7. Transforming Rapid Response Calls Into a Nursing Podcast with Sarah Lorenzini

In this episode of The Bossy Nurse Podcast, Marsha speaks with rapid response nurse and educator Sarah Lorenzini, MSN-ED, RN, CCRN, CEN, about how a surge in emergencies (and not enough time to teach at the bedside) sparked what became the Rapid Response RN Podcast and her education platform for nurses.   

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Sarah’s Mission
• 0:29 COVID Surges Spark An Idea
• 1:55 Childhood Loss And Resilience
• 6:35 Discovering A Hidden Cardiomyopathy
• 10:45 Gratitude For ICDs And Genetics
• 12:20 Why Every Nurse Needs Emergencies Training
• 13:45 Choosing Nursing Over Medicine
• 18:20 ER Beginnings And Early Leadership
• 23:40 Delegation, Mentorship, And Growth
• 26:55 From Bedside To Educator
• 31:20 Cardiac ICU And Rapid Response
• 36:00 Launching A Rapid Response Team
• 41:00 Data, Demand, And 500 Calls A Month
• 44:20 A Closet, A Mic, And A Podcast
• 48:00 Global Reach And Nurse Impact
• 51:00 HIPAA, Policies, And Boundaries
• 55:10 Consistency, Editing, And Monetization

Transcript

Sarah: 0:03

I'm ready for it. Like, what a gift that I have this thing ready to go. No one has to call 911. I don't have to worry about being by myself. I don't have to worry about driving down the road and I, you know, figure off the side of the road because I'm unresponsive for no, like within six seconds, I will be defibrillated.

Marsha: 0:20

Welcome to the Bossy Nurse Podcast, a show about nurse creators, innovators, risk takers, and the ideas that shape their success. I'm Marcia Badti, and on the show today, how Sarah Lorenzini turned a COVID-era surge in hospital rapid responses and too little time for bedside teaching into a podcast and education platform helping nurses worldwide respond confidently in emergencies. More intubated patients, sicker floors, and veteran staff leaving while new grads stepped in. At her hospital, there wasn't yet a dedicated rapid response team, with ICU charge nurses getting pulled off their unit to provide support. What generally was a few calls a day ballooned to upwards of 500 rapid responses in a month. During those surges, Sarah moved from rapid to rapid, coaching newer nurses and giving quick tips between calls. A personal history with sudden cardiac risks sharpened her focus on step-by-step thinking under pressure. That's when she set out to turn real-world rapid response know-how into something every nurse could use. But let's rewind to nine-year-old Sarah on an ordinary day that turned anything but a single moment became the thread she's followed ever since toward calm and step-by-step action when everything else is chaos.

Sarah: 1:59

My mom actually passed whenever I was nine. She died suddenly of an arrhythmia. Now we know what that arrhythmia is because I have the same genetic condition. But at the time we didn't know why a 32-year-old died suddenly. So I was the oldest sister, and my dad obviously was grieving. I mean, like he he found his wife unresponsive and attempted CPR, and the medics couldn't get her back. I mean, he is going through a lot of trauma processing himself after losing his young wife. And my mom, they kind of had a very traditional marriage. So my mom did all the things. She made the meal, she got us to school, she helped us with homework. I mean, she did everything. My dad was in the military. And so now he's suddenly being thrust into having to parent these two girls solo. So there was definitely a difficult transition. I've always been naturally a nurturer or naturally a helmer. And so whenever my mom passed and there was a gap in our home of who's going to care for all the things, I just without even thinking, figured it out. I just stepped up and was like, well, my sister needs help with this and my dad needs help with this. And no one ever told me you have to do these things now. I just assume must be my job now because I'm the oldest and the like the oldest kid, the oldest female, the oldest nurturer. And so here I am, I'm gonna do the things. And I have very clear memories that I look back on now and it's like precious and also a little bit sad, but not that I'm crying, but I remember realizing, oh my gosh, I gotta wash my clothes. And so I had never washed clothes before. And I'm trying to think of how I'm gonna figure out how to wash the clothes. And so I took the backstore laundry out to the garage where our washing machine was, and I opened it up and there were instructions for how to wash the laundry inside the lid. I was like, yes. Yeah. And we're reading the instructions and going step by step, like measuring out the detergent and the softener and putting the clothes in the wash. And then after I'd washed them, there were socks stuck at the bottom of the washing machine and I couldn't reach them. I was too little. I was a very tiny nine-year-old.

Marsha: 3:51

Yeah, trying to reach over.

Sarah: 3:53

Having to go get a stool from inside, bring it to the garage, and stand up on that so that I could reach the bottom of the wash machine to even pull the rest of the socks out to put it in the dryer. So, yes, I figured it out. I did the best to care for my sister. I learned how to cook. I found ways that we could get what we needed. A lot of the other um teachers in the community that were friends with my mom really stepped up to help wrap their arms around us and support me and my sister, and really support my dad as he was raising me and my sister. So it's not like I was like on the streets, you know, struggling to get food. It wasn't like that. Um, it was a challenging season as a little kid with no mom. And to be honest, I don't know that I fully grieved my mom's death until I was older, because as soon as she died, I was like, okay, it's go time. I got a sister to have a dad who's having a hard time. I gotta make sure everyone's taken care of and fed and clean. And I have so much to do. And so I just I didn't really like face the fact that my mom had passed for probably until my teenage years, to be very honest with you. Even at her funeral, I didn't cry. I I was like, nope, I had to be strong for my sister and my dad, which is you know, irrational as a little kid to be thinking like that. But I just I just went in that mode right away. And you can definitely see that in how I am as a nurse now. Like I can, I can power through and get through the hard time, but I've learned strategies for how to actually face the hard emotions and process them so that I could show up full the next day for the next patient. But, you know, I'm 41 now. I was only nine at the time. So there's been a lot of life skills that I've learned along the way that I didn't have at nine years old.

Marsha: 5:23

Yeah, but you learned so early. I mean, I can I can only imagine myself, like I didn't have to wash clothes at nine years old. Um, I I don't know what that experience is like trying to read the instructions on a washer, you know, and you're probably the first person in history to have ever read those instructions. A resource hammer, right? Ever read those instructions and probably saw the little symbols that no one to this day knows what they mean. So that is being resourceful and learning how to cook at that age. It's the skills you learned that then that help you be the nurturer you are today. But you said you were a natural nurturer and how lucky to have a bigger sister to help in that respect. And, you know, to have a daughter who knew how to take charge. And I and I hear you when you say, you know, you you didn't cry at your mom's funeral, you didn't, it wasn't because you weren't grieving or missing her. It was because you were probably in okay, survival mode. I have to be strong, like you said, for my sister. And I appreciate you sharing that story. Um, the diagnosis that you you share, um, that you have a cardiomyopathy, correct? Um, and and your mom had it and you found out later in life that you had the same thing. Would you mind sharing what that cardiomyopathy is? And I know you share on your podcast the pathophysiology, but just to give nurses who may not have known about this cardiomyopathy, because I haven't heard of it until you mentioned it on your podcast. Um, what what exactly is it?

Sarah: 6:59

Sure. Uh to Boss, I hadn't heard of it either. I mean, I know what cardiomypathy is, but not this particular strain.

Marsha: 7:05

Yeah.

Sarah: 7:05

So there's multiple types of cardiomyopathy. We're most familiar with like dilated cardiomyopathy, a big stretched out backy heart, right? But there's also arrhythmogenic cardiomypathy where the muscle cells themselves have something wrong with them that where they are prone to arrhythmia. So my mom died at 32. She was completely healthy, like zero diagnoses. She was very physically fit. She was a runner. Um, that she didn't drink alcohol, she didn't smoke, like she was like the ideal fit 32-year-old, right? Um, and she died suddenly without warning, no symptoms. She never had any symptoms. And she just went into cardiac arrest and arrhythmia. And I know, I know it's a ventricle arrhythmia because I can see her medical report where she was defibrillated multiple times by the paramedics and they could never get ROSP. But in 1994, we didn't know why a 32-year-old died of an arrhythmia. Like we really had no idea. I remember them telling us it it might have been long QT syndrome. And I was like, the alphabet? It wouldn't have been the alphabet killed my mom. I remember like looking up long QT syndrome in a dictionary, trying to figure out what that actually was. Sorry, encyclopedia. I don't know what that actually was.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Yeah.

Speaker: 8:06

But you know, I've I've had my heart checked. They didn't find anything on my heart as a little kid. But um, as I've gotten older, I'm now 40, my sister's 39. Sorry, I'm 41, my sister's 39. Um, we have a cousin who had a cardiac arrest at a very young age. But now it's 2025, and we have genetic testing. And so her doctor was like, You are 50 years old and you had a cardiac arrest, and that's weird. I'm sending you for genetic testing. So she had a whole panel done. Comes out she's positive with this thing called FLNC, which is a genetic variant where you're missing a protein in your cardiac myelic, in your structure. So she immediately calls me my sister and she's like, You guys had to get tested. This might be what your mom died of. And sure enough, both me and my sister are positive. Since then, two other cousins have come back positive with this thing. So it runs in our family. Um, and basically the first symptom of FLNC cardiomyopathy is usually cardiac arrest. It's not like there's any warning that this is coming. And so the treatment, fortunately, um, is a defibrillator. So I actually have one now. It's in my chest as we speak. I have a defibrillator, so does my sister, so do my cousins. My cousins have already been shocked a couple times by her defibrillator and it saved her life. And not that I want to be shocked, but if I have to be shocked, I'm ready for it. Like, what a gift that I have this thing ready to go. No one has to call 911. I don't have to worry about being by myself. I don't have to worry about driving down the road and I, you know, veer off the side of the road because I'm unresponsive from no, like within six seconds, I will be defibrillated. And so when people have arrhythmias with ICDs, they usually don't even lose consciousness. Like they might feel lightheaded, but it shocks you so quick, there's no time for you to lose perfusion to your brain to lack the ability to be aware. So I'm gonna know when it happens and I'm gonna be grateful for it. So that's been my journey this year is discovering that oh my god, you have the condition that killed your mom. And you need an efibrillator. But um, you know, I think it my overwhelming feeling is more gratitude than yeah, oh, this is terrible. I can't just happen to me. I'm just like, it it is what it is, you know. I'm grateful for the genes I got from my mom. She was an amazing person. I see a lot of her in me, part of which is my genetics, which means I have this condition. And so I'm just gonna keep living my life grateful that I have an ICD, grateful for modern medicine, grateful for the technology to even do genet testing. I mean, if my if we had had this back in the 90s, my mom might still be alive. And so I'm just grateful that I have it and that my kids will have to grow up without a mom. So I'm I'm doing well overall.

Marsha: 10:32

Yeah, great. Yeah, it it's amazing. Like you said, modern medicine, it's not something to be sad about that you have a condition like this, but that you actually are here in a time where we have the modern medicine to help heal you. And because cardiomyopathy can result in sudden death, and you know, that's the first time some people know that they have a cardiomyopathy is when they when their heart stops. So, and if you haven't listened to Sarah's podcast, please do. Even if you're not an ER nurse or a critical care nurse, you will at some point in your career see a patient, even if you are on a med surge for or a mother-baby unit. You will see a patient in some type of distress and needing some critical care. And over on Sarah's podcast, a rapid response RN podcast. She shares all of the emergencies that you can ever imagine because she's gone through it. She's seen it as a critical care nurse, as a cardiac ICU nurse, as an ER nurse. She's seen it all and taught it all too as an RN educator. So I encourage everyone to go listen to her podcast just to get the knowledge of how to take care of a patient in an emergent situation. So thank you for sharing your story on that and allowing that quick little detour that I wanted to go on. But I do want to take a little bit step back, being the nurturer at home and you know, taking care of your sister or taking care of the home, taking care of your helping taking care of your dad. Was it then that you thought about nursing, or when did that kind of spark hit you?

Speaker: 12:08

So I think that media betrayed me because I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Because on all the medical TV shows, the doctors did all the cool stuff. And so I've been saying my whole life, when I grow up, I'm gonna be a doctor. And so that was my plan because I know doctors help sick people, and I love caring for people. Like it to me, it's very rewarding.

Marsha: 12:27

Yeah.

Speaker: 12:28

Um and so in high school, I volunteered at the hospital, hoping to like see some doctors in action, you know, and like learn. And and uh maybe two weeks in, I'd been working on this unit for two weeks, and I hadn't seen the doctors, and I went with the church nurse and I was like, hey, so when did the doctors come and like take care of the sick people and like you know, give them their medicine and like teach them about their diagnosis, bandage their wounds? And the nurse was so sweet, but she was like, sweetheart, the doctors already came and went before you got here. The nurses do all the things, the doctors rounded, and the nurses get the opportunity to give the medicine to teach the patients about their diagnosis. So I went from doing like clerical type work at the desk to now I'm like, okay, well, nurses do the stuff, I'm gonna follow the nurses. And I went with the nurses into all these patients' rooms and watched them teach about the medications, watched them teach about the diagnosis, watched them do these very skilled interventions. And I realized, oh my gosh, nurses are the ones that do the things I want to do.

Marsha: 13:26

It's not like Grace Anatomy, it's not like ER.

Speaker: 13:29

Grace Anatomy. I was like, and also I always kind of, and this sounds bad, kind of prided myself in my intelligence. I've always been a straight A student. And so I was like, doctors are smart, you know? And I never saw nurses as like smart. Nurses were just like nice, but in my nine-year-old mind and in my teenage mind. Now I know. Um, and so it was a actually a hard transition to go from telling everyone of their mom, I'm gonna be a doctor when I grow up. And I was like, Oh, you'll be a great doctor, Sarah. You're so smart, you're so compassionate, to be like, absolutely I've changed my mind.

Marsha: 14:01

And everybody gives you that look, right?

Speaker: 14:03

Like, like, oh, but you're too smart. You couldn't. I was like, yeah, I could, but now that I see what the doctors do, and it is important work, I so appreciate my physician colleagues. That's so important, such important work. But I don't just want to interpret the CAT scan, I want to give the intervention that's going to fix the problem we see on the CAT scan. Um, and and we need to work hand in hand, right? And so just knowing the way that God wired me, I feel like nursing, bedside nursing specifically, is much better fit for how I am. I would be very frustrated if I had 30 patients and I couldn't take the time to hold all their hands and explain the things to them. Or if I had to just see what was wrong and write for someone else to do the fun thing to make them feel better.

Marsha: 14:47

Yeah, and you don't, and they don't get to see the things happen in real time. Like when you're giving a med, um, even like things I'm sure you've done in the ER, like a denocine, where you see it in, well, doctors are there, but on a unit where you're giving, you know, LASIKs or you're giving Dilt or something in the moment, you actually see in the moment what's happening with the patient. And and I think that's something that we have that residents and physicians don't really get to see all that often, is we actually get to see the change in real time. And it's so interesting to see. Yeah.

Speaker: 15:18

So I ended up like towards the end of high school, middle of high school, changing my mind and going with the nursing track. Yeah. And once I knew I was gonna be a nurse, I just like dove head first. And I did dual enrollment in high school. I finished all my pre-wex. I started nursing school um basically the month I turned 18. And so I graduated nursing school when I was 19 because I did an associate student program. So I was a I had passed, I was a registered nurse at the ripe old age of 19 years old.

Marsha: 15:48

Wow. Yeah.

Speaker: 15:48

Now I see 19 year olds. I was like, what was I thinking? I was trying to such a baby. Um, but I did. So I I became a nurse, and then I thought that I wanted to be like a midwife or like pediatric nurse. I always love babies, and I'm always like, I just it's easier to envision yourself as a caregiver for someone younger than you. And I hadn't really got to experience what it's like to be a caregiver of older people. I mean, obviously, I love the elderly. My mom used to take us to nursing homes to sing Christmas carols, and after church, we go sing like hymns and stuff. Like I've grown up around the elderly and I have such an appreciation for them. Um, but I always thought I would be like a Pete's nurse, a midwife, something along those lines. So in nursing school, I applied on the labor delivery floor to be like a nurse tech CNA on the labor delivery floor, and they would not interview me, wouldn't hire me, probably because I was so freaking young. But I never I couldn't even get an interview. Yeah. So I was like, you know what? Where else has pediatrics? The ER. I don't think they want to be an ER nurse, but I at least there's peeves there. And so because no one would call me back, no one would give me an interview, I just marched my little self down to the ER, went to the nursing station, and was like, hi, um, who is the manager for this floor? Like her name's Pam. I was like, oh, awesome, Pam. And where's Pam's office? And like, oh, around the corner. So I just like walked into Pam's office and said, Hi, Pam, you're the manager. I'm Sarah, I'm a nursing student. I also have my CNA. And I would love to be a nurse tech in your ER. And she's like, Have you applied? I was like, I did apply for a couple different floors. No one's called me back. And so I'm thinking I'm sure you get a job. And she's like, Well, sit down, sweetheart. So we talked for a little bit. She hired me on the spot.

Marsha: 17:25

It's your take charge, it's your take charge attitude. She already saw it. Yeah.

Speaker: 17:30

So I started as a nurse tech in nursing school. That was the best thing because I fell in love with taking care of patients and their families in crisis. I always thought I would be doing a different role, but I I really enjoyed showing up for people who are having really bad days. Um, I did really well in those environments. I didn't freak out. I could keep my cool. I was like, that's kind of what ER nurses do. Maybe you're wired to be an ER nurse. Um, and so huge surprise to my whole family, sweet little Sarah became an emergency room nurse. And so here I am, 19 years old. I never had friends that were working at like Chick-fil-A, the mall, you know, and the I'm working Friday night shift in the emergency room ER.

Marsha: 18:12

Oh my, I can't even imagine. I don't even know what I was doing at 19, but it was certainly not something important enough to take care of patients.

Speaker: 18:19

Oh, but I loved it. And I and I quickly learned. I learned about the evil that's the world. I mean, I saw you see the worst of humanity in the ER, but you also see the best of humanity. I mean, there's so many beautiful moments as families come together and rally around their loved one who's suffering or ill, or I mean, it it really is a great place to work. Very stressful. But like, I've had some tough things to face. I can do stress. Um, as long as I'm like taking care of myself, I can keep showing up for these other people that are going through crisis. So fell in love with the ER. Love, love, love the ER. By 20, they asked me to be the charge nurse, which again, I lack now. But who offers the charge nurse position to a 20-year-old? And it was like the joke of the EDA like, oh yeah, charge nurse can't even drink alcohol legally. Yeah. But you know, I've always I can keep my cool, I'm fair, I'm organized. And so I guess, ma'am, the lady who hired me as a nurse tech saw that in me and asked me to be charged. It started out like, will you just be charged this weekend? And I was like, oh, it's just a show at and then it just became like you're gonna use a full-time charge nurse. Um but I I enjoyed being the charge nurse because even if I wasn't doing as much um hands-on care with the patients, I was helping to oversee the care of the whole department, making things flow smoothly, doing what's best for everybody, helping my colleagues. And I love helping nurses, be awesome nurses, as much as I love helping the patients. I really enjoy both aspects. And so I was charge nurse for many years. I was a preceptor, loved teaching.

Marsha: 19:52

Um I'm curious about how how many, how was it for you as a new nurse, knowing that you had the a little bit of experience in? Tech work and seeing seeing what you saw in the emergency room. Curious at how being an actual nurse, once you got the job, how was that for you as a new nurse, even though you had a little bit of experience of knowing what the ER was about?

Speaker: 20:14

Yeah, I think that being a tech in the department that you work in can be really great and could have a couple downsides, but yeah, if you're aware of that, you can you can handle it. So the great part is I knew the supply room, I knew the doctors, I knew the layout, I knew the flow. I was that and I didn't have to learn. I already knew that as a nurse tech. The downside is everyone assumes you already know things because you've been working there. But there's a lot of things I did not know of the nurse's role, like how to document, you know, or like there's so many things that you just think someone knows about because you work side by side with them, but it's just different whenever it's your patient, your responsibility. The other thing is it's harder to delegate to what was once your peer nurse techs. So where before I was like, yeah, I'll help get your patient in the bathroom. Yeah, I'll, you know, banish their wounds, I'll do all the all the nurse tech things, right? And now I have to ask someone else to do it for me because I have a new EMS coming in down the hall. It was so I did not delegate well, is what it comes down to because I felt bad delegating tasks to someone else, a task that I would have done last month, you know, if I was a nurse tech. It was hard to delegate because I felt like I don't know, I felt like I shouldn't be doing that.

Marsha: 21:24

Yeah, it felt awkward, I'm sure, too.

Speaker: 21:26

Plus, I drowned my first year because I didn't want to ask anyone's help for anything. I wanted to do it all myself. But I finally learned I could deliver better patient care. You know, this new EMS, I don't know how sick they are. I should not be tied up, um, I'm trying to give you an example, doing an EKG on this other patient who is stable. When I could, I can delegate that to a nurse tech and I can go assess and evaluate this patient I know nothing about to make sure the sickest patient gets my care. So it was very, it's a very difficult transition, but I finally figured out how to delegate. There were so many perks of having already worked there. Yeah. All these nurses, they basically raised me. I started there at 18 and now they've got to watch them grow up. So they're rooting for me, you know? Yeah. And even like whenever I became charge nurse, it's kind of hard to be 20 years old and telling a 45-year-old experienced veteran nurse you're getting a new patient. But because they'd they had all kind of like washed me grow up and really cared for me, they're like, okay, Sarah, all right, so we are. Like, I don't know. I felt like I was taken care of because they had known me for so long and and had got to watch and see me transition from the nurse tech role to the RN role. I remember times where doctors would ask, but delegate tasks to me, hey, can you help me with this public exam? And my fellow RN colleagues would be like, Sarah has her own four patients. Thank you. You'll have to find someone else. And so I really felt looked out for, honestly. But I was lucky that I had great nurses. I was sort of, there are a couple bullies, we can talk about that later. Duffy's the bullies, but for the most part, I was very well cared for by the nurses that had kind of raised me in this crazy.

Marsha: 23:00

Yeah. The pros and cons of both.

Speaker: 23:02

Yes, yeah. So yes, we have pros and cons going into it. I was, I was not expecting how difficult it was to delegate until I got there and realized, oh my gosh, I don't want to delegate this to someone else.

Marsha: 23:11

Yeah. So uh with that, I know nursing education and teaching other nurses is your passion and something that you love to do. You do it on your podcast every time it comes out Fridays, I guess, uh, you do it on your podcast. With that, when was it that you made that transition into nurse education and saying, hey, I'm really good at this. I really like teaching, I really like precepting. Like you mentioned before, this is something that I want to do on a regular basis. Or, or did you go straight from ER into teaching, or was there a detour into cardiac ICU? I think.

Speaker: 23:45

Yes, there was quite a detour. Okay, so I love teaching. I've always like tutored and helped other people with you know their studies. Our study group, a nurse in school. Basically, we would sit around and I would pull out Janelle's notes, my study buddy, because hers were better handwriting, and I would reteach what the instructors had just taught to us from her notes because that's how I learn. And everyone else is like, oh, you explained it so much better, the professor, blah, blah, blah. Oh, thanks so much, Sarah, for clarifying that or breaking that down. And so I've always been teaching. I just liked, I like explaining hard things. I like the challenge of like distilling down a lot of information that actually can click, you know? Um, and I had like ER stories of like, yeah, this one time I had this patient and they had heart failure, and I knew it because of the legs. And I remember just like applying all the knowledge we were learning abstractly into real patient scenarios, even as a nursing student. So I always love teaching. They made me a preceptor, like, I don't know, six months out of nursing school. I still remember precepting Dusty and being like, Dusty, I'm sorry you don't sound to me. I am the newest nurse in this department, but I will do my best to teach you all the things. And now he's a nurse practitioner and he's doing really well. But I remember having a precept and like I'm I'm still learning things. I love teaching. Um about maybe three or four years into my nursing career, I noticed that all the new grads we were hiring were leaving. Like they would stay for six months and then they would leave. And I asked them, I heard you're leaving. Like, why are you leaving? Like, oh, this is too much, this is too much. And someone said, This is too much, this is too much, this is too much. Like, what's too much? Like, it's too much to know, it's too much to learn. Like, I don't feel like I can do a good job. This place is too much. And so this was well before we had like new grad orientation. Orientation, yeah. I mean, I had zero specialty classes when I was hired. They were like, welcome to the ER, there's your preceptor. You got a couple of weeks and you're on your own. There was no special training, simulation, nothing like that. Yeah. Back in 2004. And so I went to my manager, say Lady Pam, who hired me as a nurse tech, say, Pam, would you pay me to bring the next batch of new grads into the classroom to do some more like hands-on stuff, maybe like some scenarios, some more like deeper dives to the path of fizz. Everyone's overwhelmed. Everyone's leading, they don't understand what we're doing. They're just task-oriented. We have to teach them like the the why behind all the tasks.

Marsha: 25:58

And she's like, you know, you're having an entrepreneurial mindset before you start.

Speaker: 26:03

I like the thing about an entrepreneurial endeavor. It's more just like, I want to keep the verses we're hiring, right? So if you'll pay me and not, I'm not volunteering for free to like come and I'm like, I'll say, pay me my hourly rate. I'll love to teach you. So she said, yes, I made binders for all of them. I brought them on the next cohort that we hired was like 11 new grads. We hired all of them. I had them for two weeks before they were sent to the bedside. And all of them stayed for years, ended up becoming charge nurses, doing very well. All of them. And so my boss is like, this was great. You're doing this again next year. Because we used to only hire new grads like in the summer after like the spring semester finished. Um, you're next year, right? I was like, Yeah, I'm doing next year. So I did that for a couple of years, and I just I looked forward to it so much. I loved that two weeks where I got to teach. And everyone's like, You should be a professor. You shouldn't be a professor. I was like, you know what? I got a couple kids, that would be nice to have like professor life.

unknown: 26:53

Yeah.

Speaker: 26:54

So I went back to school, started working my master's degree to be a nursing professor. Um, and then maybe halfway through, one of my professors said to me, Sarah, if you really want to be a professor, you need to branch out and see something more than the ER. I was like, Well, what else is there? I love the ER. This is like my baby. I'm grown up in the ER. It's all that I know. She's like, I know something, but you should work somewhere else besides just ER. Otherwise, you're giving a very narrow perspective to your nursing students. And I was like, So I'd always been fascinated by the heart. The heart's my favorite body system to learn about, to teach about. So I went and got a job in the cardiac ICU. And at this point, I've been a nurse for eight years. So lots of nursing experience.

Marsha: 27:34

Yeah.

Speaker: 27:34

But man, was that a learning curve to go from ER to C V I C U. They have tubes and orifices everywhere, measuring pressures from everywhere. There's so many more numbers to keep track of. Like it was a it was a learning curve, but I loved it. The nerd loved it. And so I did CVICU for like two and a half years. I learned so much. I did all the things, you know, ECMO, Impella, Balone Pup, all the cool gadgets you see in C V ICU. I loved it. And then I got asked to be on the rapid response team at that hospital that I was working at the time. Um, and I was like, well, that sounds it's like a mix of ICU and ARC. That sounds awesome. But what I quickly learned once I started, it was just as much education as well. The the position was just wrought with opportunity to educate, you know. The nurse calls a rapid response team because they're about a patient, and then I get to teach about why I'm all so concerned and what we're gonna do about it, and what's the best like I was just teaching all day long. I was like, oh my gosh, I love this rapid response role. So I was a rapid response nurse for almost three years. My times are getting mixed up. Um, I finally finished that down master's degree. It took me forever because I was going pun time. I was still working in the hospital, I had a bunch of kids, so I wasn't going very quickly through, but I finally finished it. Got a job as a nursing professor. So it was much easier to be a mom as a nursing professor than I was as a three to 12-hour shift nurse. Just because, you know, there's like who gets into school in the morning on the days that you're working, who's gonna hook dinner at night. Like those kind of challenges are difficult. Yeah. Um, but I got to take my kids to school every day and I got to pick them up every afternoon when I was a nursing professor. So I love that. Um I love nursing professor life. I still was not quite ready to leave the bedside, I don't think. I was still working PRN as a rep response, so I got my fix. But um, I am, I don't know if you can tell, I am a mover. Like, even if now I'm I can't I don't sleep well. And so, like office hours and faculty meetings, and like, oh my gosh, it was so difficult for 30-year-old Sarah to do that. And so the nurse that was my charge nurse when I was a new grad, Jack, he called me. He's like, hey Sarah, so I'm the director of the ER now, and I I'm hiring an ER educator, the one we had is retired. Would you be interested? I was like, I just became an arts professor like less than a year ago. He's like, You'd be great at it. You're the only one I want to interview. Like, please come be come check it out. And so the rest is history. He ended up hiring me as the ER educator. I did that for five years. I loved being an ER educator because I was at the bedside. I was at the bedside helping those nurses, elbow to elbow. And I got to do the nerdy stuff of like creating curriculum and you know, making sims and doing mock co's. And like I loved onboarding all the new grads. It was all my favorite things into one job.

Marsha: 30:20

I'm curious, would you mind talking a little about a little bit about the ER educator role? When you say you're at the bedside really, you know, a lot with the nurses, how often is that? Because some nurses may be curious about this role as an educator.

Speaker: 30:36

I think it depends on the facility you work for. Yeah. Because I know lots of educators that are forced to do like audits and lots of meetings, and and that's that's important. That's important. I'm not announcing that. Um I did, I did do some meetings. Audits, no, don't, I hate audits. But meetings I can do because meetings move the needle in the right direction, right? So if it's gonna help a patient, I'll go to the meeting. But um, you know, my heart is to teach. And so for me, I was very lucky that the person I worked for gave me full liberty to make my own schedule, to figure out the educational needs of the department. I would they knew that I was trust, I could be trusted to get the stuff done. So they're like, whatever you want to teach, whatever hours you want to work to make it happen, whatever's just do it. And so, because I'm a hard worker, that was fine. I think for some people, they have to have much more structured, like you have to be here on these days and teach these classes these days. I made my own schedule. And so I had Sunday classes, I had evening classes, I had skills fairs at 4 a.m. and I had skills fairs at 9 p.m. Like I did what I felt like worked best for the department, and I could just because I made the schedule, I can make it around my kids' lives and make sure I had childcare covered. So it worked for me. Um, but I know a lot of nurse educators who feel very um constrained. Constrained by the restricted.

Marsha: 31:54

I was in my role at a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker: 31:57

I had some things that I know I had to do. Like, like my staff have to have yearly TNK training. I know I have to do that. I can't be like, I feel like teaching about something random. I know there's things I have to do annually because joint commission says though, okay, well, we'll knock that out. But we're gonna include in there some fun stuff, some scenarios. We'll make it as interesting as possible so that you can actually apply this to the bedside. So I did so much more than was my minimum requirement as the educator. Um, I could go on and on about all the fun events that we did and the ways that I tried to like keep everyone's minds engaged. And um, but yeah, I love being the educator. What a what a great job. Um but then COVID hit. What is that, like March-ish of 2020? I was still the educator. And um, I I did my best, man. I researched as much as I could about COVID. We did so much donning and doffing of PPE and like everything, I every new update that came out. I was educating. I had bored all over the I did my best to educate about COVID. But by the end of summer, I was like COVID educated out, and I wanted just to be at the bedside. And because of COVID, we're having more rapid responses at our hospital. There's more intimated patients. Everyone in the whole hospital is sicker and experienced nurses are leaving to go travel. So it's newer grads that are like filling all these roles. And I just saw this need in my hospital. The hospital I currently work at five years ago did not have a dedicated rapid response team. If a rapid response was called, the ICU charge would leave the ICU, go to the best of the patient crashing, manage the emergency, and go back to the ICU. Which, you know, when you have like two or three rapids a day, that's not a big deal. But when you're having eight to ten rapids, the ICU charge is gone the entire day. That's not good. And I was hearing these from the ICU charge. The ER charge was having to leave a lot too because the ICU charge is busy at another rapid. So I'm seeing this issue, and my heart, and I feel like it was almost like God speaking, like Sarah, you need to start a rapid response team. Yeah. And so I went to nursing leadership and I was like, hey, I see this need. Um, I would be willing to start it if you'll give me the FTE. We we need a dedicated team right now. It was just a pilot us to get through COVID, but we need something right now. And the CNO was like, okay, let's do it. How are you and you only? And if you can justify the FTE for another one, if you can give me the data that you've made a difference, I'll give you more FTEs. So that was five time? I now have 10 staff that I lead. Wow. So we have built up our team, but I left the official educator job and became a bedside rapid response nurser, starting this new program at our hospital that had never been done before. So no longer did uh the rapid response have to leave an assignment or leave their unit to go handle the emergency. I was on assignment. I was there to support the bedside nurse, and the educator of me is like, all right, who can I help? How can I teach? I'm just roaming, like I would push the crash card around and do education. Like I was trying to like level up our skills and respond to emergencies, not just respond. I wanted to like prevent the emergency or like make the response be even better. And so it was again perfect fit for Sarah. I got to do real nursing stuff and teach nurses how to do nursing stuff well. Anyways, I loved it. It was such a great job. Um, maybe four or five months into that, I was talking to my husband.

Marsha: 35:13

Yeah. Were you coming up with your own protocols and policies? And did you take that experience from okay, why?

Speaker: 35:20

And I had done rep response before, but I was a leader in it. I was just a rep response first. I'd never had to write any policies, protocols, spreadsheets, like nothing like that. I just did the job. So now I'm building it from the ground up, having to almost like promote it to the whole hospital. Here's this thing, please utilize it. I'm here, here's my number. Um I enjoy that. I'm an extrovert. Yeah, that's like easy peasy for me. Anyway, so I'm doing the rapid response role. I'd hired Marissa, um, who was like the two-time hospital nurse of the year. Like, she's amazing. So it's just me and Marissa, the sole, like the lone rapid responsors in the hospital, but we're we are making an impact. We are seeing the data, it's getting better. Like it is, it was really cool to see. Um, so I'm like slowly building up the team as there's adding more FTEs to my department.

Marsha: 36:08

And how many rapid responses were you having at that time period when you were just first starting with Marissa?

Speaker: 36:14

I mean, there were multiple waves of COVID, and so it really did fluctuate a lot. I mean, okay. There was one month that we had like 500 a month, but then most months it was more like 250. So it just kind of depended on the month. But we we were busy. If we weren't responding to emergencies, we were out there preventing them. We were not sitting on our butt waiting for emergencies to come to us. We were busy the entire time. And we, if that I we felt so pretty much the hospital gave us this funding, so we were gonna do as well. Like we were gonna let people know that this is not an apartment you want to get rid of. This is making a difference. So we really worked hard for it. Anyways, so a couple months in, I was telling my husband, I was like, I love being rapid response. I'm not saying I want to go back, but I do miss being the ER educator. You know, the challenge in this role is I try to teach someone something and I get called away to the next emergency. I don't get to spend the time to like break down the pathophys and like come alongside this nurse and nurture them and teach. I mean, there's so much I want to teach, and there's no time in my current role. And he was like, why don't you like make a podcast or something? And you can just like you know, talk about the cases of the day, obviously HIPAA appropriate, and you can go into the deep dives that you love to do with your nerdy self, and then you can share it with nurses. Like, hey, remember that case we had yesterday? I made a podcast about it. If you want to check it out, I was like, oh my gosh, that's a crazy idea because I'm so not tech savvy, but uh that's how I'll be doing it. I'll do it. And so I did not have a podcast recording studio. I had a whole night closet with like literally coats in it. And I so I wrote out like the draft for three episodes or three cases I had responded to. And I went to the closet with coats all around me and a microphone that I bought for $15 off Amazon and my laptop, and I recorded the episodes and I published them. And evidently the whole world found them. I it never occurred to me that people across the globe could find a podcast. I genuinely naively thought I'm making this podcast for the nurses I work with so I could tell them, remember that great case when John caught that patient in septic shock. I made an episode about it. If you guys want to check it out and learn more, that's what I thought I was doing.

Marsha: 38:16

And with a $15 microphone and an idea just to go at, go at it and have it in your in your closet or wherever you were at the time. Yeah, just that you could make that type of impact across the globe.

Speaker: 38:28

Yeah. So I made the first three episodes. I released them like every week for three weeks.

Marsha: 38:33

Yeah.

Speaker: 38:33

And with um, what did I use at the time? Whatever the podcast platform that I was using, you could see how many downloads and where the downloads came from. And I was like, a nurse from Qatar listened to my episode? There's 150 nurses in Australia listening to my podcast. Like, I would have just been like, I'm getting to like podcast the globe. And then I was getting emails because at the end of the episode, I was like, if you have any questions, you can email me. Yeah, whatever. This is Urban. I I don't recommend emailing me now. Just go on my Instagram, it's way easier. But um, so people were emailing me, Sarah, episode number four. I had that same patient. It was literally the day after this episode, and I knew exactly what to do. Sarah, episode number 28, I was prepared to save a life and I knew exactly what to do. And I got so like so many of these emails. I was like, this is so cool that I get to support nurses and ultimately they're patients that I would have never met. Yeah, I may never meet, right? But my stories, my experiences, my nerdy self is able to help other people through the podcast. Oh, what a thought, Sarah Lorenzini, because I can really use my iPhone, but I have a podcast.

Marsha: 39:41

Just curious, can you talk about like how you juggled the HIPAA situation and how you could talk about certain patients without really giving too much details? How did you know how to navigate that and how did you actually do it?

Speaker: 39:52

So I changed the name, obviously, and usually the age and often even the gender of the Patient that I'm referencing. So I totally mix it up. You could not figure out who the patient was. There is one case where I was pretty specific about this patient. And I actually got to know the patient very well after Bruce has dated her. And I was like, hey, I want to do a podcast episode. She's like, please tell my story. Like, please tell all the details. I want people to know my story. So she told me, please tell my story. I never said her name, but I did say, you know, a 28-year-old female who was pregnant who had COVID. So you like you Oh, so you gave a patient identifiers and I would have never shared normally. But yeah, I always changed identifiers. And honestly, there's a lot of cases that I would love to share that I don't because I don't know how to share the case without without giving too much.

Marsha: 40:44

Yeah.

Speaker: 40:44

Yeah. So when I when I feel like I can I can still talk about the case and did the path of fizz with changing the patient identifiers, then I do. But if I don't feel like I can, then I I just unfortunately don't share that episode on the podcast platform.

Marsha: 40:58

I'm curious too, Sarah, about um navigating that with your organization or the organization that you're working with. If you can give some sort of strategies on how to navigate it when your organization knows the work that you do outside of regular nursing and your writing or your blogging or you're podcasting about it, how do they navigate telling those stories and working with their leadership team and figuring that kind of thing out? Just curious about that.

Speaker: 41:30

I think you need to read your policy for your hospital social media policy before you begin to know what the expectation was. So, for example, if I post anything on social media, you will not see my badge, you will not see anything for my hospital's logo in the background. Um, I'm very careful not to even say where I work. But I did tell my hospital, I am starting this podcast, I want you to know about it. I will do it well, I will never mention you, but this is what's happening. I wasn't getting permission because this is what I'm doing on my off hours. Um they do know about it. However, about a year into doing the podcast, the hospital actually gave me an award. I forgot what it was called. It was like the nursing mentorship of the year award, or something along those lines. And in the speech that the CNO gave, she was like, you know, Sarah has been an advocate at the bedside, she's also an advocate through her podcast, she's making a difference in nursing. Like, so they they know that I have it and they actually approve of it. I think it's a good thing. And so I've been very lucky that they've embraced it, but they've also said, Don't don't you careful. Right, careful. Yeah. But we recognize what you're doing is good, keep doing it, don't make us look bad. That's kind of like the vibe that I'm getting. Right, right. Um, so I do. I follow all the rules and I um keep patient's privacy at the forefront of my mind as I'm doing episodes.

Marsha: 42:56

Um yeah, and if you're interested in doing this kind of thing yourself, if you're thinking about blogging, podcasting, writing articles, I had a guest, which that podcast will come out soon, of a writer who actually writes about patient stories. If you do have those things in mind or you're already doing it, it may be best to, of course, number one, look at your organization's policy. That's probably the first thing you need to do. And I'm not one to say that you need to go tell your organization the things that you're doing on your off hours, but I do feel and I love the way you do it, Sarah. I love the way you explain that. If you're talking about a patient with, you know, for example, cardiomyopathy, you know, you can change the patient name, patient age, patient, you know, gender. I love how you do that. And so those are some tips and strategies that may be helpful for the listeners who are looking into writing and uh sharing their nursing stories. But I think the first and foremost, look at your organization's policy um and consider, and consider maybe having a conversation with leadership about it if you think it's something that you will be doing for the long term. So yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 44:01

The conversation is letting them know that you're doing it. You're doing it and get on the same page for what the expectation is, what you um, what the parameters are, but not saying, can I do this? Because they're not saying no. Right, right. Or they would say, sure, and we'll help you with it. And then they want to give their input as to what the episodes are, they want to put their branding on it. Um, so I I love that.

Marsha: 44:21

I love that. Not getting permission. Yeah, not getting permission. If it's something that you have in your heart that you're going to do anyway, yes, not getting permission. I love that. And just going, going with it and with the mindset of this is something I'm doing, it's on my off hours. And yeah, I just wanted to let you know that I'm gonna be sharing stories. So I've a really great way.

Speaker: 44:40

Like I've interviewed my boss on my podcast. Like he's excellent. Um and so like he he supports it all the way. And so I I've been very lucky, but I know not every facility has such great leadership. I've just have been to the ones that I've been given.

Marsha: 44:53

Yeah, yeah. And so really something to consider. So take those things to heart. So, in terms of like sharing stories on the podcast and being consistent with it, can you talk a little bit about? I I've heard or read, I can't remember where, um, how you were doing it on your, you know, the days that you had time to do it sometimes. And then it got to a point where you said, hey, I want to sort of get consistent with this. I want to do it on a more regular basis. So people, you know, people are expecting this from me. So maybe I can put something out on a more regular, consistent basis. How did that shift happen for you? And how did it happen to where now I want to be consistent and and and you know, something that I'm doing outside of nursing, sort of, and then make money from it? How did that sort of change happen?

Speaker: 45:42

Okay, so it was a slow over multiple years change. I'm gonna start with that. Because I never got into this with an entrepreneurial mind. I was just like the educator in me wanted to keep giving back, and I didn't have the time to do so in the way that I felt I could at the bedside was like almost like a passion project, if you want to call it, or something I had a hobby, I guess. Me in my closet by myself with my microphone is my hobby. Um, that's how it started. But then because people wanted more episodes and I started learning how to do them better, like I'm learning editing techniques and realizing that my microphone sucks and that it's so difficult to make it sound better through editing because my microphone's like $15, right? So I'm I'm realizing, oh, I could do this much better if I had the funding to do it, right? I'm not gonna buy a $500 microphone for something that I'm doing like for free, that serves I'm writing for free. Um, also, I was spending way too many hours, way late at night, editing episodes. Yeah. And that's just not a good use of my skill set, right? I I feel like I do well researching the literature, telling stories, you know, distilling it all down to make sense. That's what I'm good at. Editing is not what I'm good at. I was slow, I didn't know what I was doing. It was clunky. I didn't even do a good job, to be honest with you. And so someone was like, Sarah, you should pay someone to edit. I was like, I don't have the money to pay someone. Like, I do this for free. How am I gonna pay someone? Like, maybe if you paid someone to edit, you could produce more episodes more consistently rather than like one a month or one every other month if we have time. If someone's editing, maybe you could actually do it with consistency and then you could find ways to monetize your podcast. But I was like, well, I'll try it. I'll try it for six months. I'll pay this person to edit my podcast. And if I can like pay for him through monetization, then I'll keep doing it. Yeah, that was three years ago. So he's I still Max is amazing, by the way. If you have a podcast, uh podcast boutique is who I use. He is so talented. He takes some crazy file that I send him and makes it sound so much better. So I do still have editing to do. All right. So when I record the podcast, I still go in and like say, take this out, take this out, move this around. I still do some editing. Yeah. But the little details of like the audio file and like sniffing the cuts with perfection, I I'm not the person to be doing that. But Max is a great job. So I started paying Max monthly and it it was quite a financial investment. Yes. But as the podcast got more consistent, it kind of took off where people heard about the podcast because now I don't know, whatever the algorithm is for podcasts, I don't understand it. People were finding it more. And so now I have advertisers coming to me wanting to do ads on my podcast. And so basically, to be honest, the ads that I do only pay for Macs. That is, I I I cut even, or what do you call it, break even when it comes to what I bring in for the podcast and how I pay to have to get to having a podcast? Because it's not just paying the editor, it's also paying for the podcast platform, paying for my $500 microphone, paying for there's so much. If you looked around my room right now, there's so much equipment that I have purchased over the years to do this well.

Marsha: 48:53

And Sarah has a lovely podcast studio. I was just talking about it before we hit record. Yeah. Yeah, you have to.

Speaker: 49:00

I had two um closets in my hallway. There was like a lip closet and like a coat closet almost next to each other. And we cut the wall down between the two and made this space into a podcast recording studio. I love it. Yeah. So um, I don't know what that does to the resale value of my home. A very niche market for another podcast you're looking for a home in the future, but I do have a podcast restore we're in a studio in the very center of my house. Um, anyways, so yeah, I have this podcast. I I do have ads in the podcast. I'm not making to be honest, I'm not making any money off the ads. It really is just going right back into paying max and to paying for my equipment and to paying for all the subscriptions I have to have now to even have a podcast. But how much time does that free up?

Marsha: 49:39

I mean, for you now to be creative. Yeah.

Speaker: 49:42

So the way that I make money, I'm gonna back up. I was still working full-time and having the podcast. That was a lot. And I, as I'm doing the podcast, again, I'm an extrovert, if you can't tell. I love talking to people. Inside of myself, like, as much as I love teaching through the microphone, I don't get that interaction with other people. I really like, I really like having interaction with the nurses. Yeah. So I had this idea. What if I started this thing called Rapid Response Academy? And it's it's what it sounds like. It is an academy for nurses to learn how to respond to emergencies. So it's not just for rapid response nurses, it is any critical care nurse, med surge nurse, uh, ER nurse, any nurse who might have to encounter an emergency. I teach about which is every nurse. Which is every nurse.

Marsha: 50:28

Every nurse at every level of their career, yes. Right, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: 50:32

Um, and so I have this academy and it is a paid membership, but nurses join the cohort. I go live one or two times a week. I teach, but live. So it's like the podcast, but like me actually teaching, I have like slide presentation. There's download, like I just get to like wrap my arms around these nurses and help them feel comfortable and confident responding to emergencies. I love it so much. So I started Represents Academy. And because I did that, that's a lot of time in the week. So not only am I making a podcast, I'm also making a presentation for Representative Academy. I'm responding to all of the comments in there's like a like a group chat basically with the all the nurses in the cohort. So it's taking lots of time. So last when was it? Last fall, I actually went part-time at the hospital.

Marsha: 51:15

And what was part-time for you? Yeah.

Speaker: 51:17

Two 12s.

Marsha: 51:18

Two twelves. Okay.

Speaker: 51:19

Yeah. So I've been doing uh full-time hours, like 40 hours a week. Um, and then now I just do two 12s a week. So part-time in the hospital, but part of my income now comes from Rapid Response Academy. So the time that it takes me to prepare all those presentations and do that teaching and support and mentor those nurses, basically the the monthly membership fee um is supporting me staying home part.

Marsha: 51:43

Awesome.

Speaker: 51:43

So again, if you're looking to learn from me how to get rich, look somewhere else because I am not rich. I have not made a ton of money off of Rapids Watson Academy or a podcast at all. I I have the same income I had when I was a full-time bedside nurse, to be very honest with you.

Marsha: 51:59

But you've created a formula that works for you in terms of time, energy, creating your content, and making the similar amount of money that you were making when you were a full-time nurse. So that's that's still a way for nurses to free up some of that headspace and that burnout with nursing by doing something else you love, and you're making the same amount of money. You're you're podcasting, you have a great podcast, wonderful podcast. Um, you're now working with nurses from your home on video teaching. It's it's it's something that's, you know, it may not be like this big money story, but it is a big, a big burnout sort of release story, I guess you can say.

Speaker: 52:44

It allows me to spend my life the way that I want to spend it. Yeah. I think a life well spent is when the way you spend your time aligns with what your values are. And for me, I do value being a nurse. I do love being at the best. I love caring for the sick, but I also love being a mother and I want to be present in their lives. And I love my husband. I like to be around him, you know, like there's something that I want to do outside of just nursing. And so the fact that I just work two days at the hospital, kind of like get my fix, you know, because I do that. Like that's how I'm gonna do it. But also, like today, for example, I woke up, got my kids ready for school, got them off to school, came home, put on my podcast shirt, doing an interview with you. I'm actually speaking at the nursing college in two hours. So I get to go speak with other nurses. Then I'll come home, I'll make dinner. Like I get to be present in my life as well as present in patients' life. So for me, this is like just the perfect mix. To be honest, I don't know that I will ever leave the bedside unless my cardiomyopathy gets to where I can't physically do it anymore. Um, right now I don't have dilated cardiomyopathy, but that is the projection for this diagnosis is at some point the heart cells will kind of stretch out and dilate. So if I get to that point, I love teaching. I can still teach with a stretched out dilated heart. So I probably will retire from academia. But for this season of life, you can still podcast.

Marsha: 54:05

Yeah.

Speaker: 54:06

For this season of life, though, I like being at the bedside. So it's not like I was trying to get away from the bedside whenever I started this venture. I really just wanted to give back in the way that I felt like God has built me to do. And the podcast has given me the avenue to do it. And fortunately, people want to advertise on my podcast, and so I'll gladly take their money and support whatever it is that they're doing so that I can like, you know, pay for my kids' races and their life for life in general, you know, for gas and your mortgage, all the things. So um, yes, I'm very grateful for this season that I'm in. But it's not like I have the the figured out how to make a ton of money as being a nurse entrepreneur. That's not what I'm doing. Maybe, maybe there's a better way. Maybe I can hire more people and mass produce things and write books, but I there's only so much time that I have. And especially for this season when my kids are little and teenage.

Marsha: 54:55

You want to enjoy it. Yeah.

Speaker: 54:56

You want to enjoy it. So in the future, maybe I'll write a bunch of books and I'll travel across the world. I got invited to speak at a conference in Dubai, a nursing conference. And I was like, oh, awesome. Yeah. Like, I'm not leaving my family for that long. Not right now. So thank you for the invite. Um so, and I do get lots of invites to speak at conferences, and I only I only do like a handful a year just because again, I want to be present with my kids. And so yeah, we'll see, we'll see where all this takes me. But for now, I'm very grateful for the season that I'm in.

Marsha: 55:23

I do have one final question about a patient story, a nursing story, a memory that you can share with the audience that sort of sticks with you after you know all of your years and all of your experience with nursing.

Speaker: 55:39

So at like the height of COVID, it was really hard to do a rep response nurse because all I saw all day long was patients crashing from COVID. Like no one called me when the patient was getting better. I was only called when the patient went from bad to worse. Now it's time to intubate. Now it's like they're getting, they're not doing well in the interventions we're giving. And um I learned early in my career to not say things like, I'm not gonna let you die. We're gonna save your life, not on my watch, like that kind of stuff. I remember saying that as a new grad, like, no, I'm not gonna let you die. Because I really thought that I had this amazing skill set to bring people back to life, and I'd seen people come back to life. But with especially with COVID, you don't say that because you do not know what's gonna happen with patients. And I remember this one rap response very clearly because it was so like dramatic and heart-wrenching. So I got to the emergency. There's a man in the bed on BiPAP, he'd been coughing, there's like blood spray on his BIPAP mask. He's very sick, been like 50 times a minute, sat and looked, like it's time to intubate, right? But that's where we are. But he's still completely with it. And so, again, in my full PPE, the mask and the goggles and the shield and the gown, like all the things. I I approach him. Hey sir, my name is Sarah. I'm the rapid response nurse. The nurse called me because she's so worried about your breathing, and you've been working so hard for so long. But I think it's time for us to help you out because what you need more support. I think it's time to put you on the ventilator. And he just got so scared, the scared look in his eyes, you know, and there's no family because it was that season, there's no family at the bedside. I was like, but we're gonna take such good care of you, and I'm trying to explain things. And he rips the mask off and he looks at me and he says, You can't let me die. My daughter gets married this weekend, and I have to walk her down the aisle. And then he like puts the mask back on. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this guy is not gonna go to the wedding this weekend. Like, I just know that, you know, I don't know how well he's going to do, but I've just seen so many patients get sicker and sicker and sicker and ultimately pass. I don't want that for this man. But what do you say to someone who says, Don't let me die? And so I just said back to him, we are gonna take such good care of you. We are gonna fight to get you to your daughter's wedding. We are gonna fight so hard as a team to get you better and get you home to your family. But we have to help you right now because you're you're struggling at the moment. And he just kind of like nodded his head, closed his eyes, and laid back. And I remember I just prayed so hard that he would make a turnaround. I watched him be so sick for so many weeks, go on ECMO. I mean, he was very sick. But he was discharged. Um, they ended up delaying his daughter's wedding, and he did get to walk her down the aisle with a walker.

Marsha: 58:24

That was Sarah Lorenzini, Rapid Response Nurse and Educator, host of Rapid Response RN Podcast, and founder of Rapid Response Academy. 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 Alexandri and Renan Silva. I'm Barsha Batti, and you've been listening to the Bossy Nurses Podcast.