'm here. And this
the last thing I'll say. This has been a special recording. I've been
actually riding high. I've been on hiatus a long time, you know,
just started recording releasing again. But as of the time of this recording,
I don't know how many days it'll take me to get this out. God
help me. But at the time of this recording, like yesterday or the
day before, I hit one million downloads. Yes, yes, hey everybody
right now. It took a little longer than I anticipated, but we got
there. It's not a race, and I just wanted to take lations.
Thank you. I wanted to take this opportunity to say out loud and to
the listenership, to my audience, there are some people that I have been
listening from the beginning. I see them. I see I'm looking at my
Instagram stories. I see the numbers. I see the people that are like
coming back and commenting over and over again. I appreciate you. I love
my og listeners, my new listeners, welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
My coworkers and my current job are starting to catch on that I have
podcasts. So if any of my current crew are listening, hey guys.
But yeah, it's been a while ride. This is season ten. So
Kevin, thank you for being part of the tenth season of Nursing Uncensored.
This is a monumental season for me. Like it. Like I said,
seven years, a million downloads is nothing for people to realize, that's nothing
too, that's nothing to downplay, or as my dad would say, that's
nothing to shake a stick out. Yeah, yeah, that's nothing to shake
a stick at or downplay because you still had to put the work in order
for that to happen. So congratulations to you on your one million dollards.
That's hum Thank you so much. What's the next route for you to have
a million books sales? That would be a mean Oh hey, I'm just
saying, ten thousand free low prebow or pre orders can get me on the
New York Times bestsellers list. Okay, so this is the push. Let's
get the Kindle editions, let's get it going matter. It doesn't matter if
it's kindle or if it's paperback, all like, the book will be real.
Okay, yeah, the book will be to get your book on June
fifth, and June fifth is significant because that marks my anniversary of becoming a
nurse. Oh, it only makes sense for me to release it on that
day after it took me three unsuccessful attempts and then finally passing in on June
bit of twenty twenty, so four year anniversary. Hey there's a book for
you, Kevin. You're a sentimental motherfucker. Hey, hey, you've got
to have some type of meaning around here, and that's mine. That's mine
for y'all. Thank you for coming back. We're going to do it again
sometime. Okay, yes, ma'am, I appreciate you. All right,
ex what all right? All right? The Nursing Uncensored podcast, like nursing
itself, can be intense at times. We don't censor, but we do
protect private health information has been changed and concealed. We're not talking about you,
Mema, your boss and wife, or anyone you might know. We're
real health professionals trying to give you factual information. However, you are responsible
for doing your own research and not taking anything we say as professional or medical
advice. Opinions belong only to the person expressing them and do not reflect our
employers, educational or professional institutions. I hope you learned something from laughed a
little. I bet you'll come back for the next conversation.