"Trust Your Gut, Save Your Sanity": ER Nurse & Author on Surviving Your Nursing Career (With Jennifer Johnson)

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 Welcome back to Club Nurse, everybody. I have a guest with me today, another Canadian. You're actually like my second Canadian that I've had on the show, which I find interesting. I think you are— you guys are so interesting to talk to. I don't know if that's just a coincidence, but second Canadian on the show, on this young show. Uh, so yes, I have with me today, uh, Jen Johnson, known on social media as ER Nurse Jen, correct?

Yeah. Yep.

Yes. Okay. So I have, I have Jen here today. We're gonna chat about her book called Nursing Intuition. I have it here. Uh, Nursing Intuition: How to Trust Your Gut, Save Your Sanity, and Survive Your Nursing Career. I was going through, like we were talking about just off camera, I was going through your book this morning and honestly I found so much little, just like nuggets of perspective that I appreciated and that I could really relate to being an ER nurse myself, just through like the stories you were telling. And truthfully, I mean this quite honestly, just that feeling of like, oh, I'm not alone or crazy in like these feelings that I've always had. So if you would just introduce yourself, tell us who you are, what kind of nursing you're into, or what kind of nursing you do, your specialty, all the things.

Yeah, so I'm Jen Johnson. I'm an ER nurse of over 17 years, have worked big and small hospitals all over Ontario and Northern Ontario. So, as big as trauma centers, stroke centers, pediatric emergencies kind of thing, and then as small as it was just me in the ER working, and then I'd call my physician in. So, I have really kind of been through the gamut of our kind of access to healthcare up here and what goes on. And so, I have tried a couple of times to change it up from emergency nursing, but— Those of us who are hardcore ER, you tend to just filter back because you want to try and take a break. You're like, I'm overwhelmed. It's not— maybe I just need to try something else. Maybe there's a different fit, PACU or pediatrics or something like that. And after a while, you're like, this is cool, but I'm going to go back.

Yeah, I feel that. Once you— it is hard, and I've done the same thing multiple times, and I mean, My nursing career at this point has been much shorter than yours. I think I'm going on, uh, 7 years at this point.

Don't sell yourself short for 7 years. That's a long time.

No, no, I'm just, I'm just saying though, like the, the fact that I've already done this whole like, oh, I'm gonna leave, I'm over this, and then gone back. It's like, it's like a bad relationship. It's like, that's why ER nurses are one and the same. 'Cause that's just, you know, why not? Let's say I miss it. I miss the abuse a little bit. You know, it's where I'm comfortable. I'm, I'm comfortable with being abused.

That's what, that's my comfort zone. It says a lot about me.

Yes, exactly. So yeah, I found this very interesting, kind of like what you were talking about, that you worked— are you still working at a very remote hospital or you are?

No, so I'm kind of mid-level now. We're like right in between 2 kind of major centers, like we're halfway between like an hour's worth of major centers. So it's kind of nice to be like, oh, it's, you know, it's smaller, but yet we still see Absolute chaos.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. But I, when I was reading through your book, I was like, wow, one nurse to even, even in a small department. I mean, that's scary because without one person coming in, something could be happening. So what would you do if you were the one nurse and all of a sudden there's a code coming in? Does the rest of the hospital come down? How does that work?

100%. So you'd call up to the floor, which the floor had one RN and 2 RPNs or LVNs. And so, you'd call the floor, you'd be like, hey, I need help, I need hands. If it was during a week, during the day, you could then call on like your educator or your CNO for hands. But if it was night shift or the weekend, you know, we also had a portion that was like long-term care that was also attached to it. So then, you could steal the LVN from there to watch everybody on the floor. So, everybody who's acutely trained could then come down to the emerge. You'd call in the next shift early. The number of times I was called in early was countless.

Are you expected to come in or is it just like you just don't leave your coworkers hanging?

You can say no, but at the same time you're like, this could happen to me at any given time. And it didn't really happen that often where something was serious enough that like, oh no, we need all hands on deck. Like maybe 10 instances in 5 years that I knew of.

Have you ever— Have you ever done any nursing or travel contracts in the States or just in Canada?

No. So I've only done a little bit of agency work that's per diem within like an hour of where I live currently. So that's been about three years of me just like they'll call you up to be like, "Hey, do you want to work night shift tonight in Simcoe or Tilsonburg or Ingersoll?" You're like, "Sure, do do do. Let me just get on the the highway and go." But have it so you might never come down to the States. I've never nursed in the States, which, you know, that's— it's a big mystery.

I have no idea. That was what I was curious about. I'm curious just about the scope. I think it must be similar scope that we have because I— yeah, I mean, because I've worked with nurses from Canada and it seems like they just— they can come pick up in our ER and do what they normally do. So I think it's pretty similar as to what we're doing. And obviously, as evident in your book too, I was like, yeah, this feels just like nursing here. So I think it's very similar, but it's not similar in other countries that you go to, nurses do different things. So that's why I was just kind of curious. So I wanted you, one of the case studies that you talked about in your book, uh, Nursing Intuition was about, uh, somebody, and I want you to kind of go through this and explain to us somebody that you had, that they had abdominal pain and it was kind of just, it was like worsening. You felt something was off and the doctor, if I'm, if I'm remembering the correct case study, the doctor was kind of dismissive or like not taking it as serious.

Yeah.

Uh, take us through that and how now in hindsight, what would you have done differently, if anything? And kind of tell us what the outcome of that case was and how that's affected you going forward.

Yeah, so that was one of my very first jobs. And so it was that same hospital where, you know, one RN for the floor, one RN for emerg. And so you just kind of switch back and forth depending on how many days in a row you were on. So that day I just happened to be on the floor. I think I was maybe 6 months in, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe 6 months to a year in. And you come on shift and it's a super relaxed vibe. We listened to taped report. So you sat there for forever and a day listening to the nurses from night shift go on and on about the ridiculousness of the night shift, which really, it was pretty much long-term care, like nothing changed through the night. And so the day kind of started and it was like, okay, let me go see my people. And so I go up the floor and I check in on my patients. And here's this older gentleman, was admitted for pancreatitis. Didn't really know much about pancreatitis at the time, so just doing my vitals and how are you feeling? And you know, seemed okay. And as I'm doing the vitals, he doubles over and is like like grabbing his abdomen and moaning. I'm like, whoa! That's a shocking change from two seconds ago. Okay, so yeah, do the vitals again. Heart rate's up a little bit, but of course, like he's in pain. Sure. So I thought, okay, like whatever. I call the The doc, and it's 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning, and they're not expected to come in until 9, 10-ish. And it's family doctors covering the emerg and covering the floors because the area is so small. And so I call her and she's, oh yeah, not a big deal, just keep an eye on it, whatever. I go see my other patients, I come back to him, do vitals again, and they continue to kind of trend in the wrong direction. So heart rate's going up, blood pressure's kind of dipping a bit, his oxygen's kind of coming down just a little bit, temp is coming up, and you're just like, oh, that's really odd to have happen in an hour. Same thing, call the doc, get put off. And so I just keep coming back hour by hour, and with every hour that passes, he's getting worse. I don't know what's going on, and my doc is really dismissive of what's going on. She's just kind of, okay, oh, he's been sicker than that before, his lipase is okay, like it's been higher than that before, he's had multiple admissions, This is alcohol-related. So I'm like, okay, you know, you do what you can for being brand new.

Right.

And it gets to the point where she finally comes in, she sees him and she's like, oh, we'll give him some morphine and we'll give him a little bit of a bolus. And I'm like, okay. And he seems settled for a little bit, but everything keeps trending the wrong direction. Now he's febrile. And I'm going like, what is going on? Like, I don't understand. And within an hour, hour and a half of her coming in and seeing him finally, all of a sudden we're moving him to our like one cardiac room, which has got the leads and an actual cardiac monitor. And an hour from that, he's on pressors like to bring up his blood pressure because it's completely tanked out now, looking like a full-blown sepsis picture. And by like noon, 1 o'clock, we're doing compressions. And he doesn't survive it. And I just remember, like, everything was teed up and we'd moved the body down to the morgue. And I just remember sitting in the back going, like, what did I miss? Like, how could I— I must have missed something. Like, how could this happen? You know, he was my patient, so this is on me. I don't understand. And the doc never once said anything. My chief nursing officer was there helping out. He didn't really say anything. So I'm like, okay, I guess this is on me. Like, I'm not being hauled into the office and being reamed out, but like, I'm wearing this as it's me.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, years go by. I finally get to quit that job 5 years later. And as I'm kind of like doing my like last week tour, that same doc comes up to me and she says, you know, don't let anybody tell you that you don't know what you're doing. and just kind of walked off without any context. And I'm like, I know exactly what you're talking about. And you're waiting— you've waited 5 years for me to leave in order to tell me this? Like, you're joking. And I just thought, I'm like, for 5 years I've been wearing this like a failure. In reality, you know, looking back now, I don't know if I could have changed anything.

Yeah.

It sounded like it was potentially like a perf bowel picture that went septic super quickly and a super unwell guy to start with. But given where we were in the world, like super remote, I don't know if anything, even if— Would have changed it. I don't know if anything would've helped because we didn't have a CT scanner. They still don't have a CT scanner. Ultrasound was super limited, X-ray is super limited, so we didn't have lactates. So, wow. Yeah.

When you're working with like those kinds of limited resources and to kind of like off what you're saying, nurses, we, we carry those things with us. And even if we're all running around acting like we're okay, those things silently stay with you. And I think what you offer in Nursing Intuition in your book is just to give people the permission to say, I'm not okay. Or to, you know, you have these prompts in here for people to go through and just to even write it out, even if you're not going to tell anybody, just the act of you getting out of your body, seeing it on paper.

Yeah.

processing it is helpful. And with you working at these like super remote hospitals, it just makes me think, 'cause I work for a transfer center in Boston, uh, and we get a lot of these calls from super rural Maine or Vermont, New Hampshire. And these, you know, I don't wanna say these poor doctors, but these poor doctors are calling us and, you know, just like almost in a panic 'cause they, they literally cannot do anything, you know? Uh, they, they don't have the resources. And I think we take those things for granted working in these, you know, bigger inner city hospitals where we may be busy, but like the resources that you have available to you versus somewhere like what you're describing makes a world of difference when there's something going on.

Oh yeah. Like it's the number of times that we waited for Orange to come in. So Orange is our critical care transport. So they fly in, we had a helipad at the very front doors of the ER, and you would pray That the ceiling wasn't low. And even to this day, the ceiling is too low. I don't know what that means in relation to flight or helicopters or what, but the number of times that that just destroyed me because I'm like, they can't come in, they can't save the day. I'm stuck.

And you're just the one sitting there kind of watching this patient either deteriorate or just, you know, just have these poor outcomes. And it's to no one's fault. It's just the location. And I mean, what are you supposed to do at that point? So, I mean, what gave you the For this book, Nursing Intuition, what, like, what, what inspired you to write this? Was this— were you intending to write a book, or did— I don't know, I don't remember if I read correctly, you were just kind of like writing things out, journaling, and you were just like, oh, like maybe I could have a book out of this. Is that how it worked, or were you planning on this?

It was never— it was always a wish. It was never an active try. But with COVID when COVID first started up in, in 2020, my kids were 4 and 5 and a half at the time, so we didn't have any access to daycare. My parents You know, were super scared, so they weren't willing to drive in to kind of help us out. My husband's in infection control, so he also was essential. So, he's Monday to Friday, 8 to 4. So, I would just work all day and then stay— well, I'd work all night and then stay up all day with the kids because you couldn't leave them alone because they get into everything. And then, I'd go back to work and stay up all night and then stay up all day. And so, I was a mess. I shouldn't have been nursing.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just a complete zombie. And there were a group of attorneys in Ontario who had kind of banded together and were like, hey, for all the frontline nurses and first responders, like, we want to do your wills for free. And at the time you were just like, oh, we're really not expected to live through this? So it messed us up so badly. That I kind of was like, oh my God, like, what if I don't live? Because I am, I'm choosing to go to work. Everybody had the option to not go in. So I just, that was just the easiest thing to do was just continue to go in. So I thought, well, what do I do? How do you, if I was to die, how do you explain that to kids? So I thought, okay, well, let me start writing down like the really good stories about nursing and how I helped and all this kind of stuff. And had a couple, like 3, 4 from like—

Yeah.

13, 14 years at that point. So I was like, okay, let me write down those. And then—

And the trauma spilled out of you.

Oh, and then because I was so— there was no wall to hold anything back, everything else spilled out. And all the trauma and all the things that I'd never dealt with came—

But so cathartic in a way, right?

To just get that out of your body. So cathartic. I don't think I would be where I am right now had I not spilled my guts to the page.

And that's, that it's powerful. And that's why I think you hear all the time people saying, and it's just, you, it's just, we hear it all the time in any kind of like self-help or any kind of, you know, anything like journal, do gratitude, like, and it's like you hear it, you're like, whatever. But you're like, actually do it. Yeah. Like when you actually do it, it really is something. And even because you, yes, writing, I think the act of writing, like actually handwriting is helpful. But I have found because similar to you, I've been working on just my own stuff like writing, you know, hopefully a book for one day. And it's even just the act of typing these things out of your brain and seeing it. And you're like, oh my God, like, I didn't realize that was even in my brain. I read you say things like, I didn't even know this really was affecting me until I started talking about it to a therapist, or I wrote, you know, wrote it out. And then the tears that were coming and just the fact that it really was still affecting me. And we do this as nurses. And specifically, as you were alluding to the pandemic during COVID I think so many of us don't realize that we're still, even though we're a few years removed from it, we're still holding on to that trauma and what we had gone through. And I have, I get chills, like just talking about it. And I remember, I remember the first therapy appointment I ever had, ever. I didn't even think that I was going to talk about the pandemic. And when I started talking about it, I started sobbing and I was like, what is happening? I had no idea that I was even feeling this way. Like I just, because I think as a survival technique, we just suppress it and we're like, huh, it wasn't that big of a deal. Like, Yeah. We just joke about it, you know, move on. Yeah.

The dark humor and we just shove her down.

Yeah. And so, and so what I really did, like, I was reading your book and I was like, wow, like this is so relatable. Um, I want you to explain to us, to the audience, like what if, if you define nursing intuition, what, like, what does that even mean? Like, is this like the, is this like the sixth sense that they tell us all about in nursing school that we will eventually develop? Does everybody have intuition? Is this like a learned thing? Like, what is your outlook on that?

So kudos to whoever in your program actually mentioning nursing intuition. There was one professor one time in 4th year who mentioned out of nowhere, oh, and just don't— just remember to trust your gut. And then she was off to some other topic. That was all I got on nursing intuition. And so I was like, oh, what does that even mean? Nobody explains. So you just kind of whatever. I believe everybody's got intuition. Absolutely.

Yeah.

We as females, anybody 12 and above who's female, you know this feeling. This is a very intimate feeling that we get very often, but it— as it relates to our safety. So you're— you've walked into a bar, you see a guy across the way, and you're just like, ugh, creep factor immediately.

Yeah.

He has said not one word to you. He hasn't made eye contact with you. There's been no bodily movements, you know, but yet just an instant, Nope.

That feeling.

And so you're like, okay, well, I'm going to trust that and go with it. That we trust, that we go with. But when you bring it into nursing and it's that moment where you're going, I don't like how this is going, I don't think that this patient's going to make it, I don't think that we're missing something. Like there's moments where, like, I've had that gut feeling and it's just like you just are sick because you're like, There's something not right. So it's like either—

Right, even though the numbers and the science is telling you everything's fine on paper, it's that feeling.

Yes. And so you're like, okay, well, that's interesting. Like, I'll keep an eye on it. And, you know, the science behind it is that critical care nurses, so ER, ICU, PACU, we tend to trust it more for the simple fact that we don't have time to second guess. So we just go with it. And because we go with it, then we're validated that yes, that was the right move. And then we trust that feeling more. So we get into this loop of trusting it where somebody who's med-surg or on some other floor, they've got the time to like talk themselves out of it. Like, oh, it can't be that bad. Or I'm too new. You know, I don't like talking with that doc because they yell at me when I call. So you talk yourself out of it and then something happens and then guess what? Now you're left with all the guilt that I felt like something was off, I knew something wasn't right, and I didn't say anything, and now you're having to live with that. So it's—

Well, I think people are afraid of that, because at least for me, and I even still to this day have this happen to me, to where I'm like, I don't want to look stupid, or I don't want— you know, I'm afraid of like being ridiculed if I say something, or being the alarmist or whatever. And I think you mentioned this in the book, where I have found this most in my career, has been working in triage because again, you don't have the time to think about it.

No, you got 5 minutes.

And you may— yeah. And you may get, you know, you may get again this picture where like the vital signs are stable, like, you know, like nothing's screaming at you. It's not like they're coming in with like, you know, a 40-year-old male with crushing chest pain after mowing his lawn where you're like, hello, get to the back. Or like a stroke, obviously, you know, like there's things that come in like somebody has a gunshot wound, like you're not going to, you know, obviously, hello.

Yeah.

But like, that's those ones that you're like, there's nothing that's like, I can't, you know, there's nothing screaming at me to like bring you back as far as like what's showing here. But there's, you know, they're the ones that like you're reluctantly just like, okay, go sit back in the waiting room, but I'm going to like watch you the entire time or like tell, you know, if you have a tech in triage, go get the vital signs every 15 minutes. Like, you know, like—

Keep an eye on them. I want them within eyesight. I want them up front. I want them bumped up. Because something— I'm either missing something or they're not telling me a piece.

Yeah.

'Cause I mean, personally, as a triage, like, I just operate on the fact that people aren't telling me everything. And sometimes it's intentional. They're nervous, they're worried, they're embarrassed, so they can't tell me everything at triage. And other times it's just, you know, maybe they've got like a dementia process going on, or they're confused, or they just can't tell me, or they've forgotten their meds and they don't know what they take. I always operate on the fact that I'm already missing at least 50% of the story. So when I get a ping that goes like, I don't like this, um, I'm like, I'm gonna dig further or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sorry, I kind of cut you off. So keep going as far as, um, does everybody— do we develop this over time, do you think, as nurses? Or— and like you were saying, like, every— everybody has this feeling. I think you just have to learn where that kind of lives in your body, which is for most of us in our gut. That's why they call it the gut feeling. Um, and you just— it just— is it just like learning how to trust 'Cause for me too, I thought about this today while I was reading your book was, you know, you may be wrong 9 times out of 10 if you bring it to someone's attention, but wouldn't you rather that one time that you were right, that you at least, you know, that what you did saved that person versus there was no harm done to the other 9 that maybe you were like, oh, something was off and maybe there wasn't?

So fun fact, the science behind that is, so say you think something's wrong, you grab the doc, the doc comes and does another touchpoint on that patient. Even if you don't change anything, nothing changes. There's no new orders, there's no change in practice, there's no change in course of treatment. Even just that doc having another touchpoint on that patient still improves patient outcomes.

Hmm.

So you can change nothing, but just the doc having another look still improves. So it's really a win-win. You say something, you're wrong, the doc comes and has another touchpoint, nothing's changed, patient's still improving. Or doc comes in, you were right, something does need to be changed, and now you've you've changed the course of that person's trajectory through the hospital system and the peace of mind.

Like hello, instead of you having to sit there sweating bullets and like ruminating in your mind over and over again, like what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Is this am I you know just you have the peace of mind of like okay the doctor looked if they are dismissing and if something happens you know whatever like at least you have the peace of mind like well I mean I did what I could within my scope as a nurse to alert the person who's In charge of the situation.

And we all know that. If you were to read in the chart, MD notified, no new orders received, every single nurse knows exactly what that means. The nurse was concerned, doctor was notified, nothing happened.

Yeah.

So that's just us saying, you know, and sometimes I'll chart that Q5, Q15, because I'm like, I've notified, I've notified, I've notified, nothing's happened, nothing. And then so when the patient does crash, Sure. Hey, I called this from an hour ago. I tried. I tried my damnedest.

Yeah.

And sometimes people, you know, they wonder like, oh, well, how do I bring it to the doc without— because again, intuition sounds very woo-woo, sounds very witchy. It sounds very kind of off the wall. But if you know your docs or you don't know your docs and you can't, you don't feel comfortable saying like, my gut says something's off, Just say advocate. I'm advocating for my patient. I think that something's missing or something's up. I'm just advocating for my patient. You want to know how fast a doc stops for that word? Every single one of them in an instant will go, whoa, whoa, we don't use that word in routine conversations.

Yeah.

So when somebody's saying it, all of a sudden it's like, oh yes, there are liabilities. Oh yes, there is, you know, who's got care and Who's most responsible? So, oh, okay, yeah, I guess I can in 2 minutes. I'll come and have a peek at your patient. Thank you. Yeah, that's it.

Right. And I, and I've, you know, and I've found through my experience, I mean, of course there's doctors who are so difficult to work with. No matter what you say, they may belittle you, ridicule you. But at the end of the day, majority of these doctors also are fully aware of the fact that nurses are documenting everything. Like, they're aware that, like, we are going to be like, okay, well, I told you this. You know, this may not be being said out loud, but like, I told you this. Something happens, not— and it's not even to shift blame. It's just to be like, this is the, the goal is the outcome for the patient. That's why we're all there. That's why it's a— that's why it's a team. The, the goal is the best outcome for the patient. So if you have that feeling, it's just— and I think, I think, I think like this is obviously a lot harder for new grads to do.

Yeah.

Um, because you just, you, you want to prove that you know what you're doing. You don't want to look stupid. And, and I understand that. It's just, I think if people can just that in mind of this is for the patient. This is not, you know, don't make it about yourself.

Don't, you know, try to take your ego out. Yes.

And that's, and that's hard. It's hard for, it's hard for people to do because as humans, that's how we are, right? We're very egocentric. We, we like, oh, it's a, I'm gonna look so stupid. Okay. It's not about you. It's about the patient. And it may feel, it's gonna feel uncomfortable. I'm not even gonna say it might, it will feel uncomfortable. Even to this day, I feel uncomfortable sometimes saying things to certain doctors, but But I would rather, again, the outcome be better than me sitting there withholding this information and then I have to now move on knowing that I had information, I didn't say anything, and then something happened. It's part of the job. It's part of the job. That's right. So let's kind of shift to one of the other portions of the book that I really appreciated was you talking about empathy. And so if you don't mind just kind of elaborating on why you chose to put that in the book And how that has— how empathy has shaped your nursing practice.

It's been everything. It's been my downfall at times. You feel overly empathetic to the family and, um, the patient and what they're going through. Like, you, you get that, but you get so wrapped up in it that you just— you can't. So to understand that empathy is there for a reason But not to get so caught up in somebody else's pain, struggling, anxiety, strife, so that it prevents you from doing your job. You can take a step back and if you've gotten kind of caught up and all of a sudden your emotions are overwhelming you and you're going like, oh my gosh, I'm spinning, take a step back and go, what was I doing 5 minutes before I entered this room? Was I happy? Was I— thinking about something else. I was just doing my normal daily thing. I wasn't bothered. But now I've walked into this room, I realize that I've walked into this minefield of emotions and now I'm picking up everything.

Absorbing it.

So when you can kind of take that one little step back to go, I understand that there are these emotions in the room, but it's not my job to carry them. I can validate them, I can respect them, I can have a viewpoint where I can figure out how A is relating to B and the family dynamics. We all know how fun those can be, but they're not your emotions to carry.

Mm-hmm.

And being empathetic, you know, doesn't mean you have to lose yourself in somebody else's emotions. You can still respect somebody's experience and pain and struggling, Without getting sucked into all of their emotions. And sometimes we as healthcare providers, we're naturally empathetic. We want to help. That's why we've gone into this for the most part. But it takes a lot of time to figure out that I need to kind of put up the shield just a little bit to realize that these aren't my emotions. I don't need to feel them as intensely as everybody else is.

Yeah.

And by doing that, I'm actually letting everybody else feel what they're feeling while I'm not caught up in it to the point where I can't do my job. So, you know, the perfect example is, you know, a code situation where we're continuing to run the code, we understand that things aren't going to go well, we're just running it long enough to bring family in. And having that family come in and wail and, you know, potentially throw themselves, you know, onto the person and And the tears and the anxiety, like, it's all so overwhelming. And I mean, I can kind of even imagine it as I'm doing it because I've been there enough times.

You can still— like, I literally, as you're saying that, I can feel that in my body. I can feel it. I can picture exact moments where I have seen the wailing and the throwing over the body while we're still working and the family just pleading us to do things that in your mind are like, that's crazy. Like, that we— that wouldn't do nothing but like Like they literally are, it's an act of desperation.

Yeah.

So yeah, as you're saying that, like I'm literally having like a full body like reaction. Like I was like, I feel that. And that's why I think when I read this part about like empathy in your book, I was like, this is so relatable because I, I've always thought of myself as an empathetic person. I, I feel people very deeply. Yeah. And it, it is a quick way to burn out for sure. If you are not, if you don't have boundaries with that.

Yeah. You need to realize that, you know, if all of a sudden you're being overwhelmed, what part of the situation is overwhelming? Is it the actual medical science? Is it the situation? Is it the emotions? Or is it worry? You know, you kind of have to sift through it in a minute to go like, okay, I understand these emotions are not mine. I'm putting up the wall. And it's a really odd trick that you can do just to kind of separate yourself just a little bit. You can be empathetic without— empathetic and compassionate without Losing yourself completely in it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a hard thing to do, as with most things in nursing. But once you, once you learn that it's not, it's not perfect, you know, you're still gonna have times that maybe you were like, okay, I felt that too much. But it definitely helps to not feel everything, um, in there. I wanted to talk about, um, this. I actually, I, I bookmarked this in whenever I was reading this today because this, just this thing that you said, I was like, well, this, like, this feels Relatable. And I felt like people needed to hear this. And so this is, this was, uh, chapter, yeah, chapter 3, what intuition feels like. It's not chapter 3, by the way. That was a different one I bookmarked. It's chapter 9, how, how to protect your, how to protect your energy. Yeah. So you said in the book, it said, I treated being overworked as a point of pride. I thought that being tired and still accepting more shifts was me showing up like some kind of superhero. I acted like exhaustion was something I could just push past, completely ignoring my intuition. I was a new grad, young and eager to prove my worth. I would say yes to things because A, I was unable to say no, and B, I didn't even realize I could say no. And I thought that was really powerful because I think that, as you said, I mean, especially as new grads, we think that we're, we have to prove our worth.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that this follows us long into the profession. So how have you been able to set, again, this all goes back to like boundaries, like just with yourself really.

Yeah.

To not feel like you have to carry the load of the unit or that you have to show up if you don't feel like you can. Um, and like telling yourself, convincing yourself that this is not what makes me worthy as a nurse.

Yeah. The, the stereotypes in nursing are honestly some of those things that I really feel are working to our detriment now, you know, working yourself to death, thinking that that's gonna be the thing that, you know, everybody respects you for, for coming in. My— one of my most favorite lines is, it is not my job to staff the department.

Period.

It is not my job. If I'm feeling well enough and capable enough to go in, sure, have at 'er. But noticing when staffing calls you and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, they're gonna be 3 short. Like, you know, don't you know what working short feels like, don't you? Like, yeah, it's really— it really sucks. And the guilt. And you don't realize that they're guilting you so hard. And, you know, it's even worse when it's your own charge nurse calling you and being like, hey, we're too short. We're just wondering, like, I'm really sorry. But that was part of the charge nurse's job at one of the places that I worked to do the phone calls. So then they would get into it because they had had other people do that to them. So now we think it's just the thing to do is to just guilt each other mercilessly.

Yeah.

Yeah. To come in when in reality, no is a complete sentence. You do not need to explain to staffing why you're saying no. It has been one of the hardest things I think I've ever had to do was to learn not to then overexplain myself. Like, oh, do you want to come into work today? No thanks.

Yeah, like not, here's my list of things I need to do.

Yeah, oh, I've got an appointment, I've got the kids, I haven't had a nap, blah blah blah. Like you could go on and on. Staffing doesn't want to hear it. They don't care. They just want to get a no so that they can move on to the next. And once we start realizing that, it's like, oh, perfect. Like, I don't need to explain. I just— no thanks. Right?

And that's it. I love how you said that. It's not— it's not your job to carry that, that weight, that guilt. And it's not— it is not any of our fault that there is a nursing staffing crisis everywhere. It's not our fault. This is obviously a system problem. But I think in our smaller units, and I think when you make it personal, like, oh, like I— you picture your staff or the people that you work with, you know, suffering and struggling. It's like you have that feeling that you want to go help. And like you're saying, if you have the capacity and you want to make a little extra money, why not? But if you literally are sitting in your pajamas on your couch and you're just like, I need this day, you don't have to— you don't have to be doing something to say no. You can literally just say no. For me, I always would say it's not, it's not a badge of honor to say, oh, I'm burnt out, I overworked, I did this. Like, it's— and I think we— I have done this for sure in my career. I have worn it as a badge of honor, like, oh, I worked so many hours. Like, and it's like, oh, like, that's— no, like, nobody cares, really. Like, at the end of the day, you're suffering and nobody cares. So why are you doing that to yourself?

Well, because you think it's going to make you the good nurse. Like, you know, you're the feeling of you're not a good nurse unless you give Everything of yourself and leave nothing for you, like you're not a good nurse unless you do that, is absolutely ridiculous. And honestly, I would much rather work short than have somebody who I potentially then need to carry because they're exhausted, because they're not mentally there, because they're drowning, because they're overwhelmed, because they're not mentally or physically well enough to work. Yeah.

I just hope that you know that your work is impactful. I can't believe it took me this long to actually dive into your book. I literally have like— I think I bought like 3 or 4 copies of these because I had the intention of like, oh, I'm going to gift these to people, and I will now, especially now that I actually dove into it. So thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you for being here. How can people find you on socials? How can people get your book?

Yeah, so the book is available on Amazon, Barnes Noble, and Indigo. You can also find me probably most active on LinkedIn. If you find me Jennifer Johnson, BScNRN. I'm sorry about the BScNRN, but do you know how many Jennifer Johnsons there are? It's insane.

I literally went to high school with a Jennifer Johnson, so yes, I understand.

Of course. I should have kept my maiden name, I swear to God. My Instagram and TikTok are @ernurse.jenn, J-E-N-N. And then my website, if you want to get a hold of me even faster, nursejen.ca.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for sharing all this, and I hope everybody gets their copy of Nursing Intuition and dives into this. So thank you.

Oh, anytime. Thank you so much for having me.

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. Love ya.

Bye.