Nurse News: Nurse Blake on WWHL, Kim delos Santos Spotlight, Nurse Fired Over Podcast Sues Hospital and Harvard Alzheimer’s Breakthrough

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Hello everybody, welcome back to Club Nurse. This is Colton Lord, your host of this podcast. Today we are diving into some more nurse news. We've got some things to cover today. Um, just a little side note here, if you do hear some background noise, some cars driving, some birds chirping, some horns honking, you are hearing correctly. There's probably some construction going on. I am traveling right now. I'm in Los Angeles, so I'm not in my typical place in Boston. So just rolling with it here, still here to deliver you some nurse news. So thank you all for coming back. I hope you have had an amazing week, weekend, at whatever point you are listening to this episode. I am wishing you well. So let's dive right into this. I don't know if any of you saw, but the one and the only Nurse Blake made an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on his late night show, which is super cool. It's awesome that there was some representation for some nurses out there, and Blake is a great person to represent the community. And also he looked super fabulous in his pink scrubs while on set as a guest bartender with Andy Cohen. And of course Blake killed it. He had a little interview with nurse.org as they asked him about his experience on Andy Cohen's show. And while Blake seemed like he had a great time, there was one point where he did say that he had some regret about not speaking up further for nurses with how we were portrayed, which is a common thing in public with nurses. So Someone asked Nurse Blake if he was a nurse and then proceeded to ask him if so, like you do bedpans. And basically the the audience then responded with a giant ew. And Blake did not really have much time to kind of digest this question and actually answer it appropriately as he wished he could have to really just defend the nursing profession because I think these are very common misconceptions by the public that this is what nurses do. And first of all, not to shame any patients who need to use bedpans because you know this is just. Unfortunately, a part of life, and sometimes people need assistance. And it's not to shame anybody because you never know if that's going to be you at that one point in your life. And as Blake was saying, he wished he could have shined a light more on the nursing profession and show that that's not, you know, just what we do as nurses. There's a lot more to it. That is just one part and one aspect of our job. But again, as Blake had said, he was, you know, he was on television. He didn't have a whole lot of time to kind of digest what was happening, what was being said. He did say that he would love a redo on the show as did not love Andy's questions or comments, and he would like to have educated him about what we actually do as nurses. But either way, super cool that Blake was able to go represent the nursing community and be out there doing his thing, being a star as per usual. Side note with Nurse Blake, he is at nurse camp right now. I don't know if any of you were able to go or if any of you are there, but they are at camp right now in upstate New York. Keep an eye out for future dates for NurseCon at Sea. I did go last year. It's super fun. It's a great time. I highly recommend anybody out there considering going to NurseCon at Sea. Literally, you get all the continuing education credits and it's so fun. You're surrounded by a huge group of nurses who are just there to relax, to learn, maybe party a little bit. It's a great time. Um, so highly, highly recommend going on that. If you have not booked your ticket, you, you better get there because I know that the NurseCon at Sea 2026 is really getting pretty close to selling out. So if you have not yet, I would recommend grabbing your ticket on that cruise ship. All right, next let's talk about Kim De Los Santos, a Filipino teen star, nurse, and mental health advocate. Kim De Los Santos is a former Filipino teen celebrity who migrated to the US in 2004 and worked various jobs before entering nursing school at the age of 28. She became a registered nurse in Texas and earned her nurse practitioner degree in psychiatric mental health and openly shared her personal battles with depression, hypothyroidism, and cultural adjustment. Now advocates For mental health awareness. So this is a super cool story. Really was a childhood star, even earned herself the Film Academy of the Philippines Best Child Actor Award, and she was known in her roles in a few different TV shows. It sounds like in 2004, Kim walked away from the glitz of showbiz, navigating divorce and moving to the United States. Her new dream: nursing, a profession far from the red carpet but closer to the human heart. I think this story is really great. It's a true testament to immigrants who come to America really to pursue. Any kind of you know better life that they're looking for, and specifically for the nursing community, we are all hyper aware of the role that Filipinos play in our profession. And again, Kim De Los Santos is just a true testament to what it takes to leave the Philippines, get to America, become a nurse. It's a big deal. It's difficult. It's not an easy journey for people. I just think that really Kim's story really relates to nurses honestly everywhere. Just really showing and highlighting the immigrants' challenge of starting over in a new. Um, she talks about the new grad nerves and the need to prove herself. She talks about, uh, some things that she went through as a new grad nurse, uh, the sting of discrimination, yet pushing forward anyway, and the courage to share, uh, her own mental health struggles while caring for others. All right, this next story is wild. This is out of Massachusetts. Uh, Nurse Carla LeBlanc, uh, the whistleblower case. So basically, uh, Carla was fired weeks after speaking out on a podcast about critical patient safety issues at St. Vincent's Hospital following a damning state investigation citing deadly staffing shortages. Union and the Massachusetts Nursing Nurses Association filed whistleblower and unfair labor practice claims, positioning the case as retaliation against ethical nursing advocacy. So yeah, the story is actually really crazy. Basically, Carla went on— she had an appearance on the Outdoor Cats podcast where she criticized St. Vincent's management for maintaining inadequate staffing levels that she claimed compromised to patient safety. During her podcast appearance, LeBlanc linked these staffing issues to serious patient harm, including 3 patient deaths. The hospital's termination letter to LeBlanc accused her of making disloyal, reckless, and maliciously untrue statements about the institution, which they cited as just cause for her dismissal. This is where unions step in, friends. This is where we are thankful for the nursing unions out there, because the MNA, which is the Massachusetts Nurses Association, has thrown their support behind LeBlanc. filing both unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board and separate whistleblower suit in Worcester Superior Court. Based on a Facebook post by the MNA, uh, they're saying the Boston Globe is out with this news, uh, talking about St. Vincent's Hospital and how they fired Carla LeBlanc. And just days before LeBlanc appeared on the podcast, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified the hospital that inadequate nurse staffing was putting patients at serious risk of harm. The federal agency found lapses in care affected 5 patients, 3 of whom died, according to public records. So honestly, I don't— this is a terrible look for St. Vincent's Hospital in Massachusetts because she obviously was speaking the truth about what was happening. There was already things kind of happening, going on behind the scenes. So them firing her just looks really terrible on them. I don't think this is going to fare well for St. Vincent's in Worcester, Massachusetts. And shout out to Carla Blanc for speaking out and telling the truth about what's happening and advocating for other nurses And for patients, because at the end of the day, we are the ones there responsible for people. And even if you have an 8-patient assignment, you are signing yourself up as the nurse on these patients and signing up for the responsibility. So when things happen, no matter how many patients you have, you know, that's, that's the issue with this. And that's why Carla LeBlanc was sounding the alarms, because when things are happening and nobody says anything, that's how you get to these really terrible situations, like people dying when they should not be dying. So shout out to Carla LeBlanc. It's not Intrigued to see, uh, where this case will end up. Okay, um, so to kind of just round out this week's nurse news, this is actually just something that I thought found super interesting. It was Harvard's groundbreaking lithium treatment for Alzheimer's research and what nurses must know. So a recent study from Harvard Medical School identified a potential link between the trace element lithium and Alzheimer's disease, offering early insights into how this mineral may influence brain health and cognitive decline. The findings could have important implications for nurses Especially those involved in patient education, dementia care, and wellness screening. I mean, we, you know, if you work at the bedside, you deal with dementia and Alzheimer's patients all the time. I mean, this is, this is huge to have this kind of groundbreaking research. The study is saying is lithium as a trace brain element, which is widely recognized in clinical practice for its psychiatric applications, notably most for bipolar disorder, is also naturally found in the human brain in low levels. And according to the Harvard researchers, these trace amounts play a supporting role in maintaining neural function. The study discovered that lithium concentrations in the brain decreased in the early stages of cognitive impairment. The depletion might contribute to the progression of Alzheimer's disease, though the causal pathways are still being investigated. Notably, the research does show that lithium in the brain can bind to amyloid beta plaques, the protein that aggregates commonly associated with Alzheimer's. So yeah, this is just again groundbreaking research, really cool stuff, potential for early detection. Using lithium levels as a biomarker. If future studies validate these findings, lithium measurements could become an early marker for Alzheimer's risk. However, it's not yet part of standard screening. Again, this is not this is not to say there's a cure. This is just a step in the right direction. So why we love science? This is why nursing healthcare is all based and rooted in science. This stuff is really really cool, really groundbreaking, and I just think with technological advances and just where we're going in medicine and healthcare. I am optimistic for the future of these chronic diseases that people have that really change their lives, and this is something I just found very interesting. So all right, that's what I have for you this week on nurse news. Again, I am sorry that I am traveling this week. Really just hopping on to give you the the best nurse news that I can give you. I hope you have a beautiful week, and thank you for being here on Club Nurse. Be sure to follow me at Colton Allen Lord. Follow the podcast at club.nurse. Make sure you follow the nurse.org platforms nurse_org. And be sure to visit nurse.org as they post all of these articles. If you're interested in reading more, all of these articles are posted on the nurse.org/news website. Uh, so thank you for being here and be sure to catch our episodes every Wednesday as we pull in an amazing guest in the nursing and healthcare community talking about anything and everything. All right, we'll catch you guys later. Bye.

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