The Bossy Nurse Podcast
The Bossy Nurse Podcast is a show about nurse creators, innovators, risk-takers, and the ideas that shape their success. Hosted by Marsha Battee, Founder of TheBossyNurse.com.
The Bossy Nurse Podcast
4. New York Times Bestselling Author: Theresa Brown on Nursing and Writing
In this episode of The Bossy Nurse Podcast, Marsha Battee speaks with Theresa Brown, PhD, BSN, RN. This episode explores Dr. Brown’s unconventional path into nursing, her early experiences in the field, and how writing became a powerful extension of her nursing voice.
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And I remember, because this was Bob Miller, who then left Harper and was at Flat Iron for a while, sort of legendary figure in publishing. But after I signed the contract, he called me and and I said, well, he said he called me and he said, Teresa, I am raising a glass of champagne to you. It's very sweet. And uh and I said, okay, what happens now? He said, well, now you write a book.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Balsi Nurse Podcast, a show about nurse creators, innovators, risk takers, and the ideas that shape their success. I'm Marcia Batti, and on the show today, how Teresa Brown turned the invisibility of nurses' day-to-day work into a New York Times bestseller that sparked national conversations about the realities of modern care. Most people only see hospitals in quick flashes. TV dramas, a hurried ER visit, a bill that makes no sense? What we almost never hear is the steady heartbeat of a nurse's day. Teresa Brown traded teaching English in academia for the bedside. Then a sudden patient loss made the story too heavy to keep in. And so she began to write it down. She submitted that story to the New York Times, and they published it. Agents took notice, and a bedside nurse's voice broke through. In one book deal that later became a New York Times bestseller, Teresa wrote about a single 12-hour shift. And it clicked. One day became the lens. Real patience, real lies, and real decisions. But to understand how that voice was formed, we have to go back before the essays and book deals to a place where her lens would shape.
SPEAKER_02:So I grew up with this very strict sense of gender roles and that my kids, when I tell them about it, they can't believe it. They find it so bizarre. And sort of uh being the smart girl definitely put me in a category that wasn't always so comfortable. And I also, well, I guess maybe had a sort of narrow sense of what my future could be, which maybe a lot of kids do. But one thing was my dad was a professor at Missouri State University, which is in Springfield, and seeing him go to work, and I thought being a professor would just be the greatest job in the world. And you know, you get to talk with students and think about ideas and help people. And um, that inspired me all through school, high school, college, and then making the decision to get a PhD, which then I, you know, ended up doing something else. So that's why I said I don't think in Springfield I got the most expansive sense of careers and was sort of looking to my parents as role models and also wanting to be somewhere where there was a real focus on learning and it wasn't about, oh, if you're a girl, you're not supposed to be smart.
SPEAKER_01:So did you always know you were smart? I mean, when you were growing up, did you always feel like you were excelling in school?
SPEAKER_02:Actually, no, it wasn't until about the middle of elementary school. I actually had a teacher there who she, me and another student, she had us do math on our own and work ahead of the rest of the class. And she picked some students who got extra hard spelling words, some of which I still remember to this day, like poignant. Um, these words I learned in fourth grade. Very cool. So I think that's when I got my first real taste of it. I mean, I knew I was sort of bored because I could read by the time I started kindergarten, and a lot of people couldn't. But I don't think I thought I was smart. I think I just thought that school was boring. And and then once I started to get teachers who saw, oh, this person can do a little more, school got a lot more fun.
SPEAKER_01:Wonderful. So growing up with a dad who taught at university and your mom, my mom's a social worker. Social worker. Did you feel that was in your cards to be a teacher or teach at a university?
SPEAKER_02:I think I did. And you know, it's it's interesting. I've met so many nurses, the generation older than I am, who said for their generation, women, there were three possible jobs: secretary, teacher, or nurse. And I actually met the woman who was the chief nursing officer at MD Anderson in Houston. And and that she told me that. And she said, Well, I wasn't going to be a secretary. I did not want to be with little kids. And so this was the only job left. Obviously, she excelled. She was the chief nursing officer of like the flagship cancer hospital in Texas, if not, you know, that whole part of the country. Um, but yeah, I think I thought I could achieve what my dad had achieved, and it seemed really wonderful. Like that would be a sort of very nurturing job in in some ways, which which is interesting because nursing has that same sense of nurture. And I found when I was teaching, did get my PhD, taught English for three years. I really like working one-on-one with students. And and then when I became a nurse, I thought, oh, this is just like that. It's, you know, because there's so much education rolled into the job, but people aren't really aware that we're educating them.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Right.
SPEAKER_02:They just think, wow, my nurse is really helpful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious about the teaching and university route versus social work. What made you think, oh, I want to follow in my dad's footsteps versus actually going into social work?
SPEAKER_02:Such an interesting question. You know what? I think my dad just seemed to like his job a lot more than my mom did. I feel like I feel like I'm so shallow when I give these answers, but um, I mean, it just seemed like social work was amorphous, demanding in a way that was kind of unpleasant. Um, and it's interesting because then when I was actually teaching myself, I found that being in front of a classroom three times a week was its own form of difficult that was unpleasant. Um and I mean, honestly, I feel much more comfortable being at a code, even though I hate codes and I hate that patients aren't doing well than sort of teaching, uh, which sounds really weird. And I think now that I've some time has passed and I have a lot more experience, I don't think I would feel quite the same way about being in the classroom, but it had its own kind of anxiety that I did not get that vibe from my dad at all. Um, but yeah, social work seemed tough and you know, lots of stories about all kinds of crazy things happening. And um, of course that happens in healthcare too, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right. I was gonna ask you that, but I know we'll get to that. I am interested though, with when you decided to, of course, go off to college. Did you always know that you wanted to do, you know, major in English? Or how did English come to be? Were you always a, you know, really avid reader when you were younger? Or why was English? Yeah. Why English? Yeah, good question.
SPEAKER_02:I was always a very avid reader. I actually went to college thinking I wanted to major in biochemistry and cure cancer, very noble goal. And um, I started at Rice University in Houston, Texas, which is what they call a weed out school. And so freshmen going into science, they want them to take chemistry, calculus, and physics. And I started in all those classes, and this is a real downside of having grown up in Springfield, Missouri, which is I just was not academically prepared for those classes. And I was in classes with students who had already had AP chemistry and AP calculus and AP physics, and I just I couldn't do it and ended up dropping those classes and switching over to the humanities, and it felt like the right thing at the time. Now I look back at it and I think it's such a shame that I wasn't at a university that could be more nurturing with someone who came from a not that great high school who wanted to go into science, but rice was very much a work hard, play hard. Like, are you tough enough? Can you make it? Um, and I I regret that.
SPEAKER_01:Um did you know that reputation before you got there?
SPEAKER_02:I didn't, no. I didn't, I just knew it was a good school and that it was good in science. And and actually at that time, compared to a lot of private schools, it was really cheap because they had this huge endowment that they were still using to subsidize everyone's tuition. And it was, it was fun and you know, it was Houston, so it was warm all the time.
SPEAKER_01:How is that for you the change? Because I imagine coming from uh Missouri to Texas um may have felt a little different, although they're not that far apart technically, I guess. But I'm sure the change I I grew up in um I was born in Texas and oh okay. So I I know the difference in Texas. Um, was it a culture shock for you when you went there?
SPEAKER_02:It was, it was, and and I didn't expect it because Rice is in Houston and I thought, oh, it's a big city, big cities are the same everywhere, but it it definitely was. I mean, one weird thing that if people don't know this, Houston has almost no zoning laws, and so everything is very haphazard. You know, you can have a strip club next to a diner, next to a bank, next to wow, you know, it's just like very bizarre. Um, and that was strange. And there were definitely uh men there who very much, again, this this very strict sense of gender roles and not a lot of creativity about that. And um, and uh yeah, I was kind of hoping that college would be a break from that. Of course, now partly that was naive, right? Because uh, you know, we're now being maybe I shouldn't say this, I'll just say it, you know. The administration that we have presently also talks a lot about fairly rigid gender roles. And and it's not that I was um exploring my gender or I it's it's just I wanted more of a sense of possibility. Um, so there was maybe a little bit of a weird tension at rice, like yes, women could be scientists, um, but then still there was kind of this sense of yeah, but you've got to fulfill these other roles as well. Um, and that wasn't so easy, but uh the weather was nice, you know, it stayed warm. It could be very like unpleasantly humid. Um but um I just I remember all that sunlight, and that was quite nice.
SPEAKER_01:Talking about the rigidity of the environment that you were in, and I just remember, and I imagine for any, you know, high school graduate going off to college, what's an exciting time, especially if they're going to another city, another state, and it's their first time away from home. And so it sounds like that was pretty rigid for you in Texas.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, in some, in some ways, and of course, um also very car dependent. And I didn't have a car, but I had friends with cars, and I mean, Rice has a it's a really beautiful campus, and um, there were lots and lots of things I liked about it, but yeah, I felt constrained. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So you're in college and you decide to take up English as a major. Um, did you have any other interest in college besides literature and English?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I did. I, for the first time ever, I did sports. I did intramural sports, um, and found out that, oh, I'm actually sort of athletic. That was, you know, where I grew up. You couldn't be smart and athletic if you were a girl. Like that was too much. So I discovered I was actually kind of athletic and what sports? Um, what did we do? Flag football and soccer. And those I was pretty good at basketball, I was not very good at um, yeah, and it was fun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So you graduate with an English degree, and then you decide to get your PhD. You start teaching for three years. And if I'm not mistaken, is it Tufts University where you taught? Yeah. So you're teaching English, and at some point I know you decide, and you talked a little bit about this in the very beginning, the just what it is as a teacher, and how you know it's really not exactly what you probably expected. Uh-huh. Because there are challenges with teaching as well. So you're teaching. And I did read that when you became a mom, that prompted you to go into nursing, which if you want it calm, it doesn't sound like that. That would be the route. I'm interested in in your mindset about that and what you were thinking about that decision.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I had a slow falling away from the university. And and I got my PhD at a time when there was a lot of emphasis on cultural studies and post-colonialism, which I think is all very, very important to learn about and think about. But the a lot of the writing about it was just very difficult to understand, you know, what people called theoretical, but basically it was just unintelligible a lot of the time, although I never would have admitted that in the not to your students either. Yeah, right, right. So I slowly just felt like, I don't think this is for me. And and and again, maybe if graduate school had been a different kind of environment, you know, I would have felt differently about it. It's hard to say. But then I got pregnant, had my son, and um was home with him and got pregnant with twins. Um, it was a planned pregnancy, but the twin part was not. Um, and I had midwives for that pregnancy and also a lot of they were they're identical twins, so there are more risks than with fraternal twins. So I had tons of ultrasounds with perinatologists. I mean, I just I got such amazing care and learned about pregnancy and what's going on and and didn't realize it at the time, but was getting really interested in health care. And so when my daughters were about a year old, about 16 months old, a friend who's a nurse came to visit and and I was talking to her, and I said, I just thought the midwives had the coolest job in the world. And she looked at me and she said, Teresa, you could do that job. And honestly, it had never crossed my mind because I thought of myself as I'm on this academic track, that's what I do, that's the kind of person I am. And her saying that just opened up something because being a mom, I found, yes, a lot of chaos, but also that there was this part of me that just loved being with people and sort of mixing it up. And I always say I fell in love with the mess of life. Okay. I say that to nurses and they all nod very nervously, whereas everyone else just says, that doesn't really make any sense. Um, so it was those two things together. And I I went, this was back in the tight the day where you to get on the internet, you had to go to the library. So the library and looked up uh accelerated nursing programs and found out about them. And literally a month later, I was taking chemistry because now I had to go back to school and do all those classes that I didn't take when I was at Rice because they were uh too aggressive and um made to seem impossible.
SPEAKER_01:So, did you believe that you were going to run into the messy once you got into nursing school or that it just sounded like a really good idea or career change that you just wanted to try out and go into? But did you know that it was going to be a lot of what you actually share in your books?
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, I think I had some sense of the messy. I like that. I like that phrase, the messy. I had some sense of that. And certainly with pregnancy, pregnancy and giving birth are very messy. Um, so I had a sense of that. I think what I really liked was there's also this intellectual component, understanding physiology. And, you know, you take chemistry. It's not like chemistry itself comes up a lot, but it's certainly important. So I liked that combination. And that's really what I got out of my pregnancy, too, is sort of learning from the the midwives and the paranatologist about what's going on, and um, you know, all these that you can have twin-to-twin transfusions, you can have problems with the placenta, just all these things that were really fascinating to me. And I I just had no idea how bodies worked. And I wanted to learn more and more and more about that, and that still fascinates me. But but then the midwives were so personal and hands-on. And, you know, people have said to me many times, why didn't you go to medical school? And you know, which is annoying. And I just like roll my eyes. But you know, the answer is because I wanted to be a nurse, not a doctor.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:They're different And sometimes people equate well, going to nursing school is just a second sort of option because you did not get into med school. Right. Of course, we as nurses know that's not true because a lot of us wanted to go into nursing because of the Work of nursing. Right. I am curious about your studies. Were did you decide to take some time off from teaching when you applied to nursing school? Were you was the plan to quit teaching in the moment and go full time in an accelerated nursing program? Or how did you juggle the two? Good question.
SPEAKER_02:I'd been home with the kids. And because with twins and a toddler, uh, the cost of daycare would have just been out of this world. And and I wanted to do that, to be honest. But so I started taking one class a semester of my prerequisites that I needed. And that's what I was being a mom and being a student very slowly, um, with very a very supportive husband who helped make it all work. And it it was actually great to have this academic outlet and be taking these classes that were very concrete after being in grad school with all this gibberish, honestly.
SPEAKER_01:Um, if I'm gonna make analysis of writing, philosophy behind the writing and things.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was it was nice to here's a redox reaction in chemistry, here's the liver, you know, the lip, there's no interpreting the liver, the liver. Yeah. And I really liked that. Yeah. And and taking, I took a cadaver class for anatomy and held a heart in my hands and uh looked at lungs, and I would just fell so in love with the idea of helping people whose bodies aren't working right to work better. Or in the case of midwifery, you know, it's not that their bodies aren't working right, but they're leading up to a big event.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. So you talked about midwifery and being interested because your friend talked about, you know, you being able to do this, you can actually do this. But we know, I think, most of your work through critical care and hospice or oncology. Um, did you work in mother baby or in a nursery unit or anything like that prior to or postpartum unit prior to going into hospice or oncology?
SPEAKER_02:Or yeah, that's a good question. And I did not because when I was in nursing school and working up to it, I talked to midwives and I found out it's a really hard lifestyle because you never know when you might have to leave. And it's it's amazing work. I mean, I can for the book I just turned in, I shadowed at the midwife center here in Pittsburgh, and I can talk about that. I mean, it's amazing, amazing work. And there's a part of me that wishes I'd stuck with it. But I as a mom did not want to have to be constantly saying to my kids, well, I think I can be there. Well, maybe I can be there. I just was a completely personal decision. And um, and uh, and of course, working 12-hour shifts, there are things I missed, but I could plan. I wasn't on call. And um, that's why I chose not to pursue midwifery. And then once I got into nursing school and was doing clinicals, I just felt like, wow, there's so much you could do as a nurse. Yes, I say that all the time. Yes, so much. There's a lot of cancer in my mom's family, and that's honestly how I ended up in oncology. I didn't I didn't think about mother baby. And it I mean, now I could sort of see myself going to that. Um, but at the time I felt more called to I I don't know if more technical is the word, just more medical, maybe. More medical kind of care.
SPEAKER_01:So once you graduated from your nursing program, of course, took the NCLEX. You decided to go straight into oncology and in that route.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I yeah, started working bone marrow transplant. Um, and yeah, loved that. Well, actually, I started I started on one leukemia lymphoma floor, and I talked about this in my first book, Critical Care. There was a lot of bullying, which I found out later that floor was known for that. And I really want nurses listening to know this. If you're being bullied on your floor, everyone knows that it's a problem on your floor. Just like the doctors who are rude, everyone knows who they are. These are not secrets. And the administration is not going to save you. If you're being mistreated or treated badly by your coworkers on your floor, really, probably the only solution is to get a different job.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I can maybe even at a different hospital. Yes, that could be. But for me, I left one floor, walked across a hallway that was an elevator bay, and went to the twin oncology floor, got a job there with bone marrow transplant, completely different environment. I mean, separated by literally 20 feet and a set of elevators. And uh there just wasn't that same kind of bullying.
SPEAKER_01:And would you say it, well, it's my opinion that oftentimes it can be the leadership on the floor that sort of not only allows that type of behavior, but sometimes may foster that type of behavior on the unit. Did you find looking back, or even at that time, did you know that maybe it's an issue with leadership addressing the bullying? Because our leaders, of course, they know, uh they know as well. Just curious about that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it definitely was a problem with leadership. And in fact, the the clinicians who are uh floor RNs but have a sort of elevated status, they were the worst. And if if the two of them were at work at the same time, it was just watch out. I mean, terrible. They really reinforced that in each other. And then it seemed like the unit manager just didn't know what to do. Maybe that means she didn't want to have to do anything, and that's what I find so hard to understand. Because why wouldn't you want your new people to succeed?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Why wouldn't you support them? And so, for example, one thing that happened was when I was a new nurse on that floor, the standard load was four patients. Sometimes it happened somebody had to have a fifth patient. For a while, I was always getting the fifth patient. I was the newest nurse on the floor. And I asked this clinician, I said, Is there a reason why I'm always getting the fifth patient? And she was silent for a minute, and then she said, Yes, there is. And then finally I went to the nurse manager and told her, and then it stopped. Oh, so um, yeah. So she was the charge nurse or yeah, she did take care of that, but just why would people think that was okay? Why, you know, why is hazing seen as being okay in nursing? Why is it okay to put the biggest burden on the newest person? I dislike that aspect of our profession so much. And I know that doctors have their own form of ways that they get hazed also. And it it's just it's so sad to me that we're a caring profession and yet we're often so mean to each other.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and I can I can relate to that on my first nursing job. I'm a second degree nurse as okay. Well, second career nurse, second degree nurse. And unfortunately, our director, our nursing director manager, and everybody felt it. I mean, I started nursing later um at 35, 36, um, I started. Um, and it was still hard as an adult, not as a 20-year-old coming out of you know, college. I I was still an you know a full-fledged adult at 36, and it was it was a challenge.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, same. And right. And then when people are just bullying you and making your life harder, and it's not even clear why.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, and and I think some of it was because I had a PhD and somebody told everyone, oh, we have this new nurse that has a PhD. I don't know why. Yeah. Um, so yeah, obviously still some strong feelings about it, but they had a rule in the hospital, you can't switch jobs till you've been somewhere for a year. And I basically just said I'm not listening to that and wouldn't take no for an answer. And they did let me switch jobs, which saved me because it was, you know, it's it's a scary job, it's a hard job. It's easy to make really serious mistakes. And if people are unfairly riding you all the time so that you don't want to ask for help. Um that's when nursing becomes dangerous. Yes. Yes. Yes. And right. And I felt that I don't want to be in a position like that because it's scary and it's not fair to patients.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, um, well, I can definitely relate. Um, I remember when I switched, and we had that unwritten rule of you can't really go to another floor without being here for a period of time, and then you have to get permission. If you apply somewhere else, they're gonna use permission of your nursing director. So I took the time when my nursing director was gone for like a month off vacation. Another floor, and all within that month's time, I got accepted into another floor and just kind of moved away. But that's my little secret. But um that's great. Yeah, you you have to do what you have to do. Like you said, sometimes you have to switch jobs. Sometimes it takes that. So if you have the ability to switch jobs, anyone listening, if you're feeling bullied, sometimes yeah, you might not get the help you need or the support you need from your floor, from your leadership, from your management. Sometimes it's just a matter of just switching jobs. And nursing may seem like it's horrible in the moment, but it's probably just the job that you're in with the people, you know, it may be the environment that you're in. Um, yeah, that's yeah, that's so important.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm thinking I also want to say when you said, you know, you you have to get permission from the unit manager. I mean, people should know there's this, there's this centuries, literally long history in nursing of sort of very strict hierarchy, and um, everything has to be done one way and there's one right way to do it. And those attitudes have lingered, even though healthcare has moved far beyond that. And I hear this rap sometimes on, oh, yeah, the Gen Z nurses or the millennials, they don't want to work and blah, blah, blah. And I always say, um, isn't it maybe that they have a sense of self-respect and a sense of rights and a sense of we're adults and professionals and we want to be treated like that and we expect that. So I'm I'm standing up for all our young nurses who come in saying, you really don't have to talk to me like that. And in fact, if you keep doing it, I'm just gonna leave. Yeah. And I hope we start to see some change like moving up from that, because those those authoritarian hierarchical habits are they're not doing anyone any good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And hard to break as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I'm sure you've had that experience and and uh congratulate you for figuring out how to we all figure out our ways when you're when you're desperate enough and you're you're feeling threatened enough or your back is up against a wall, you feel like, okay, what can I do? And take those opportunities as they come. So I know the basis of your first book is off of your first year in nursing and critical care is the book, and it is actually taught or used in nursing schools across the country. And I'll put that information in the show notes for all of the readers so they can pick up that book as well. So you talk about your first year in nursing, and there's a story I know that you have of an experience you had with a patient that had a sudden demise or a sudden death, and which caused you to want to write that down. And I'm curious about why that particular incident what made you want to actually document it and write it down for your own personal reasons and how that led to you just thinking, I'm gonna submit this for publication and see what happens. I'm curious about that story.
SPEAKER_02:Great question. Yeah, my attitude was if you know the Harry Potter books or people listening know them. It was like the idea of the pensive where you pull out thoughts and you leave them in this other thing. That's what's called the pen screen that's what I was hoping. If I write down the story, it won't be in my head, it'll be on paper somewhere else. That is not uh how you treat PTSD, just to let people know. Um taken me years to process that experience. And and I've also learned that it's fairly universal among nurses and doctors that everybody has this sudden death and they're not prepared for it. And um, you know, I don't want to say it's a kind of trial by fire, but I think it's it's it's important to talk about it, that people have those experiences and they're difficult and they shape you. But so there I was thinking if I write this down, it won't be in my head anymore and I'll be fine. And um, which doesn't work, but I really liked what I wrote and I thought, aim high, I'm gonna send this to the New York Times. And so here's the using my connections. Um, I sent it to one part of the Times and never heard back from them. But also I had a friend, a friend of my brother's who was an editor there, and I sent it to him. And he said, I hope it's okay. I like this. I'm I send it to the Science Times, the Tuesday section about science. And then they wrote back and said, uh, we want to publish this. Well, right. Yeah. Um, but so yes, I did use a connection, um, and that was very helpful. Um, but then also it took them six months to publish it.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Where I thought I did I imagine this? And I was just getting ready to email the editor when he emailed me and said, We're finally publishing your piece. And they sent a photographer out who took these absolutely spooky pictures through glass and told me you're not allowed to smile. And so the the title of the piece is perhaps Death is Proud, more reason to savor life. And if you look it up on the New York Times website, you'll see me looking like the most serious, somber person you've ever met in your life, um, which is not really who I am, but yeah, yeah. Um, but that essay got a level of attention I had not in any way anticipated. And I got Was it in the science section? Did it up in the okay? Yeah, and online, yeah. Um, and online. Um, you're right, because at that time, right, we'd moved beyond the internet, it was only in the library. It was now in all of our homes. So um it it got all these views, and I started hearing from agents, and what people said to me was this is a voice we never hear, the voice of a bedside nurse. Um, so I feel like I was right person, right place, right voice, right time, very lucky. But I also saw it as a privilege to get the opportunity to truly and authentically represent what nursing is. And that's what I've always tried to do. And so, uh, you know, as we were talking before the recording, and you said you felt like listening to my book, the shift was like working a shift. It gave you that same feeling. And I feel the happiest about my writing when nurses say that, or uh, Teresa Brown really nailed it, you know, this is really what it's like. And I I think sometimes that's not the most comfortable place to be because the general public just wants to believe that healthcare is perfect and doctors are amazing and it all works really well. And and then people get really sick and they get in the system and they find out it doesn't really work that well all the time. Um, and I I always said I wanted to show the good, the bad, and the ugly of healthcare, but also to to show what nurses do because we do so much more than people are aware of. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That was a very long answer, but no, I appreciate that, and I'm sure the listeners will appreciate it as well. Going back to knowing how to write that story, uh, where you, of course, there's a risk of sharing patient information and sharing that so publicly. Were there any, did you have any worry about sharing the story in a in a New York Times? And I'm imagining at that time you didn't know how big it was gonna get at that time, how big that story was going, where it was gonna go.
SPEAKER_02:I did not. And and I was I was naive. I mean, I I observed HIPAA, but but beyond HIPAA, there's the hospital's concern and not wanting to really give away who the patient, I mean, I would I would hate for a patient or their family member to read that article and feel like, oh, that's about us. So that was I felt a sort of ethical obligation to not expose my patients and even my my co-workers also, which also sometimes led people to say, you know, why does Teresa Brown present herself as this lone wolf? Well, no, I wasn't doing, I was doing that because I didn't want to pull other staff into the story. It w it wasn't that I, you know, put myself above my coworkers, but um, just a very strange kind of observation to make. But anyway, um, yeah, so I knew how to observe HIPAA, but I wanted to protect the patient. And I did end up checking in with sort of my boss's boss and things like I'd said the actual room number the patient was in, and she said, Well, we would want that change. And um, you know, I sort of realized, oh, the hospital just doesn't want to be identified in any way. And that's where we came up with this. Teresa Brown is a nurse in Pennsylvania. That's what we said, a nurse in Pennsylvania. So I could have been anywhere in the state. So a lot of thought went into how am I going to de-identify myself in a way to protect patients, to protect the hospital. And people have even asked me if Teresa Brown is a pseudonym because it's just such a common name. Like, oh, that is my name. Then I wondered if I should have come up with a pseudonym, you know. But yeah. Um yeah, and and that was a challenge the whole time. And um, and I and I wrote about this during COVID. Eventually, I had to leave that job that I loved because the hospital didn't want a writer being a nurse or a nurse being a writer anymore. And that was basically the choice they gave me. And I decided to keep being a writer and found a different nursing job. But it's it's definitely tough. I think it's better now because of social media. Uh I know there are, you know, nurses who are very public and vocal on social media. And some of them talk about their hospital actually likes it. And I'm sure it's very institution-dependent. You know, there are some places where I'm sure there's a PR person who's monitoring all this stuff and gets upset if something's posted that they don't like. And other places are probably a little more relaxed about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and curious about a little bit more about that process. When you got the call or the email from the New York Times, did you at that point say, Oh, let me go talk to my hospital first to make sure it's okay? Or did you arrange all of that ahead of time? Like you knew you were going to write the story, or you wrote the story and you said, at first, let me go to my legal department at my hospital or go to administration and see if this is okay if I reach out to New York Times and say I have a story, or chicken before the egg, I guess. Which one?
SPEAKER_02:Which one and that's why I say it was naive because I didn't do any of that. I had this strong sense of the First Amendment. But people should know that a private employer does not have to afford you the same protections as the government. Um, and I didn't, I did not understand that. I do understand that now. Um, so it ended up working out actually for quite a while. And I and I I probably blame my hospital because they never they had meetings with me, but they never just said, here's what we're worried about, here's what we'd like to know that you're gonna do or not gonna do. And you know, I probably would have said that's fine, but I think they wanted some sense of control and not really showing their hand, but that just meant that I really didn't know what they were worried about. They would sort of post these hypotheticals to me, like, well, what if? And there's a one of your coworkers and blah, blah, blah. And I would say, like, okay, is this something someone's complaining about? Or is this a hypothetical? So it was very, it was very confusing. And the next the the other hospital system, I moved to, it's just a very different environment. The the publicist wanted to, he's not a publicist, he's the you know, communications officer or whatever it's called, but he actually wanted to work with me. He was very nice, um, just didn't see what I was doing as threatening in the same way. The hospice I worked at was the same. So the attitudes can be really different. And and I I came into it as I'm so proud. I'm so proud. I want to name my hospital because I work at such a great place. And they were just, no, we do not want you to do that. We do not want to be any part of this at all. Um, so you know, I I I think I'm inherently an optimist and an idealist. And my optimism and idealism did meet reality, and I I learned the score better than I had known it.
SPEAKER_01:So you're you're getting all the attention from the article. You have agents calling, and I'm assuming those agents are wanting to get you on a bigger platform by having you write a book, or was it, oh, we're gonna work with New York Times because they're interested in having a column, regular publications with you, or how did the first book come to be?
SPEAKER_02:Right. So uh yeah, actually, an editor reached out to me and but also um Tara Parker Pope, who was the editor of the Well blog for years at the New York Times, she said, um, hey, I heard you're getting all this notice. Would you like to talk to my agent? Which was incredibly nice. And so again, I was very lucky and people were very helpful. Um, but this editor at what was then Harper Studio Division of Harper Collins uh emailed me and said, Can we talk? And um, and then he just honestly offered me like a lot of money to write a book. And I it was I I felt like Cinderella for a month. Um just yeah, like and and I just really liked him. Um it's funny, I was just mentoring a friend of a friend who was trying to get representation for her novel, and and she did and she sold it. She has a book contract, which is wonderful, but she's very analytical and sort of had all these details about different agents and publishers. And I said, you know, this is great. I just go with my gut instinct. And um so I just I really, really liked this editor and um, and then to had just have someone say, we're gonna pay you to write a book. It was it was having a dream come true, and I didn't even know it was a dream that I had. Like I that just makes me feel so tremendously lucky because I hadn't said I want to write a book. I in fact, I didn't think I'd be writing at all once I became a nurse, which was fine. I had regrets.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Which is interesting too, because you came from a writing background and didn't think that this would be in your car. It's for another whole profession, I'm assuming. Going from a professor teaching English to nursing and then actually having your writing career.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I did off, yeah. Right. And and I knew there are doctors who write, but there just aren't nearly as many nurses as doctors. And I so I didn't really have role models and um it it came into being. And as I I said already once, I felt like it was an incredible privilege to do my best to tell the true story of nursing.
SPEAKER_01:Did you have a lot of editorial control? Like, did you know, okay, you know, you got the book deal, and did you know right away what the expectation was for you to write about? Or did you come in with your own creative ideas and say, hey, I think it'd be a good idea if I write about my first year in nursing on the floor?
SPEAKER_02:That may have been, I can't remember, that may have been my agent's idea together with the editor, but that's that was the book we sold. Like it was like untitled first year of nursing, sort of was what the contract said. And I remember, because this was Bob Miller who then left Harper and was at Flatiron for a while, sort of legendary figure in publishing. But after I signed the contract, he called me and and I said, Well, he said he called me and he said, Teresa, I am raising a glass of champagne to you. It's very sweet. And uh and I said, Okay, what happens now? He said, Well, now you write a book. Okay. And that was kind of it. Um, and then I I wrote the book based on my first year of being a nurse, and the the memories were so close to the surface and so raw. It it actually came out almost like a data dump. And then people have told me a lot of first books are like that, and it's never that easy again. Um, I don't know if easy is the right word, but just quick, you know, just like I couldn't like the stories and lines were just in my head all the time. I was really living with the book. And, you know, then there were things like he read it. I think there was a chapter we threw away. I wrote another chapter. Um, you know, I remember a first draft, him saying, you know, you're not a you're not a police reporter. Like you like, but these kind of details. So I had to learn a little bit. Yeah. Um and and realize that I'm writing, I was writing a book for the general public. Um, I'm not writing for a court of law. And and once he made that clear, then it became easier and I kind of figured it out. But that first piece also just came out so fast. Um, and it's if you write, I mean, it's so wonderful when that happens, and it doesn't happen to me at least that often. I mean, I'm not someone who like struggles over a paragraph, but um, just to have things be flowing like that and the words come out and they're just bam, this is this is right. I really like this. Um, that it felt good.
SPEAKER_01:How far away were you from your first year when you wrote the book? Was it a recent?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, maybe that's a really good question. Um two or three years, maybe. Okay. Is that right? It's hard for me to remember. Um, I'm really bad at years and numbers and but you know, they have those cheap cards for like normal values. Yeah. Yeah. So it was still very fresh in my mind. And I realize now if I sat down and tried to write that book again, I would not be able to write it because I would never be able to recapture that feeling of what's going on? Do I know how to do this job or not? Um, sort of, you know, the whole idea of what are all these tubes with different colors and you know, all the all the things that you're learning when you're a new nurse that I thought would never make sense. And then they do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, but I I couldn't, I couldn't write that book now because I've I've, which is good, right? But I've completely lost that sense of what's going on here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So when you released that first book out into the world, did you feel like you got the same type of attention on your writing as you did that first article that you wrote in the New York Times? And then how did that propel you into your second book, which is, of course, a New York Times bestseller, The Shift. Um, wondering how you went from that first book into the second?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, unfortunately, the book did not get a huge amount of attention. I got definitely some and um when it first came out, because the Harper Studio, the imprint or the division of HarperCollins, I was part of, HarperCollins had actually closed it because it was using a different financial model and they didn't like it. And actually, Bob Miller, who was my editor, left. So is in this position of having what people call an orphan book, um, which is not uh something you want to experience. Although I've I've heard of other people who had much, much, much worse experiences than I had. I mean, they gave my book to a different editor who really cared about it and worked really hard, and and they sort of kept a skeleton staff, and those people worked really hard for my book, and I'm infinitely appreciative of them for doing that. Um, but but yeah, we were just sort of a little bit behind the eight ball, if that's the right metaphor. But the book got picked up by schools of nursing and kept selling, and actually I'm still earning money on that book, not a lot of money, but but people are still buying it, yeah. Um, which, you know, and and so Harper is still earning money too. Um but that's very, very gratifying. So yeah, and then and then I ended up getting a different agent. Um, and she and I together came up with this idea of what if I told the story of one shift? And actually, you'll you'll appreciate this, and the nurses listening will appreciate this. She said, when I first told her about the idea, I don't think there's enough there. And I said, Let me show you. And oh, and did you, yes? Yes. And so I spent the weekend writing, and I don't even remember what I sent her, but then she called me and she said, You know what, Teresa? You surprised me. There is enough here. And um, she was the one who came up with the title, let's call it the shift. Um, and I I I think so the progression from critical care to the shift was I really wanted to show the texture of nursing. And the only way to do that is to show an actual shift. And the the tagline I gave, which the publisher really liked, was it's not just a day in the life in the hospital, but all the life in one day in the hospital. And and you know, there's every nurse knows this, you know, every single shift. Heartbreaking things happen, amazing things happen, bizarre things happen. Maybe not every single shift, all those things, but that's like it's all happening. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, experiences that warm your heart, experiences that are really hard to take in, people you want to uh care for forever, people who you really hope they get discharged. Yeah. Um, just and um I was glad that I could tell that story all the the texture of healthcare, the emotional as well as the clinical and personal and everything, the whole ball of wax.
SPEAKER_01:I have to say, and I know we talked before we started to hit record. If you haven't read The Shift, and you're a nurse or nursing student, if this is a book you don't know about quite yet, I have to say it's really a snapshot in the life of what it means to be a nurse. And it's it's a book that I was telling you before we started, how if I would have just had this book when I was in nursing school, I would have had a better understanding of what nursing was. And it's not only a good, it's not only a masterclass of what nursing truly is, but it's also a patient education tool for any patient who's going into the hospital who has no idea how healthcare works. You see it all. I know it's from the eyes of a nurse and from a nurse's lens, but you you actually will learn the inner workings of how it is to be on a nursing floor as a patient and as a nurse. Um, and and I love it because you color it so much with a lot of just different descriptors. I mean, you explain everything, which is, you know, you explain what, you know, uh catheters are. You explain what, you know, just it's just such a great tool for anyone to read. I was listening to it, the audiobook, and I was telling you how I got chills just listening to the audiobook and got very emotional on my walk because I walk every day and was listening to it on my walk, and I was getting very emotional. My chest was getting heavy, just getting towards the end of the book because you realize it's gonna end. The shift is almost over. And you're saying in your mind, you know, because it feels so real. And um, you're saying in your mind, oh my God, okay, the book is almost over. Please don't let anything happen to these patients. Oh, you know, you don't want anything to happen. And just listening to the book, and I was listening to it on a faster speed. I think I was at 1.3 or 1.5 speed and listening to it. And I was saying to you how without the speed, it's like a seven to eight hour book and seven to eight hour book. And you know, there's still things missing on that shift that we would never hear about because they're just, you know, the little nuances of the day. And so you fit in all the color of that shift, and you, you know, have to leave out, of course, a lot of things that happened during that day. And it actually feels like a shift in your ears. And with it on the 1.3, 1.5 speed, I swear that's normal, some normal speed in nurses' time because you're saying you're going into a room to help get a patient discharge and then your phone rings while you're in the room and you're trying to concentrate. I want to just discharge my patient because she's been waiting, her and her husband, or your patient who has a perf, you know, you want to get her to surgery. And so, you know, they just got bad news and you chase the doctor down the hallway just to sort of advocate for. Can you just please give her, please consider doing her surgery tonight? Um, it it just feels like a shift. As a nurse, it feels like a shift. It feels like I'm walking right beside you as you're going from teacher to patient to patient. And it's such a wonderful read or listen. Listen for me, I think, probably um, you know, required reading in every single nursing school and should probably be required for patients in the hospital if they have nothing to do here. Read this book. It's so good. So um I'll I'll make sure I include the details for the shift in the show notes, which is a New York Times bestseller. And I want to say just thank you for that book. It just wonderful book.
SPEAKER_02:Wonderful. Oh, you're so welcome. And you've made me think about I did a lot of radio interviews for the shift, and then for my third book, it was podcasts. But um the the uh one of the things I got over and over again was people said, now I understand why it takes so long. To be discharged from the hospital. Yes. I wasn't even, you know, I wanted to tell the story of someone being discharged. It's a it's a real day, but also a composite day. But I wanted to tell that story because it's happy, right? Someone goes home. But the patients and family members reading it, it's aha, this light bulb went off. Yes. You know, why does the doctor tell us we're going to leave at 11 and we always leave at 3 p.m.? Um, and and at one point I even went to my manager and I said, please tell the attendings to stop telling people they will be discharged at 11 in the morning. They know they won't be discharged at 11 in the morning.
SPEAKER_01:And we as nurses, of course, know you won't be discharged at 11 in the morning. And that's why I think it's such a great read for patients or any individuals who don't have a background in healthcare, because at some point we may all be in the hospital at some point, and we may all have a bad time in our life where we need the care of doctors, nurses, clerks, techs who come and draw your blood, phlebotomists, or um, you know, just transporters. I mean, you talk about, you know, some transporters in your book and how we sort of move past one another and not really interacting because it's just the the way of the the way of the shift. Um, so yeah, it's it's it's it's great because I feel like a lot of patients will will realize that, yeah, we're trying to get you out and we're actually thinking about it. We're actually and you're and you're putting your thoughts on paper in the book, but we're actually really thinking like, oh my God, my patient is waiting for me. They're waiting for me to be discharged. And I'm in the room with another patient because this patient is demanding me change their shower curtain. And we're like, I really want to get to discharge my patient because she's waiting. Um, and it just, it's an eye-opener, I think, just for the inner thoughts and the inner workings of the nurse and what we go through day by day and the things that we want to do and the things that we want to advocate for. And no matter, sometimes no matter what advocacy you do for your patients, sometimes it doesn't work in the end. But um yeah, great, great, wonderful book. And moving to your third book, I know you write about in healing your own experience about being a patient. Now, when you were a patient, did you think, you know, after all of that was over, that this is a story that I should tell in healing?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So the the story is in 2017, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I am I am doing great. So um that's good. Um obviously did not expect that. Um and right away I I felt like the nurse part of me was kind of disappearing, and becoming a patient just felt like my whole world was turned upside down. And what happened was I started seeing all these places where the system fails patients. And I knew about those as a nurse, but I thought, well, we get people their chemo, we do this, we do that, we make up for it. But as a patient, there really isn't any making up for it. And so that's the story I wanted to tell because there's always gonna be disappointment for patients. And any nurse who says, or physician who says, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna give 110% every single day to every single person. That person is gonna burn out before they know it, right? You can't do that. And and as you just said, sometimes there are things you want to have happen for your patients and you just can't make them happen, or they're just not gonna happen. And that's hard. And so, how do we balance that? And and that's what I really wanted to get across, and just obvious things that didn't happen. Like I had a very small, very slow-growing cancer. No one ever sat down with me and said, you know what, this is not gonna kill you. Don't even worry about that. And you know, that's a two-minute conversation, right? No one said that to me. And I felt like I sort of got on this conveyor belt and then just got, you know, moved around like a box, like going all over the place. And no one just taking the time to say, hey, this is a human being who just got a hard diagnosis. It was even hard to get the diagnosis. Um, ended up, you know, getting really angry about um when they were telling me when I was actually going to get the results of the biopsy. And and there was just a whole series of encounters like that where it just was so clear the system was not designed to be compassionate or to really see patients as human beings. And I knew that as a nurse, but I didn't know how it feels when you're the patient. So I think I did feel like I have to write this book, and um, you know, I it's a it's an angry book in some ways, and it's not the typical illness book where I say, Oh, this was my cancer journey, and I really learned so much about what's important. I mean, I didn't have learned about things that are important, but I would rather have not had cancer. And I, you know, I think I probably could have figured out some things on my own. Other, it's not a journey, it's not a blessing, um, nothing like that. I and I refuse to sugarcoat it in any way. Um, and so this book didn't sell as well as my others, but for the people who read it, they they email me and they feel it so personally. It it just makes me feel really good that for people who had a similar kind of experience and they were able to be in touch with that, they felt seen. Um, they really did. Like I talk about it, felt like DIY cancer care is and do it yourself. And people have emailed me and quoted that back to me like this is exactly what it felt like, or this is what it was like for my mom. And um, in my hope was administrators would read this book and managers and would say, Wow, we can do better. Let's do better. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Not too late. You can you can read it now. It's never too late. And you have and you had the credibility with those patients as well, those patients who were writing you, because you were you were a nurse in the system, and now you can really tell the story what was really happening behind the scenes in nursing from your perspective already of being a nurse. And I'm sure those words were of comfort to those patients who felt like, okay, someone in healthcare is is listening to me. Someone does hear my story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now you're on your fourth book. Yes. Or you you've you've you've written your fourth manuscript. And from what I know, you've already submitted that manuscript. Yes. Yeah. And I think it's a nurse finds, a nurse finds hope and healthcare.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And we're still working on the title, so that might change. Okay. But but the idea was actually, I during the pandemic, realized, and I didn't work during the pandemic, basically because my kids didn't want me to, because I was just coming off breast cancer. And I thought, that's fair. Um, I'm not gonna ask that of them. So, but I realized also I was burned out. And um, you know, that could be a whole nother podcast, right? But I decided to look for hope and healthcare. How could I find hope in healthcare? And then I thought, hey, I think that's a book. And so it was actually a very personal quest. Um, and I look at four different sites around the country that follow the cycle of life. So the midwife center in Pittsburgh, in-home primary care in Portland, elder care in Denver, and then hospice and palliative care in the Midwest and in Connecticut. Um, and all places giving just incredible care. I mean, just incredible care, like sort of breathtakingly good care, all struggling to pay their bills. Um, so it's it's really looking at this amazing dedication of these clinicians, and then also talking about the system and the weird payment structures and um, you know, it people probably don't know this, but part of why a lot of labor and delivery units are closing in rural hospitals is because they don't make enough money for the hospital. Well, that's because the reimbursement rates are low. But, you know, those reimbursement rates are set by people. I mean, somebody could decide we're just going to reimburse labor and delivery a lot more and you know, less for knee replacements, right? Just for example. Um, so we could really make changes like that, and they would make people's lives a lot better. And it's it's so it's it's not about wrecking the system, it's about saying we're choosing badly, and that American health care is twice as expensive as in most other industrialized countries, and our outcomes statistically are worse. There's just no denying the extent of the problem. And so let's do something about that. Let's find a way to better care for our people. Um, and I'm I'm happy to say that writing the book worked for me.
SPEAKER_01:I'm thinking about going back to the bedside instead of So how did you how did you find those healthcare centers that were the focus of this fourth book? How did you come?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the the midwife center I knew about, and and basically I just cold called some places. I had I had done a little work with the place in Portland. I I'd done a New York Times article on a different aspect of their program. They're called house call providers. Um, the capable program, people who review grants connected me with them. And then I just had a connection for the hospice and palliative care. And there were there were also other options and choices that ended up not working out. Um, I mean, the midwife center was golden and um house call providers, but there was a lot of negotiating about um, you know, what was I gonna do and when was I gonna be there? And and really with the midwife center, it had to be somewhere local because I had to be on call with the midwife, um, which would have been hard to do. Yeah. Um just but but I went to all the other sites and stayed and chatted and um it was it was a great experience, made friends, learned so much, watched these stellar clinicians giving me a master class and you know, just all this really great stuff. Yeah. I I feel so lucky that I got to do that.
SPEAKER_01:So you mentioned just now that you're thinking about or going back to the bedside. What's in the works for Teresa Brown moving forward besides the bedside?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I've been slowly applying for jobs and you know, I want to make sure that it's the right thing. I've realized I don't want to work nights. Um, I mean, the occasional night is fine, but not a lot of nights. Um, I'm not sure I want to work a 12-hour shift again. Um, so I'm sorting all that out and going slowly and then thinking about what else do I want to write? And lately I'm thinking, you know, I could write an article on burnout. Um, because it's like a term we hear a lot, right? But I don't think people really know what it means, what it is. And I was just speaking at a conference and presentation before me was on burnout, and there was a list of, you know, and I've read all this stuff. And but some, you know, sometimes you you have to be in the right frame of mind to really absorb something. And one of the traits they posted was separates oneself from like co-workers, or I don't remember the exact wording, but I realized that's what I had sort of lost touch with nurse friends, not all of them, but and I I and suddenly I saw, oh, that was part of my burnout. Like that was feeling like I just need a break. Um, and it made me feel empowered to get back in touch with people and um think how important it is to get a job where I can be a nurse, but I don't have to feel so overburdened all the time. And I I hope that's possible. I think it might be.
SPEAKER_01:I think so. I think so. So for all of the nurses who are listening who have some writing in them, what would be your best advice knowing that you've written the three books, you're on your way to putting out the fourth and thinking about writing more essays or books to come? What's your best advice that you can give to them, knowing that they may not know any of the process? I know you mentioned that you did have a good connection or a lucky connection with the New York Times. How would a nurse go about it if they didn't have any of that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, Substack is really big right now. You could always, I have a Substack, um, just comes out about every couple of weeks, but that's one way to just start getting your voice out in the world. Um, make sure you observe HIPAA absolutely. And uh people need to know that uh the rule of HIPAA is that not that someone can't identify themselves, but that someone else couldn't identify them. So what I got really good at was leaving out details. Like if someone's really tall, but that doesn't matter to their diagnosis, just don't say that. Don't say what their height is. If someone has long blonde hair, don't say that. Um, and in journalism, you you can't make up stuff. Like you can't use pseudonyms, you can't say change someone's hair color, but you know, you could definitely write a substack where you do that, just be very upfront about it. Um and so that's one thing. Um, also the Bellevue Literary Review, which you can find online. And I'm an editor, not an editor for, a reader for, a reviewer for, um, publishes articles about healthcare and I mean, not articles. Well, yeah, nonfiction, but also fiction and poetry. And it's always hard to find nurses who are writers. So send in your submissions. Um, or you can also tell patient stories too. There's a lot of patient stories that get submitted. And as for larger big name outlets, I'm gonna be honest and say that right now I'm having trouble getting things placed. And I think we're in such a fraught political moment that people's uh capacity maybe to take in more nuanced healthcare stories just doesn't seem to be there. But also, I you know, look at any newspaper or news website, right? It's all gonna be about politics almost all um, you know, or sports, right? Or fashion or arts. But um I it's just it's really unfortunate. But I feel like there's not that much room right now for like true, meaningful healthcare stories. But so if you write a Substack, if you write letters to the editor, you know, maybe your local paper, you could write an op-ed for. Um there is no shame in thinking small and working small, and then seeing where it leads you. And and I would people, you know, if you write a blog or a substack and the people reading it are your mom, your favorite aunt, your siblings, and your college roommates, you have a book. Well, that's 10 people who now will know more about nursing than they did. Yeah. And that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:I love the starting small too. I love that you say there's the opportunity in your smaller newspapers, human interest stories that if you're writing about patients, especially in smaller markets, even pitching probably yourself to local news, news channels, news networks. So I think such good advice. And I also like the advice of Substack. I come from a world of blogging, having my own website and blogging on my own website, but on platforms like Substack, other people who are not on your email list or on your newsletter, other people will can discover your work who may have never discovered your work if you're just staying it within your bubble. So I love the idea of Substack. Of course, lots of well-known authors, people from the news world, journalism actually moved to Substack when they couldn't tell stories the way they wanted to tell stories sometimes. So I think it's a it's a good, good place to go, a good platform to go. So uh wrapping it up with nursing.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, go ahead. Oh, just the hard thing is you may not be able to make money right away. And um, you know, the truth is that a lot of writers don't make a lot of money. So it's gotta be you're doing the writing because you want to, you feel it, you want to see where it takes you. I would start there if you're thinking I'm gonna do this and it's gonna get me really rich. I mean, that might happen, but probably it won't.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Also great and realistic advice as well as well. Thank you. So to wrap up, I I would love to hear a story that is dear to your heart in nursing or something that always brings you back to that feeling of home with nursing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, when you asked me that, I I thought instantly of this one story that I've wanted to write, and I couldn't figure out a way to write it because it's a it's a very small vignette. I was I was working a night shift, and the patient was of Scandinavian origin, I can't remember which country, and she told me about when people are really sick, they say if you open a window at night, their their soul can fly out the window, and then that's when they've died. And she was really worried about that. Um, and of course, the windows in the hospital don't open, but um it was it was really on her mind, and we I remember sitting and talking to her about it, and then in the morning I went in, she hadn't died. Um and I remember she opened her eyes and we looked at each other and she said, no open windows. And I said, no open windows. And just something about that is so perfect to me.
SPEAKER_01:That was Teresa Brown, nurse and New York Times bestselling author. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to rate and review this episode in your favorite podcast app. Then don't forget to click the follow button so you won't miss an episode. This episode was produced and edited by yours truly with administrative and research support from Liz Alexandry and Renan Sova. I'm Marsha Batti, and you've been listening to the Bossy Nurse Podcast.
