WFH Isn’t Just for Tech Bros—Nurses, Here’s Your Remote Job Guide (With David Rosenbeck)

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. All right, everybody. Welcome back to Club Nurse. I have an awesome guest here with me today that I'm super excited. And I think a lot of people will gain a lot of good information because I always am getting questions in my DMs and stuff on social media about remote nursing. So we've got the perfect person. I have David here with me today from Go Beyond the Bedside. Um, and he's going to chat with us all about what that means and what he's out there doing for the nursing community. So David, if you would just give us a little introduction into who you are and why you're here on Club Nurse today.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. So my name is David. I'm a co-founder of a website called Go Beyond the Bedside. But previous to that, I was an ER and ICU nurse. And then I knew that I didn't want to just do bedside nursing for my career. So then I decided, okay, I'm going to go on and get my NP, you know, kind of the, the route that a lot of people take whenever they're thinking, okay, maybe I don't want to do strictly bedside nursing for the next 40 years. So I guess I'll go that route. I'll go and get my nurse practitioner degree. Got my nurse practitioner degree, started working with an interventional oncology group. It was really cool. Did it for about three years, but then the burnout started really hitting me. You know, like whenever I'm working with these really high acuity oncology patients, you know, we we had kind of like the nastiest of the nasty: the pancreatic cancer, esophageal, gastric, hepatic, you know, the the whole shebang. So my my patients they didn't stick around very long, and it just really whenever they started turning into your patients that you are seeing them on a you know some of my HCC. patients, liver cancer patients, that was kind of my specialty. I'd start seeing them like every 2 weeks to every 4 weeks. So I really got to know them. And then once one of them passed away, it was just, man, it started getting really rough. And I was like, is maybe there's something else out there that I need to start looking into? And then just happened to hear that one of our palliative care nurses, nurse practitioners, she— I hadn't seen her for like 3 months. And I was like, where's Kara? Where did she go? And they're like, oh, she got a remote job. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She got a remote job. How do you get a remote job as a palliative nurse practitioner? So as soon as I got off of work that day, called Kara up right away and I was like, so what are you doing? And she said that she was basically doing like oncology navigation as a nurse practitioner for patients that were going through chemotherapy or they needed to have procedures done. And she was basically like walking them through the process and just basically being like a handholder that would walk through this, you know, nasty journey with them and help them with, oh, okay, you need to connect with this person. I'll get you ahold of interventional radiology. I'll get ahold of XYZ, kind of like a case manager, but just at a little bit of a higher level. And she was able to do it remotely because she was taking care of patients that were all across the country. And so once the idea of a remote job got into my mind, I was like, oh, that sounds very interesting. So I started looking around. And so of course, first thing I did that everybody would do, you go onto LinkedIn, you type in nurse practitioner, or you type in nurse. You click the little remote box, and I did it just before this podcast so that we could have a reference. I typed in nurse, clicked the remote box. There was over 2,700 jobs inside the category.

Yeah.

And most of them are bogus. And so whenever I was looking through and I was trying to find my remote job, it was just such a daunting task, man. Like, I was going through dozens and dozens of pages of job listings, applying to tons of them, and most of them, it seemed like they would like repeat themselves. I'd see the same job like or 3 pages later, like, are these bogus? What's going on? But after weeks of trying to get all of this put together, I eventually got a remote job and it's been phenomenal. And so we've been able, just for like a reference for everybody out there, as soon as I got my remote job, my wife and I were like, all right, let's start traveling. And so we took off out west. We spent a month in Denver. We've been to like 37 states now, 7 different countries, and just been able to actually live the life that we wanted to live. And having a remote job, it was able to give that to us because it gave us location freedom. We didn't have to be tied to one hospital or one hospital system, or even with, you know, traveling nurses. There's a lot of people that take that route because they're like, oh, okay, I'm gonna get my 2 years of bedside experience in and then I'm taking off. I'm gonna go start traveling. You're still tied to whatever jobs are available out there. And you're still tied to that individual place for, you know, 3 months at a time. And usually the best paying jobs are in the worst spots and the worst paying jobs are in the best spots. So you have to kind of decide, do I want to be in Omaha, Nebraska for 3 months and make a bunch of money? Or do I want to be in, you know, Santa Monica and not get paid quite as well?

There's so many factors that go into, uh, like you're saying, like travel nursing, like, and whether that be, you know, if you're wanting this like specific destination, well, you might be doing a pay cut and you may be ending up doing a contract just to get that experience when you're not really financially gaining anything from it. And that was actually one of my questions kind of for you. So you already kind of answered it was like, what, As far as like the pros and cons, you know, to travel nursing versus doing remote work, I think like what you're saying, like the key thing that I would take away from that is basically the flexibility. And you're not, you're not ever, you know, and I've done travel nursing too. Like it's great. But then when the time is almost up, like then you're scrambling, stressing out, like, where am I going to go next? And you're constantly just like on this wheel of like, where am I going next? Where am I going next? Like, where are there contracts? Like how much money versus what you're saying is. I mean, once you have a remote job, I mean, you already know how much money you're making and you can adjust your lifestyle to that as like you're traveling. And does your— is your wife also remote nurse or?

No, my wife, she's an interior designer actually. So she was able to take her clients and kind of do that elsewhere. So that made life easy. So she was able to pick up and start running with us as well. But yeah, I completely agree because like I always thought travel nursing, like The awesome part of it is that you don't have to be stuck somewhere. You can hop around and go wherever you wanna go. But then the bad part about it is that if you find a place you really, really like, you're either like, okay, I guess I'll move here, or you just, there's no consistency with it. And so with this job, I'm a salaried employee making 6 figures, and it's just very stable, very easy. I get to do whatever I want to do. My workday, I know exactly what it's gonna look like. I don't have to be worrying about, oh gosh, is this unit that I'm gonna be going into gonna be a complete mess? nightmare? Are the coworkers gonna suck? You know, like, I'm sure you've experienced more than enough of that if you've done some traveling nursing. So just being able to have consistency, really good benefits, good solid pay, you know, every 2 weeks the paycheck comes in, I don't have to worry about, you know, trying to chase the next contract.

Right. So I can see where you got like the inspiration to create Go Beyond the Bedside. So what, like, what isn't— like, what is the difference between like what you're offering in this and like what you know, you'll find on like these websites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor or wherever, like people are looking for like jobs. I've actually never, I've never found a job like that way. Like I've never gone on and searched for jobs and like these huge, I don't even know what you'd call them, like job generator websites.

Yeah, like job platforms. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I don't even actually know like, like what would be like the big difference as to like what someone's getting with what you're offering?

Yeah. So as I said before, it was like 2,700 jobs whenever I just checked it just before we hopped on this podcast. And most people would be like, oh my gosh, these are jobs everywhere. But whenever you start start digging into them, there's a bunch of repetition. It's a bunch of recruiters that are just flinging out a bunch of jobs hoping that something sticks in hopes that it catches somebody's eye. And really a lot of the jobs are actually travel nursing jobs that they try to hide inside the remote nursing things. It's like, oh yeah, you're remote, you get to travel around. Or there are a lot of hybrid jobs to where it's like, oh well, we need you to be within, uh, X amount of distance and doing some traveling and stopping in at this spot and this spot. And so we just wanted to make a very centralized hub of the best of the best, truly remote nursing jobs so that anybody that is looking to completely step away from the bedside, it just makes it very clean, simple, and put together. And so I checked Go Beyond right before I hopped on here as well. And we have 127 nursing jobs in there and we have somebody on our team. We have nurses that are choosing jobs for nurses. And whenever they go through there, we have a very strict criteria. It has to be a fully remote nursing job and it has to be able to be done basically anywhere in the country. Some of them, it's like, Hey, you need to be inside the state of Nevada or something like that. But there's a lot of nurses in Nevada that would probably still like that job. May not be available to the other 49 states, but it's still fully remote nonetheless. And so basically we're distilling down those 2,700 jobs into 127 handpicked jobs that you can go to and you can apply to right now. And we also have a proprietary internal filter that as soon as that job is no longer taking applications, it gets pulled off the website. So, It just helps people with being able to save time because nurses don't have any time. You know, they don't have time to be going through 2,700 job listings trying to find something. And that's just the last 24 hours. So it's thousands of jobs being uploaded every single day. And if we're saving you hours upon hours by not having to sift through all these job boards, because I fell into the exact same trap to where I started looking and then I was like, this is overwhelming. And then you just close the screen and you walk away. You're like, no, I don't want to mess with that. But if it's like, oh, okay, there's only, you know, our average that we get in per day is about 50 new jobs per day, and that's across remote nursing jobs, nurse practitioner jobs, and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner jobs. And so it's much easier to log in, flip through 50 jobs, and be like, none of those match, or none of those, you know, are like kind of what I'm looking for. And then you can just continue on with your day. So really what we're trying to provide for people is just speed and convenience.

Have you, have you followed up like with people who have used your, uh, website as far as like the success stories, like people who have actually gotten jobs, made the transition from the bedside, um, and then gotten this remote job and then loved it? Or do you guys get like feedback from people?

So we've only been live for about a month now. Oh wow, so you're new? Yeah, very fresh. Yeah, but it's funny, me actually, so my job actually just had a transition to where my unit got absorbed by another unit and essentially Everything about my job changed. And so I actually went in as not only an owner, but now as a user. And I was able to sit outside on my back patio in Sedona, Arizona, and I was able to apply to 7 different jobs in 45 minutes. And I just had an interview yesterday, and I've got another interview scheduled for tomorrow. So I myself, I called up my business partner Alberto, and I was like, dude, I was like, I know that we've always said that this thing's gonna work, but I just went through it and it actually works.

Love it. So yeah, you're actually using it. And by the way, I love that you're in Sedona. I grew up in Arizona, so I went, I went to college in Flagstaff. So I've spent a lot of time there. I actually was just in Sedona maybe, yeah, like 2 weeks ago.

2 weeks. We should have met up. We could have done it live, like from a mountain.

I know. Yeah, we could have.

Yeah.

Well, I really just, I was in Flagstaff for a wedding. I had driven through Sedona because I just, I love it so much. I love that. And I also, I do, so I actually do some remote work as well, which is why I think I get A lot of questions on this. I think a lot of like nurses on social media have kind of gotten these, you know, inundated with these questions of how do we find remote work? And I think like what you're doing is actually making it so much easier because it's because my answer to people is always like well, it's actually not as easy as you would think with like what we've had before. In my job, I actually didn't find like I wasn't looking for it. I had just had a coworker who worked doing what I'm doing now, and I was like oh, like that seems like something you know I would like to do. And so then I just got like referred basically. But I mean people find find it just on like the hospital's webpages. But this, this job that I specifically have is kind of like what you're saying is like, I can't, I can't do this from anywhere. I have to have, uh, I mean, here's the deal. I technically could, they, they do have us working hybrid, but I have to have like a whole setup. Like I have like 2 monitors, a phone, like this like big, I don't even know what it is, like box that has to plug directly into like into internet. Um, so it's not like I can just like drag my laptop around and hop on it and work, but I do. The benefit of being able to work from home is I feel like so huge because things like, you know, I don't, I have kids, but like I have dogs, and it makes that so much easier. And just like what you're saying, the lifestyle you can have working remote is just—it's just so much better. And I think people, what I have felt and maybe heard other people say too, is this thing that people are always so afraid, like oh, like if I leave the bedside, like I'm gonna lose my skills. Like and I think it's more of like a fear thing of people that are afraid to just like make that jump. And I just don't believe. I just don't think it's true. Like once you, you know, when you've been a nurse and you've been working, if you feel like you need to take a break and take a step back and go do something else, like, it's, it's really, it really is like the old— how they like the old saying of it's like riding a bike. Like, once you get— because I don't work in the ER as often anymore, but I still do sometimes. Like, I was just there this weekend, and it's like, once you get there, once you've done it enough, like, it comes back to you so quickly. Like, you're not gonna just like walk out of the hospital on your last day and like just lose all these skills, you know? Like, so I think that's a big reason why I think a lot of people are hesitant to do— make big changes is they're just afraid. And I think I'm, I'm here to say that like it's, it's made a huge difference on just my life, my nervous system, uh, just like how I feel day to day not being in like the hospital setting every single day.

Dude, yeah, I completely agree because I, I feel pretty confident that if I needed to, if I for whatever reason lost my job tomorrow and I couldn't find another remote gig quickly, Guarantee I could find some hospital around me that would be willing to pick me up, whether as just a bedside nurse or a nurse practitioner, and I could jump right back into it. And I agree, I think it's like riding a bike. If you've done it and you've already gone through the process, you would pick up on it very quickly. And I would say that once somebody goes the remote route, and we're seeing a huge uptick in the amount of jobs that are being offered remotely, that I think once you make the switch, it's gonna be pretty hard for you ever to want to go back. Because with, with me, Now, like, I get to wake up in the morning, I get to make my own coffee, I get to make a nice breakfast. And then whenever it's lunchtime, I get to go actually make like a healthy, nice, good lunch, sit outside on my back patio and eat lunch. And then as soon as I'm done with work that day, I close my laptop and I'm done. I don't have to give report. There's no, oh, somebody didn't show up. Can you stick around for an extra 4 hours until, you know, the 11:00 PM person comes in or something like that? It's like, Once I started getting a little taste of it, I was like, there's no way I could ever give this up.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, and I think it takes the, it's just like any, any nursing job, like ICU, ER, like sometimes takes the right person too. Like, I think that, you know, people might have this idea of like, oh, I really want to do that. And then maybe they get into working remote or doing, you know, doing these things and they're like, maybe this actually isn't for me. Um, and I feel like that's okay. But I feel like as long as like people are trying, if they have this idea or, you know, one of the big things for me, I was at a point in my career where I was like super, super burnt out. Like I wasn't feeling well, and it really got to a point where I felt like I almost like had to take a break from the bedside because I was like, I feel like something is going to happen if I don't like step away and take care of myself. And I think that is how a lot of you know maybe like medical errors are just like if you're not mentally there and you can have the self awareness to just be like I need to like take a step back. Like this is such a good option for people to even just like consider or like take a look at. I think like one of the best things about nursing, and I'll say this forever, is like the flexibility that it really does offer. Like you can, you can work so many different jobs and, you know, keep your feet wet in like your specialty. Like I'm doing, like I have, like I said, my per diem job in the ER to where like, you know, if I'm not fully ready to like sever that tie, I can like keep, you know, go get my fix as if, you know, as you will, just like get that out of the way. And then I'm like, okay, I'm good. Like I said, I did 8 hours Saturday and Sunday and I was like, I'm good. I'm good for a while. Like I didn't work, I didn't work there at all in May. And so I think that's the biggest thing is the flexibility.

Yeah, because I mean, if I, if I wanted to, I 100% could still be working per diem. Because I mean, like, what is it like typically like 24 hours a month or something like that for most per diem for hospitals or something like that?

In the area that I work in, all I have to work is 4 4-hour shifts a month.

Yeah, so it's like, okay, even if you got a full-time remote gig, you could work, uh, you know, an 8-hour shift one Saturday and then a 4-hour shift on a different Sunday on a different weekend, and you're still keeping up on your skills. You're still, you know, got your toe inside there like you said, and then you could test out a remote job for a year if you wanted to and be like, "Could I do this? Would I like doing this?" And I think that there's something about because I mean, I got this from my buddies. You know, they're like, "Oh, you know, couldn't hack it at the bedside anymore, huh?" You know, like nurses are very proud people. You know, like they're they and they like to eat their own very much so. And so I think a lot of people kind of fall into that too. They're like, "Oh." Am I am I like quitting if I go this route? Am I am I too soft that I need to go this route? And in my opinion, it's like I my my identity was not I'm a nurse. My identity was I'm a husband. I'm a good friend to other people. I like to be David. I'm not David RN, David NP. And so I think that I just was able to show up better for people in my life whenever I just was not so stressed out and burnt out from this job that I was working. So I think for people, if you're starting to feel that. Coming in the back of your head of like, man, do I really want to do this for the rest of my life? And then I think a lot of people think I spent 4 years of my life and $100,000 in student loans to get this degree. I can't possibly give up on that. That would be so stupid. This is an alternative route to where you're still using your clinical brain. You're still using your degree and you're still, you know, utilizing all of that time, energy, and money spent, but you're just using it in a different capacity.

Right, right. I love what you said about tying your identity to it. I've done episodes actually on that exact topic because I think that's one of the biggest drivers to nurses in the decisions that we make is, I've said this before too, like it's almost like cult-like, you know, like when you get into nursing, it's almost like you can't get out because it's like, you know, too much or something like that, you know? And I think that a lot of nursing, especially you said your background was ER, ICU as like a bedside nurse, like, and a lot of ER and ICU nurses, like once you get into like the critical care role, like it's a huge ego thing. Like, you don't, you know, like, who am I if I'm like, oh, not— if I can— if I go to like a party or a gathering and I, I don't have all these like crazy stories to tell about like my weekend working in the ICU and the ER. And it's like, yeah, like that stuff's great. And I think, you know, I, I don't ever regret a second of like what I've learned and things that I've experienced. But yeah, like at the end of the day, like you, like you said, like you're a husband and like you have all these other titles that like, that make you feel, you know, who you are at your core. You know, being a nurse is just like part of who you are. And there's like so many different ways to express that and to people. And I think that was another thing that I had a big— had to like have a conversation with myself about was like, you don't have to be like pounding on somebody's chest to be helping them. You know, you can, you can help people in so many different ways. And something like you're doing with Go Beyond the Bedside is helping people to discover that there's, there's other ways to practice, there's other ways to use your license. Like, it's a, it's a tool. It's not something that you have to feel like imprisoned from. Like, it's a tool that you can use in however you're is best for you to live your life. And I think that's, it's so, so important, like what you're saying.

Yeah, 100%. Because like, I once, once I got the ability to start traveling around and like doing what I know that I really, really wanted to do, like, oh, would I rather be in the ER right now, you know, doing some badass stuff and like, you know, doing all that? I loved it. I absolutely love the ER. I love the ICU. It was fun whenever I was doing it. And I loved my oncology patients whenever I was working with them. I never in a million years thought that I would work oncology, but then a buddy of mine that graduated a year before me in NP school, he was in that group and he's like, hey dude, it's a pretty cool group. Like, come on over, check it out. So I shadowed him a couple of days and like, it was nice 'cause I was rounding in the hospital, but then I also had patients in the outpatient setting. So I got a lot of autonomy. I got to move around a lot. But once again, it was just like, man, I, it's so hard for me to like take a vacation. It's like, I have Epic on my phone where people are trying to send me messages that are like for one of my patients while I'm trying to be on vacation somewhere. It's like this is crazy. Like I I want to be able to live the life that I want to be able to live, and that included a lot of traveling. My wife and I we love to travel, and so having the ability to just like slowly travel across the United States, like we we use Furnished Finder not for the reason that most people use Furnished Finder, which is travel nursing. We use it to book a month on the beach in Oregon or a month in Denver or a month in you know Houston or wherever. We've gone all over the place with it, and I think people also are afraid that like I'm a people person. I want to be. around other people. I can't imagine just, you know, being trapped inside my office the entire day. And we've seen so many different jobs come through since we've started this. Like, you can be as patient-facing or as in the background as you possibly want to be, anywhere on that spectrum. So for my people that are super chatty, they want to be talking to patients, they want to feel like they're really, really helping somebody, there's tons of different jobs like case management jobs and like that oncology job that I was talking about that Kara has to where she's making phone calls to these patients. She's making a huge difference in their lives, but Because that person is now not trying to figure out like, what the heck is interventional radiology? How do— what, what, where do I go? How do I do this? And she just is able to help them navigate through that system. And they're so thankful for it. So you can be patient-facing or you can have a job like me. I wanted to be a little bit more in the background because I had some other things that I was working on and I didn't want so much of a patient-facing job.

I don't want to talk to anybody.

Truly. So, so with my gig, like I love I literally don't call anybody. I don't talk to any patients. I basically sit there and I review charts and I go through and I medically justify why what happened in the hospital was what happened. So you kind of get to play like detective a little bit. You get to review all the progress notes. You get to look at all the labs that were ordered and kind of like basically put together an appeal letter of why the insurance company is trying to turn down this patient. And I'm able to help the patient and they'll never know who I am. They'll never know who I was. But I'm helping that person get their stuff paid for, and it still gives me a lot of job satisfaction out of it. I don't need to be talking to the patient to know that I'm helping people.

Right, right. It's like, it's like the, the behind the scenes, you know, for somebody that— like a big superstar that's on stage. Like, it's the, it's the people behind doing the lights, like the, the cameras, like the, the audio. Um, that's kind of how I look at like the remote role. It's kind of similar like with me. I mean, with mine, I am on the phone like That's all day long. That's all I do is talk on the phone. Um, cause I work for like a transfer center. Uh, I don't know if you've ever experienced anything with transfer centers, but yeah, just for like, for the Boston area, like for the two, like two, there's, or there's actually quite a few trauma centers in Boston, which is crazy cause it's not a very big city, but take a phone call, triage the patient. If they're calling from like an outside facility, the doctors will call us. So we triage them, connect them with our doctors. Um, if it's like really bad trauma or like a STEMI, we just take it directly, usually to the ER, direct to the OR. Um, so basically it's just like triaging and again, like The way I feel is like, I'm still, I'm really happy to use, like, you know, that's not like a role that you can just take as like a new grad. Like you have to have, like, you know, be able to triage and have critical care knowledge. Um, so like that aspect, I don't feel like I'm losing at all. Like, yes, I'm not doing like my hands-on skills. Um, but like all day talking to doctors, talking to people and like, I know that I'm making a difference, like helping to transfer people who need like life-saving measures, um, to get the care that they need.

We were out in Denver. We stayed at some apartment complex in Denver. Tons of people were working remotely in there. So I'd go, I'd get my own little pod down there. And I could be doing my work, you know, doing whatever I needed to do. But then I could go out and like get a coffee and there's like, you know, 20 other people my age hanging out working remotely. And then you just start, you know, shooting the breeze with all the other people that are out there. And you, you can be around other people and you can be doing whatever you want to do. Or if you don't feel like talking to anybody, you can just hang out at your house and like, you know, take a nap on your couch if you need to and like just chill.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, it goes, I think it, it all comes back to like that flexibility. Like, you know, like how, how are you feeling today? Like, do I want to stay home? Do I want to interact with people versus if you have a job that you have to show up for. I mean, you don't have a choice. Like you have to go, you have to. And that was, that's, I think like, I really think that's the hardest thing about being a nurse is just showing up if you're not in the right mindset to do so. And I think that's what's so hard about it is that we, you know, we're all human. Like we're all still, yes, we're nurses and we have this knowledge and these skills that most people don't have. But at the end of the day, you're still a human. And so then to show up to work, whether you're in like a critical care setting or you're provider showing up, like it's really hard to separate yourself from like your, your life and show up. So just to be able to have like, be able, like, I mean, I went through something that was difficult to go through and, you know, my, my work thankfully was like, yeah, like just stay home, like work home at home for like the next month. And it was just like so helpful to like not have to like be around people. And you wouldn't have that, that flexibility elsewhere. You said that you've gone through like some burnout before. Like, do you ever feel that now? Like, do you, how do you feel inside like your nervous system just on a day-to-day basis versus like when you were working in like the clinical setting?

Yeah, so my, my normal day-to-day whenever I was working bedside as a nurse practitioner, it was we would round for 1 week, 7 days on, and you'd be on for about 12 hours every single day. You know, we'd have to take care of all of our surgical oncology patients that were in the hospital. So that week was pretty brutal. And then usually you'd get a few days off after that, and then I would start seeing patients in the, in the outpatient setting again. I'd be seeing, you know, maybe 15, 20 patients a day in the office then. So then then you gotta get to the office early. You gotta start reviewing charts. These are very sick, complex patients. And then, you know, it still was very stressful. I mean, I was, I was putting in probably, you know, no problem, 50-hour weeks easily, if not 60-hour weeks, even whenever I was in the office. And so it just started really burning me out. I mean, just flat out. And then one of the things that really got me the most, and I think kind of like gave me that extra oomph of like the travel bug and like not wanting to just like be stuck in one spot. There's a story. that I told on Lindsay's podcast, a good friend of ours, that it was always the one that sticks out in my mind of like a big turning point for me. And so I remember I got the— I was rounding in the hospital that week, got a new consult popped up on the computer and it said, hey, you know, this patient, we got a pancreatic mass, mets to liver, mets all over the place. Need you to go down there, see them, talk them through what this diagnosis is, what the next steps are, how we're going to start moving forward, etc. And I had done this hundreds of times, hundreds of times. And I remember vividly walking down to the emergency department from like our little pod that we had. He was sitting in E21. I remember walking up to E21. There is a little crack in the, in the little, you know, the, what am I trying to say? The, the, what's the thing that hangs over the window? My gosh, the curtain. Holy cow. Yeah. Curtain. There was a crack in the curtain. And I peek in there and the dude's sitting there chatting with his wife. He looked happy as could be, but he was yellow as a highlighter from all the jaundice because his pancreatic mass was pushing on his bile ducts. duct. And, uh, he was just like laughing, cutting it up with his wife inside there. And I just remember, I mean, I don't know why this one was different than all the other ones, but I was like, I'm gonna walk inside and I'm gonna ruin this guy's life. And so I kind of like pulled myself together a little bit outside of the room, went in, talked to him about his diagnosis, basically told him like, you know, like best case scenario, you've got maybe a year, more likely scenario, probably 6 months. And, uh, he was in his low 50s. And he just kind of started talking to me. And I think the reason it hit me the most is because he was roughly about the same age as my dad. I have a very entrepreneurial spirit. That's, you know, that's why we started Go Beyond the Bedside. And, uh, he had started his own company. Him and his wife worked their butts off at this company. They built it up. They were doing really, really well with it. But he was, you know, the typical entrepreneur working 12-hour days, 7 days a week for years and years and years. And he said, we were just about to sell the company to the kids and we were going to gonna walk away and sail off into the sunset. He's like, we were just about ready to start our life and then this happens. And so I remember I was just about ready to walk out of the room and he said, hey, my wife and I, we were going to take a motorcycle trip down to Florida for like, I think it was either 2 weeks or a month or something like that. And he said, would you recommend going? And I was like, my clinical brain says no, you should start chemo ASAP. And I said, I think I actually told him that. I said, clinical side of me says no, you should stick around and start chemo as soon as you can. But human side of me, get out of here, go on the trip. And he did. He took the motorcycle trip down there, him and his wife. They were gone for, I think, a month on the motorcycle. He came back, he started his chemotherapy. But then I got the notification. I think it was within 6 months he had passed. And so I was glad he was at least able to take that trip. I bet it was a lot more of a cathartic trip than what he had originally anticipated.

Yeah. But it's like those, that's those, it's those, those scenarios. And I think, um, as nurses, the, we're reminded of those, those, um, things often, cuz we see people dying, um, you know, all the time in whatever line of work you're doing as a nurse. Um, but we almost get, uh, like numb to it, you know, not necessarily like paying attention to it. And I always say like, you know, don't, don't wait until retirement to start living your life. Like your life is now because you never know, like. Yeah. You know, and we like we all know this as people. Like we all know that like our death is going to happen. Like we are not, you know, we're mortal. Like we're not going to live forever. But we just don't like we ignore it. We don't think about it. We're like, oh yeah, like like he you know like this guy with the pancreatic cancer. Like oh like we finally get to start living our life. Like we're retired. Like selling the company. And it's like no. Like that's not how this is supposed to be. And I think for a lot of us, like I don't know. Did you say you were raised by entrepreneurs? Is that what you said?

I was not, no. Factory workers. Yeah, he was. He was an entrepreneur, yeah.

He was an entrepreneur. My parents have always like instilled in me like, you know, work super hard. Like both my parents to this day like work like insane hours. And so that's just like drilled into my brain. And it's like, yes, like you have to work for what you want and like there's value in that. But like at what point are you watching your life go by? Because at any point in time, you know, any of us can go to the hospital tomorrow for something or to the doctor and get like this diagnosis. It doesn't discriminate on our age, our gender, like where we're from, like any of that. And so I think that's a really important story for people to hear. I similarly, my first, one of my first nursing jobs was on an inpatient oncology unit. And that's also when I really started to see like, cause when you're watching people, there's a difference between when you watch somebody, you know, come, they're coming in as a code into the ER versus like somebody who's like slowly just dying because they don't have the energy to go do the things, you know, ask the question like, oh, what would you do if you had 6 months to live? And it's like, well, probably nothing because you would have no energy. Like, if you're dying from something, like you're trying to go through treatment or whatever it is, um, so, you know, like, why wait until that point in your life to start, to start living? Um, so yeah, I love that you, that you touched on that because it's— I think that's really important for people to hear.

Yeah. And like, in the ER, like, whenever somebody comes in, you know, like a huge trauma or something like that, like, your, your adrenaline takes over. You're almost kind of like amped at the situation, like, all right, Let's rock and roll. Let's take care of this, you know, whatever. And like, I never felt like a huge amount of like sadness in those moments because it was like there was no time for it. You had to start kicking butt and start rocking and rolling. Afterwards, there usually was a little bit, but with this type of situation that I just explained, it was just like that. I walked out of the room and I just, I just about started like breaking down in the ER because it was just like, that is just brutal. And I think that was kind of the impetus also for me whenever I found out about this remote nursing job, and I'm like, holy cow, like, I can start living my life right away if I want to. The job is not actually going to be what ties me down. The job is going to be what sets me free and allows me to start traveling and living the life that I want to live. And I think that's why I'm so passionate about this, is because I think there's a lot of nurses that feel like they're stuck in their current situation, and in all reality, they're not. And for me and my wife, like, our, our idea of freedom that we wanted to do was, yeah, we want to go travel, we want to go start seeing a bunch of different places. We really wanted to just like get out there because we were so trapped. We grew up in the Midwest, so, you know, like we're Indiana kids, we want to go see the West Coast, you know. And, uh, but somebody else's idea of freedom, it might be a mom that has 2 kids at home and she wants to be able to get her kids on the school bus and be able to go pick them up right afterwards. She wants to be able to be home for weekends and holidays. She doesn't want to miss out on any more soccer trips or dance recitals. And this type of a job allows them to be able to have a little bit more of a stable structure and allows them to be able to have more freedom with their Right.

Yeah, that is what would be the decision maker for me if I was on the fence of, do I stay in the clinical setting in the hospital? Do I go do this remote work? It would be that, the time that you're getting back with what actually matters to you. It's so funny because I actually put this on one of my social media accounts yesterday because I'm in the middle of a project that I'm working on. So I put a little question box of, what would you do if you had had 5 years to live was the question I had asked. And most of the answers were either A, quit my job, or which mostly people that follow are nurses. And then the other one was travel. And so it's so funny, like, just, just to like, just to see people's responses. And again, my answer to that was like, okay, so like, treat your life like you have 5 years to live because you might, you know. Yeah. So I love that. What, for as far What is like working remote? What is, what would you say has been like the biggest con for you? Like working remote? Like, are there things for you specifically that you're like, oh yeah, I don't love this, but the pros still are outweighing like having to deal with this?

Man, I would say before I had this merger where my, my unit got absorbed by somebody else, I told my wife pretty much every day, this is the best job I've ever had. Like I couldn't really think of a con because I got more PTO than I had ever gotten in my life. I was getting 6 weeks of PTO and I could actually use I could, hey, I don't feel like coming in on Friday and it's a Monday and it's not like, oh, I have to find somebody to take my shift. It was that I could take the PTO if I wanted. And the beautiful thing with having the remote job is that like I didn't really need to take PTO ever unless we were going out of the country. That's why we've been able to go to 7 countries in the last 3 years is because I couldn't take my laptop with me there. But hey, we're gonna go fly out to Boston for the week and I'm just gonna bring my laptop with me on the, you know, whenever we fly out on the weekend. Set up shop inside this office that I, you know, at the Airbnb that we rented, and I don't have to take any PTO for that week that I'm there. I just work during the day and we have all afternoon and evening to be able to do whatever we wanted to do. So honestly, I, I wish I could give you a con, but I— until really the con is management now. That's, that's what happened with us getting absorbed into this other unit. So you still have work drama, you know, work BS that you have to deal with, but anybody in any job is going to have to deal with that. So I would say Cons, haven't really been able to find anything other than I would say I do miss the connection that I did have with my patients. Like it was, it was really fun being that like resource for them. And they like, and especially since I was in such a high impact area of like really tough malignancies that like they saw me as like their number one ally. And I'm really good at like explaining things to people and very like, I never came in there and like stood in the corner of the room, you know, and like just rattled off some stuff to them and tried to run out. Like, I would sit out there and hang out with them. I'm just, I'm just a natural, like, talker with people, and people really appreciated that. So I think, I guess that would be the con, is that I miss the connection that I did have with the people. But it's like, I can start getting that connection elsewhere if I wanted to. If I wanted to volunteer for hospice, I could go start doing that with my nursing background. If I wanted, I could turn that dial up and down if I wanted to. I don't have to be trapped in something.

Yeah, yeah, okay. I think that's, uh, with one of my— like, one of the, the things I'm most grateful for through my— like, in my career was working oncology for kind of like what you're saying is they— and I don't like to classify them like as like, you know, oncology patients, but that's— I mean, for the context of this, that's what they were, the oncology patients. Like, they, they were always the most grateful and like just nicest people for the most part because they were just grateful for every single day that they had, that they were still here. Um, so I think that having that so early in my career especially like really gave me good perspective because— and, you know, I worked inpatient, but you would see repeat people coming in there. But they, yeah, they were just— they really were just like the best patients. Um, so that's cool that you got— that you— that you got that experience with them.

Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's really hard then too, like, even if they are having a rough time and they're like, you know, not being the most cooperative or the most pleasant to be around, it kicks your butt right into perspective really quickly of like, okay, like, am I really gonna get get upset at this dude who's upset at me right now whenever I know what he's going through, I know what his situation is. You get a heavy, heavy dose of perspective every single day whenever you go into work. And I think that was also what, like, subconsciously really pushed me in this direction and how I want to help other people get into this, is that, like you said, you're not guaranteed tomorrow. You never know what's going to happen. And so why not start, you know, going down the path that at least gives you the most freedom and the most ability to be able to kind of, like, live the life that Right, period.

Yes, I love that. Really, I do. So yeah, so I guess to kind of wrap this up, just tell us, tell the audience exactly where, like, where can they find you? Where can they find the Go Beyond the Bedside? Like, is it just, is it a website? Is there an app? Is there a membership included? Like, how does this work?

Yeah, so the website is just gobeyondthebedside.com, or you can find us on Instagram @gobeyondthebedside. You can find me on Instagram @DavidRosenbeck. And, uh, it's pretty simple. We, we give everybody a little preview of jobs that are updated pretty frequently, and, uh, you're able to see kind of like the idea of what types of jobs that we have offered inside there. And if you want to sign up, we have an option to sign up for our newsletter on our website where we send out some jobs that, like, new ones that came in. Like, hey, this job just came in this morning. This is perfect for anybody that has any experience with cardiac or somebody that has case management experience or something like that. Just so that people can kind of get a little idea of what's going on. And, um, yeah, I'd say that we, we'll throw in a little, uh, $1 promo. So if anybody that wants their, uh, first month for $1— what was our— I'd say our, um, well, what was our theme for today? I'd say our theme was probably like freedom. So let's go for $1. If you put the coupon code in freedom, you'll get your first month for $1. And as far as the pricing goes, I hate people whenever they like try and hide the price somewhere or something like that. We wanted to make this super cheap, super accessible for anybody. It's $15 a month. And if you think about the hours of time that you're saving, like, how much do you value your time? If you're valuing your time, if multiple hours versus $15, then you're valuing your own time at like $1, $2 an hour. You have better things to be doing. That's, that's a Starbucks order.

I was literally about to say it's 2 lattes at Starbucks. Like, it's fine.

Exactly. We really are just trying to make this as easy and as accessible to all the nurses out there that are maybe looking into an alternative path. And something else that we, uh, I forgot to touch on is that there's a lot of part-time jobs that come through as well. So somebody that may already be, you know, part-time working at their job, maybe only a couple days a week instead of 3 12s or something like that, if they just want to get into a part-time gig and, you know, maybe try it out and see what it's like working remotely, um, there's a lot of options for that as well.

Nice. Yeah, I love it. That's, that's the biggest thing is don't, don't box yourself in. Like, you don't— you can work remote per diem full-time. Like, I get it. People have kids and all these different circumstances where you need benefits or whatever it may be. But there's— where there's a will, there's a way. And if you really— if you're really wanting to explore, have the flexibility, the freedom, there's— there are so many ways around it. So thank you, David. This is awesome. I'm actually going to go probably explore the page even more because you have me interested and my own wheels are turning. So thank you so much for your time and offering everything up. To us and everything that you're doing, I think is making a huge impact. Um, or at least, and since you're so fresh, going to make a huge impact on the nursing community. So thank you.

Amazing. Thank you so much for having me on. This is a lot of fun.

Of course. 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 @NurseDaddy. Or ColtonLord17, 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.