In this episode of Club Nurse, host Colton Lord delivers a rapid‑fire roundup of recent nursing‑related news. He begins by discussing Elon Musk’s claim that Tesla’s Optimus humanoid could serve as a 24‑hour "robot nurse," emphasizing that the robot would function only as a helper and raising the critical question of liability when a robot malfunctions and harms a patient. He then recounts a tragic MRI incident in which a man was pulled into the scanner by a weight‑training chain, reminding listeners of the strict metal‑removal protocols required for MRI safety. The segment moves to a profile of Courtney, a NICU travel nurse who splits her career between the U.S. and Sweden, leverages her license for high‑pay per‑diem work, and has launched a custom‑t‑shirt business, illustrating how nurses can shape flexible, entrepreneurial careers. Next, Colton reports on a South Carolina case where a man who attacked a nurse with scissors was convicted of kidnapping and assault and sentenced to 12 years, underscoring the seriousness of violence against nurses. He then explains the HCA "TRAP" training‑contract scandal in Nevada, where new‑grad nurses were forced to repay thousands if they left early; the settlement led to a $75,000 reimbursement fund, $786,500 in penalties, and a ban on such contracts, highlighting successful nurse advocacy. Finally, he shares a light‑hearted tip from the American Heart Association: Justin Bieber’s song “Daisies” runs at 110 BPM, the ideal tempo for hands‑only CPR, encouraging nurses to use the beat during compressions. Throughout, Colton directs listeners to nurse.org/news for full articles and invites them to follow his social channels.
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Welcome to Club Nurse.
I'm Colton Lord, your host. By you being here today, it shows me that you are someone who wants to learn, grow, laugh, connect, and just let your emotions flow. We are here to share real stories and hear real life experiences from real people. You are not alone in this, and Club Nurse is here to show you that. Don't forget to follow the show and share today's episode with someone you love. Now let's dive into today's conversation.
Welcome back to Club Nurse, everybody. It's Colton, your host of this podcast, and this is one of our nurse news segments. Super excited to keep bringing these to you. We did not have this segment last week, but we're back, back in action, giving you some nurse news, things that are happening right now in healthcare. We've got a few quick little stories to kind of run through. These episodes won't be super long. It's really just me giving you the information. If you are interested in reading more about nurse news and finding links and whatnot to these stories, I encourage you to go visit nursed.org/news and you will find several of the articles that I am talking about on these topics. And there's links and more to kind of see more on, on these stories because they are usually pretty interesting as to why we're covering them. And I think if you want to take a deeper dive, I'm happy to direct you to those links. But yeah, if you'd like to just kind of hear the stories and it's better for you to process these things verbally and just to hear it rather than taking the time to read it, I'm here to give you that information. So let's dive right into it. The first story I am covering is about Elon Musk saying that the new Tesla Optimus robot could be a nurse, which obviously this comes with some caveats. They basically are saying that Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot could soon serve as a full-time 24-hour nurse or helper. I mean, I think that they use the term nurse Loosely. They probably don't know what being a nurse really entails, if I'm being honest. What it sounds like for me looking into this is the robot really could just be a helper, an assistant, someone to help the nurses do things. They obviously cannot be making clinical decisions and things like that. But what they're, you know, what they're posing here seems maybe it could help support nurses in hazardous situations. The robots can take on tasks where infection, injury, or burnout risk is high, allowing Nurses to focus on clinical decision-making and emotional care. This also is great for patients needing frequent help moving, lifting, or repositioning. A robot nurse could reduce strain for human caregivers and improve response times. And again, I think using the term robot nurse, I would use that very loosely. They're not— I don't really see that they're being a nurse. It just seems like they're being an extra set of hands, which I'm all for. I mean, if there's going to be a robot in there and I don't have to bother somebody else to hurt their back and come do things for me or help me out, Please send the robots in. My question, and I actually was talking with a coworker about this the other day, is where does the liability lie when your AI robot rolls Grandma off of the bed or the stretcher? You know, what if they malfunction and they fling Grandma a little bit too far or they drop her? I mean, this is my concern. I mean, they're robots. That's technology. Obviously it could malfunction or fail. So where does the liability lie? Because— These robot nurses are not practicing under my nursing license, girl. So that's my question. Obviously, I'm sure that this is pretty far out and I am certain that there's going to be more testing and seeing how exactly this would work. But, you know, if it's going to lighten some of our load in healthcare, please send the robots in. I am here for this. But as per usual with these things, it seems like there are some production delays. They're not really hitting their target goals to keep testing these things for the year. So who knows when this will actually happen? But It's in the works. We'll see. Maybe we will be working with robo nurses very soon. Who knows? Okay, and I have a very sad update to report on the man who was pulled into the MRI machine. He did die. If you did not hear about this story, it's a great opportunity to remind everybody about the dangers of the MRI machines when you're transporting patients down there. I have had coworkers tell me horror stories about their scissors flinging to the MRI machine when they walked in. It's It's very dangerous. It's a huge magnet. And when they tell you to remove all the metal, they mean it for a reason. It can be very dangerous. But a man did go into the MRI machine. His wife was there for an outpatient appointment to get an MRI of her knee. Wife was feeling a little bit anxious. He went in there to kind of help calm her down. He did have a 20-pound weight training chain on him and it pulled him to the MRI machine. And he did not die from the initial trauma. He was hospitalized, I believe, He died the next day, if I'm not mistaken. Don't quote me on that. But either way, he did die. It's very sad to report. And again, just a reminder, we've all had taken our patients to MRI and had the MRI tech tell us, remove all your metal, remove all your metal, put it in a basket, whatever it may be. And I think sometimes we roll our eyes and just move on with our days, but it's a really good reminder because these things do happen. This is very tragic. I'm very sad for his wife who had to witness this because that is a very traumatic way to die. Okay, let's talk about Courtney. Girl, hello. One nurse works in the US and also living her dream in Sweden. This is a NICU nurse that our Nurse.org's Brandy Pinkerton had interviewed and spoke to about her life. Hello, like this is everything that I am about. Like, use your nursing license to your advantage, girl. Do what you can with it and then live your life. Like, make it flexible. Use your nursing license as a tool, because it is a tool and you can use it to leverage other aspects of your life. Courtney talks about travel nursing as a NICU nurse, and then she ended up getting a job in the Bay Area because we all know they pay so well, making over $100 an hour. She's working there per diem. And then she's also living part of her life in Sweden. Hello. Sounds like her husband and her child have dual citizenship in Sweden and the US. Anyways, so Courtney quotes, wherever nursing takes you, remember that you have more control over your career than you think. I hope my story reminds other nurses that you could build a life that fits you, your passions, your family, and the dreams you have outside of your scrubs. I love this. Shout out to Courtney. You're amazing. I don't know you, but I think you're amazing. More nurses need to do this. You are not stuck at the bedside doing that one thing. And she talks about in this, in her interview with Brandy, she loves the bedside. Like she doesn't want to leave. This is what she likes to do, but it's not her whole life. And she has become an entrepreneur through this journey as well, through her travel nursing. made enough connections, networking, now has a t-shirt, custom nurse specialty t-shirt business that she is shipping t-shirts around to nurses and making some money off of that as well. Make nursing work for you. This is Courtney. You can find her on Instagram @minimalnurse. So, I think this is super cool. I appreciate nurses and people out there just going against the grain and paving their own way. This is awesome. And also, I have some friends who work in the Bay Area. Never knew this side note that there are like super commuting nurses who are literally flying from their home states around the country into the Bay Area to work and then fly home because they make so much money that it is worth flying to work. I'm sure that they stack their shifts, but they're flying. It's worth flying to their shifts to work and then fly back home because of the pay discrepancy or differences in the states versus Bay Area versus somewhere like, I don't know, Kansas. Kansas nurses, I don't know how much you make. That was just a random state that I don't know why came to my head. Oh yes, this story. Let's talk about this. Man who attacked nurse with scissors guilty of kidnapping, assault, sentenced to prison. So this happened in 2023. I don't understand. I don't understand the justice system, the criminal whatever. I don't understand why it takes so long, but it takes forever. Why is this 2 years later that he's being sentenced? I don't know, but happy that he is. So basically this happened in 2023, um, in South Carolina, and this man had stolen some scissors off of another staff, a nursing assistant, and basically put them to the neck of a nurse and was trying to drag her out of the ER. Thankfully, staff was able to respond. Uh, the nurse did seek some medical care right after, but she was okay. Uh, anyways, he was finally sentenced to 12 years in prison. Serves him right. Nurse violence is not okay. These people need to be prosecuted. We are not supposed to be— assaulted. Just saying, we are there to help people. You're not a punching bag. It is not okay for you to be assaulted. I will talk about this. I remember specifically discharging somebody one time, and this is not anywhere to the extreme of being— having scissors to my neck, okay? But I do remember this situation. A patient walked by me. I discharged her. She was upset with me for not charging her phone enough, and as she walked by the nurse's station, she spit on me. It was this whole thing. Security escorted her out, and then they came back asking me if I wanted to press charges. And I said, no, this sounds like more of a headache than anything. I encourage you to do that if you felt unsafe to press charges. I think for me in that situation, I was like, I would rather not deal with the paperwork and going through all this. And I know nothing's really going to come of this. Now, had I been injured or had to seek any kind of medical care for what a patient had done, I think I would press charges in that situation. This person deserved everything that he got. So So glad justice was served. All right, let's cover a couple more things here and then we'll hop off, let you have your beautiful day. But let's see. So these nurses, new grad nurses, and this was in the state of Nevada, basically were stuck in these trap contracts that the HCA was forcing new grad nurses to sign, basically saying if you left their hospital within, I think it was within 2 and a half years, 2 years, You would have to pay back all of your training that you had had done. And that is insane. That is absolutely insane. Nurses were paying like $7,000 plus back to the hospital if they had to leave. For example, one nurse who the article calls Michelle Johnson, which is not her real name, just the name that we're going to use, left HCA after 18 months for family reasons, and she was slapped with a $7,500 bill for leaving early. That is absolutely insane. She was slapped with $7,500. This was happening to many nurses who were leaving for better opportunities or whatever it may be. So the fact that they had to cough that money back up for the training, not okay. And people stepped in. Yes, Nevada's Attorney General Aaron Ford was not having it. His office, along with California, Colorado, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, investigated and found these agreements violated state consumer protection laws. HCA's practices were labeled employer-driven debt and the settlement put an end to it. Like, this is not that they were getting like bonuses or anything for signing on. These were charging them for training them because people were leaving. And that's, that's nursing. And that's, that's the— they probably did that because they do see a large percentage of nurses who get a job and leave after a year because that's what we do. There's opportunities. Sometimes we get a job because we just want a little bit of experience and then we move on and it's very normal and that's okay. I cannot believe that they were charging people this much money, but justice again has been served for the nurses, and we are here for the nurses. So I love this. HCA will cough up $75,000 to reimburse Nevada nurses. Slay queen. They'll also pay $786,500 in penalties to Nevada, part of a $2.9 million penalty across 3 states. Wow, sucks for you, HCA. Most importantly, Traps are banned in Nevada. Nurses can leave HCA without the fear of surprise bills. Oh, another win for nurse advocacy. Love this, nurses. And another reminder to speak up. Do not allow any of these facilities, anybody to bully you, push you around. If something is not right, if you are seeing things, trends, or things where people are being wrongfully treated, speak up. Because you know what? That's what it takes to get these things squashed. Like, this was never okay. All right, we're gonna end with something super light, super cool. Just why not? Like pop culture-esque. But the American Heart Association has deemed that Justin Bieber's new song Daisies has 110 beats per minute, the right tempo for hands-only CPR. So girl, when you're in there doing chest compressions, just be singing Daisies, okay? Let's listen to a little bit of it so you know. Mm-hmm. Hold on, hold on. Okay, that's what I want going through my head when I'm doing CPR because that feels nice. Take me there, take me there, Justin. I would love to hear Daisies as I'm doing chest compressions. Slay. But really cool, it's always nice to have like new songs to kind of like do the beat to because, you know, all of us have different tastes of music and this is a great one by Justin Bieber. So use that when you're doing CPR. That's your beat, girl. 110 beats per minute, hands-only CPR. It's the tempo. Daisies, Justin Bieber. All right, everybody, I am signing out again. My name is Colton Lord. You can find me on Instagram @coltonallenlord. You can still find me on TikTok at Nurse Daddies. My name on there is Colton Lord at this point. And yeah, super happy that you're all here. Thank you for listening to Nurse News, and please go check out Get more information and everything that I discussed on the nurse.org website. nurse.org/news is where you will find everything that you need to know about nurse news. All right. Love you guys. I'll see you later. Bye.
From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to thank you for being here at Club Nurse. I hope you gained something valuable from today's episode. And if you did, remember to share this episode with someone that you love. Follow me on socials at Nurse Daddies or Colton Lord 17, and be sure to follow nurse.org to stay informed with all of the hottest healthcare topics. Until next time, take care of yourself the way you take care of everyone else.
