Latest / The Shift Podcast / 122. 12 Things to Know as a Flight Nurse
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to Frontline Static, we will get to hear interviews with
- 0:02some of my clients journeys of getting into flight and how they
- 0:05utilize coaching to help them create success of getting hired
- 0:08with less confusion and more ease.
- 0:10Make your dream a reality of getting into flight.
- 0:12Listen in as you hear some of the stories of the people
- 0:14getting there and come join the flight prep group.
- 0:17Hey, you guys, welcome to episode 122 of How to become a
- 0:21Flight Nurse podcast. I wanted to, I was thinking
- 0:24about this week, what is a message that I want to bring you
- 0:27on this podcast and what would be helpful for you?
- 0:31And I'm going to take this a little step further into your
- 0:33future and I'm going to talk about what I wish I would have
- 0:36told myself as a brand new flight nurse.
- 0:38So if you're listening and you're a flight clinician, these
- 0:41are things that wisdom that I wish I would have imparted on
- 0:46myself and you can take in as you are a flight clinician now
- 0:50and stepping into the new role. And if you are trying to get
- 0:53into flight as either a nurse or a medic and you want to be a
- 0:57flight clinician, these are things that might be helpful in
- 1:00your path in getting there for you to remember.
- 1:04This wisdom are steps and things that I have imparted on the
- 1:11clients and people that I work with or anybody that wants to
- 1:14get into flight. These are things that I taught
- 1:18as I trained new flight nurses and new flight medics.
- 1:22These are questions that I asked in flight interviews.
- 1:25So I hope that this episode is helpful for you.
- 1:28I hope it gets you thinking. I hope that some of this wisdom
- 1:33I can impart on you and you can take with you to help you either
- 1:37in this process of getting to flight or as you're
- 1:39transitioning over after your offer.
- 1:42So there's lots of things that I can talk about, but I narrowed
- 1:45it down to 12 and I just kind of went through them in my head.
- 1:48What are the pieces of advice that I'd normally give to
- 1:51people? And I want to offer for you if
- 1:54these things, if these, if this wisdom or this piece of advice
- 1:58rings true for you and it's something that you want to hold
- 2:01on to, hold on to it. If it's something that you want
- 2:04to leave, leave it. I just, these are common things
- 2:07that I know have really helped me and help inspire other people
- 2:11as they are in this journey of getting to flight or have
- 2:14already crossed over into flight.
- 2:15And these are things that I held onto for the seven years that I
- 2:19flew. So let's go ahead and get
- 2:21started. I am giving you 12 here.
- 2:24Of course, there's probably more, but these are the first
- 2:27things that came to my head. So I want to share those with
- 2:29you today. This is what I would have told
- 2:32myself as a new flight nurse #1 be willing to be a beginner
- 2:38again. I don't know why this is the
- 2:40hardest part, but I saw a time and time again, as people want
- 2:44to get into flight, you're on the top of your game.
- 2:46You've been a medic or you've been a nurse for lots of years.
- 2:49You're the resource nurse. You're the people, the leader
- 2:52that people come to. They ask you for things.
- 2:56You're on top of your game. And so when you move into
- 2:58flight, you're a beginner again. You're humbled.
- 3:01You do not know how to do everything.
- 3:03And it's supposed to feel like that because you are asked to do
- 3:07a big job and you're really leveling up.
- 3:09So the one most important piece of advice that I can give you is
- 3:14just be willing to be a beginner again.
- 3:16Meaning be willing to fail. Be willing to not know, be
- 3:20willing to feel dumb, to be willing to have doubt.
- 3:23You know, all of those things when you first started out
- 3:26nursing school or you first started out critical care, Be
- 3:28willing to be that person again. And I know that's so hard to do
- 3:32because I think that over time after being in leadership roles,
- 3:36we feel entitled to get it right the first time.
- 3:38And I want to offer you flight is not about getting it right
- 3:40the first time. So be willing to be a beginner
- 3:43again. And that is probably the most
- 3:45uncomfortable thing. And whatever that looks like for
- 3:49you. I know for me that meant being
- 3:51willing to say, I don't know, being willing to say, hey, can
- 3:55you show me that again? Because I've never seen that.
- 3:57I've never done that before. Be willing to look dumb and be
- 4:01willing to ask questions. So that's the first piece of
- 4:05advice. Be willing to be a beginner
- 4:06again. The second thing that I wanted
- 4:08to impart on you that I wish that I could have told my early
- 4:11flight nurse self is you did not get hired for your time and
- 4:15experience. If that were the case, then
- 4:19every flight nurse and every flight medic would have 30 years
- 4:22on their back and everything else in their time and
- 4:24experience. I came from a little Level 3,
- 4:27level 4 trauma center. It was a small bed ICU.
- 4:31I mean, I guess not too small. It was 21 beds.
- 4:34We were just getting neurosurgery.
- 4:36I never had a pediatric patient. I never had a cardiac device
- 4:39before. I had some pretty high acuity
- 4:43patients, but I didn't get hired for my time and experience.
- 4:47What I got hired for was who I was, what I valued, and the team
- 4:50player I was. And when you first start out in
- 4:53this role, you're really going to want to compare your off to
- 4:56other people. And so you're going to be
- 4:59thinking it's time and experience that they hired me
- 5:01on, but I want to move your brain to thinking what are the
- 5:05qualities that they hired you for?
- 5:07For example, for me, I think what I bring to the table for
- 5:12critical care and what I really brought to the table for flight
- 5:15nursing was being able to always speak up, even in the hard
- 5:18moments and ask for what I need for my team and my patient.
- 5:22Not everybody has confidence or is really good at that, but I
- 5:25feel like that's the one thing that I really bring to the table
- 5:28is in the hard moments, I'm willing to ask the hard
- 5:30questions to the people that maybe it's awkward or maybe it's
- 5:34not the right time. I'm just willing to do it now.
- 5:37I'm not good at a lot of things. I'm not a great test taker.
- 5:40I don't feel like sometimes my face says a lot of things that
- 5:44I'm internalizing and thinking. And I had to really work on
- 5:47that. And it's really easy as you're
- 5:49starting out to really focus on what you're really bad at.
- 5:52But remember, what were the things that make you made you
- 5:55good and critical care? What were the things that made
- 5:57you great at your job? And for me, it was that I was
- 6:00really able to build a quick rapport with patients, families,
- 6:05and ask the really hard questions for my team and for my
- 6:09patient. And so I think that's like
- 6:11really what I brought to the table.
- 6:13So #2 you are not hired for your time and experience.
- 6:16Really dig deep. What is it that you bring to the
- 6:19table that has you stand out, that makes you really good at
- 6:23taking care of critical patients?
- 6:24OK #3 Lean into discomfort. What I mean by this is when we
- 6:30start out something new, we try really, really hard to not have
- 6:35doubt, to not have fear, to not feel pressure.
- 6:39And so we try to push that out of the door or push that down
- 6:43and try to get rid of it. We try to tell ourselves, OK, we
- 6:46can't feel doubt. We got it.
- 6:47We got to just feel confident. We even though we've never done
- 6:49this before, we got to show up confidently.
- 6:51And when I say lean into discomfort, I mean stop trying
- 6:55to push out those negative feelings.
- 6:57Just bring them with you. A part of our brain tells us
- 7:01that we can't have fear and still do good at our job.
- 7:04And so I want to offer you whatever that feeling is for
- 7:07you, bring it with you. For me, it's pressure.
- 7:09I felt pressure my entire life to perform, do well, take
- 7:14control, do it perfectly. It's like that's the thought
- 7:17every day when I wake up, my brain offers me, you got to do
- 7:20it better. You got to do it better.
- 7:21And I just put this pressure on myself.
- 7:23And early on in my career, both as an ICU nurse and a flight
- 7:27nurse, I really, I let the pressure get to me.
- 7:29I let it take over. And I it was only because I kept
- 7:32trying to push it away and kept telling, kept trying to tell
- 7:35myself I had to show up confidently.
- 7:37But what I learned to do was just let the pressure hang out
- 7:40there and be there. And after some time, since I
- 7:44didn't judge myself for having it, every time I felt pressure,
- 7:48that's when I would perform. And so I really learned how to
- 7:51feel pressure and still show up confidently.
- 7:54So I want to offer you whatever it is, the discomfort, the
- 7:58feeling, maybe it's fear, maybe it's doubt, maybe it's
- 8:00nervousness, maybe it's anxiety, maybe it's pressure for you.
- 8:04Learn to bring it with you. You can have pressure and still
- 8:07show up confidently. OK #4 Man, this is a big one.
- 8:13This is the first thing that I learned in nursing school and
- 8:16really as an ICU nurse is a good physical assessment is key.
- 8:22Everybody knows people who skimp on their physical assessment,
- 8:25but your physical assessment will never fail you.
- 8:28And so that's one thing that I really learned in ICU and then I
- 8:32took with me in flight, do a really thorough good physical
- 8:35assessment. Now in flight, that's a lot
- 8:37quicker. Our sink call times are 10
- 8:39minutes, so we got to do a quick physical assessment.
- 8:42You and your partner get it done, work as a team, figure out
- 8:45what interventions you're going to do, but your physical
- 8:48assessment will never fail you. So spend time with it.
- 8:52Listen into the heart tones. Listen for things and sounds
- 8:56that don't belong. See what your your patients
- 8:59first assessment is. This is really important because
- 9:02what people don't think about is in flight, you get sound taken
- 9:07away from you. So as an ICU nurse, there's lots
- 9:10of things that I listen to, For example, like the lungs, you
- 9:13would listen to the heart sounds.
- 9:15When you first did your patient's assessment in the
- 9:17morning, you knew it sounded a certain way.
- 9:20And then if you listen to it later and it didn't sound like
- 9:23that, then you can start to say, OK, what's going on?
- 9:25Is my patient having a pneumo? Are they having a hemo?
- 9:28Are they having both? So that's what I mean.
- 9:31A good physical assessment is even more key as a flight nurse
- 9:34because you get that, that the hearing taken away from you.
- 9:38So you want to know what does your patient look like?
- 9:42And do a really thorough, quick physical assessment and do not
- 9:47skimp on that because that will tell you everything. 5-10
- 9:50minutes later when your patient starts to decompensate, what do
- 9:53they look like before and what are they looking like now?
- 9:57OK, I feel like that one's pretty self-explanatory, but I I
- 10:00wanted to bring that up because I think that will save you in a
- 10:04lot of situations #5 critical thinking.
- 10:08When I think about critical thinking, this is when you have
- 10:13a patient, you look at the monitor, the vital signs look
- 10:17great, your labs look great, but then you got this little tiny
- 10:21gut feeling that something's going to go wrong.
- 10:23For me, that's my critical thinking.
- 10:25There are lots of moments early on in my career where I had that
- 10:28feeling and I didn't act on it and I really paid for it later.
- 10:32So critical thinking is key because flight companies are
- 10:36asking for three years ER or ICU experience.
- 10:39Now I never had ER experience and the company I Ward 4 did a
- 10:42lot of scene calls. And the reason why they want
- 10:46critical experience is because they want you to grow your
- 10:48critical thinking skills. So when I started to have trauma
- 10:51patients that I never had before, pre hospital and high
- 10:54risk OB patients that I have never had before, and cardiac
- 10:57device, cardiac device patients that I never had before, balloon
- 11:02pumps, ECMO's, all of those things, I had to rely on my
- 11:06critical thinking skills. And for me, that's when I see
- 11:09the patient, the vital signs look good, but I have this
- 11:11feeling something's going to go wrong.
- 11:13And you have to be able to really practice that and give
- 11:17yourself evidence of when everything looks right, what's
- 11:20that little gut feeling in you and trusting that.
- 11:23So growing your critical thinking skills is key.
- 11:26And that comes from just showing up confidently in the decisions
- 11:30that you're making. So really work on your critical
- 11:34thinking skills and asking the questions of what could go wrong
- 11:38if they go wrong. How am I going to anticipate it?
- 11:41What does it, what would it look like if it starts to go wrong?
- 11:46And just really practicing those skills because those will really
- 11:49help you in flight when you start to have patience that
- 11:52you've never had before. So that's number five.
- 11:55Number six, I personally think this is a big one.
- 11:59This is something that I really value is advocating for your
- 12:02patient and advocating for your families and your team.
- 12:07So actually, let's separate this one.
- 12:09This is advocating for your patient.
- 12:11I know for me, earlier on in my ICU career I was really afraid
- 12:15of the intensivists and asking them for what I wanted.
- 12:19But you got a practice and I think I became really good at
- 12:22this is asking for the hard things, even than the moments
- 12:25where it might make you feel uncomfortable.
- 12:28Advocating for your patient also means maybe you get an order or
- 12:33maybe something they did a certain intervention with the
- 12:36patient and you have this Spidey sense that maybe it's not right.
- 12:41So advocating for your patient, asking the continual questions,
- 12:45being willing to keep asking them until you can get an answer
- 12:50that you and your team feel comfortable with.
- 12:52This is really important in flight because you are going to
- 12:55show up in a lot of hospitals where maybe they just don't have
- 12:59the resources or maybe they were so busy that they maybe went a
- 13:03wrong direction for your patient.
- 13:05So you want to be able to advocate, you want to ask for
- 13:07heart the hard questions, and you want to get what you need
- 13:11for your patient. This also means sometimes you're
- 13:14flying 1-2 hours, 2 1/2 hours and you need to make sure that
- 13:20you get all the meds that you need because what you come to
- 13:24anticipate is that sometimes you have to ground the patient.
- 13:28So sometimes for whatever reason, whether it's weather or
- 13:31mechanical issues or something, you can't fly the patient in the
- 13:342 1/2 hours. So your two and a half hour
- 13:36flight becomes a six hour ground unit hall.
- 13:40So what you want to do is you want to advocate for your
- 13:43patient. You want to make sure that you
- 13:45get the IV drugs that you need, medications that you need for
- 13:50the amount of time if you have to ground your patient.
- 13:53And sometimes that's hard to ask for because they question you,
- 13:56well, why do you need that much if you're only going 2 1/2
- 13:58hours? And then you have to explain to
- 13:59them. So advocating for your patient
- 14:01and what your team needs is really, really, really big in
- 14:04this job. And being willing to be
- 14:05uncomfortable and doing it, OK #7 this kind of goes along with
- 14:09this, but I made it separate on its own, is creating rapport
- 14:12with patients and their families.
- 14:15Listen, I know for all of you guys, OK, some of you, maybe you
- 14:20got into this career because you love to pay and you love the
- 14:24hours. But I really do think a lot of
- 14:26people come to realize that when you get into healthcare, it's
- 14:30because you have to have a strong why.
- 14:32You have this deep want and desire to help people on the
- 14:37worst day of their lives or when they're sick.
- 14:40And that has to transcend the long shifts, the being yelled
- 14:43at, the being kicked at, screamed at, cussed at, poop all
- 14:47over you. Like your why has to be so, so
- 14:51important. And I really believe that
- 14:54everybody in healthcare just has this deep desire to help
- 14:58patients and to help their families.
- 15:00And that's why I think this creating rapport is so
- 15:04important. Like hold, what is your why and
- 15:07why do you want to be doing this?
- 15:09And it all comes down to serving these patients and their
- 15:11families. One thing that I do want to
- 15:14offer you in flight is whatever you are feeling, your patient
- 15:18feels that tenfold. So if you are feeling doubt or
- 15:22fear about running calls and being new in this job, that's
- 15:25OK. But I want to offer you that
- 15:27when you figure out the tools to help yourself through that and
- 15:31to take the fear and the doubt with you, you will be able to
- 15:34help your patient. Because every single patient
- 15:37that you load into that helicopter is going to have fear
- 15:40and doubt. Every single one.
- 15:42They did not think on that day at that time that they would be
- 15:46doing that. And so I want to offer you learn
- 15:49the skills and tools to help yourself in those moments to, to
- 15:54work through the fear and the doubt because that's what you're
- 15:56going to have to do for your patients.
- 15:58And creating the rapport with patients and your families is so
- 16:01key in flight because you're going to have a quick 5 or 10
- 16:05minutes with some of these instances because you got to get
- 16:07them out. So creating that trust is going
- 16:10to be huge. As a critical care nurse, you've
- 16:12already known how to do that. I know you've had many instances
- 16:16where you've had to practice that.
- 16:17I have not been good at this. Over time, I got better, but it
- 16:21was really hard for me at first to like take care of a patient
- 16:24in the ICU and then also take care of the families and then
- 16:27learn how to explain it and then not show my face and just, it
- 16:33took some time for me. That wasn't something that came
- 16:36natural for me. But in flight, you want to take
- 16:39everything that you've learned in critical care and then apply
- 16:42it. And you want to be able to do it
- 16:43quickly because you have to be able to both with your patient
- 16:48and their families, create so much trust.
- 16:51This is their family member or them that you're going to put in
- 16:54the helicopter with only 5 or 10 minutes of meeting you.
- 16:56And then they got to create, you got to create trust very quickly
- 16:59with them. So everything that you've
- 17:01learned beforehand, this is what you want to implement in these
- 17:04situations. So creating rapport with
- 17:07patients and families is key. And learning how to do do that
- 17:10very quickly and create that trust is really important for
- 17:13flight. OK #8 this was a big one for me
- 17:20as I became a flight nurse. Be willing to be dynamic.
- 17:24Loosen the reins on control and perfection.
- 17:29As you guys get into flight, you will realize nothing goes as
- 17:32planned. Sometimes it's not your plan A,
- 17:35sometimes it's your not your Plan B.
- 17:36Sometimes you got to go all the way to plan Z.
- 17:39And being an ICU nurse, you know us, we're a little bit of a
- 17:42perfectionist. We want things a certain way, we
- 17:45want things done. We want our lines perfectly
- 17:48labeled. And as you get into pre hospital
- 17:50and my ER nurses, you know this, you got to be dynamic.
- 17:54You got to loosen the range, you got to loosen the control, you
- 17:56got to go with the flow. And my biggest thought that I
- 18:00had to tell myself was embrace the chaos.
- 18:02I just was not used to chaos working in the ICU.
- 18:05So be willing to be dynamic, be willing to change.
- 18:08Don't be set on your ways. Don't be set on what you think
- 18:13the plan is. Be willing to listen to your
- 18:15teammate, other people, other crews, other hospital staff.
- 18:23Be willing to be dynamic and change it up.
- 18:25What you do for one patient, you might have that same exact
- 18:28patient diagnosis. Again, be willing to know that
- 18:31you might have to change it up. There's lots of things that
- 18:33happen between getting the patient and dropping off the
- 18:37patient. So loosen the reins on control.
- 18:40Trust yourself, trust your team, and be willing to kind of go
- 18:43with the flow and brace the chaos.
- 18:46Something that I really leaned into for this as I was learning
- 18:50to like let go of the control a little bit is 2 of the things
- 18:53that I really value is transparency and integrity.
- 18:57And when I didn't know something, I would just always
- 19:00say, hey, I've never dealt with this before.
- 19:03How, how can you, how can you help me out?
- 19:07What do I need to know about it? What do I need to know about
- 19:10this? For example, I remember my first
- 19:12internal pacer patient, I had never had an internal pacer
- 19:17before. And so I just asked the bedside
- 19:19nurse. I was like, OK, what do I need
- 19:20to know about this mode? Like I, I had studied on it and
- 19:23we got education on it. But I said, give me a quick
- 19:25rundown what I need to know about this mode.
- 19:27If the patient codes, what I need to know, who do I, who can
- 19:30I call him if I'm in the air? What's the base hospital that I
- 19:34can call if I need help with this?
- 19:36So be transparent and be in integrity.
- 19:39Say when you don't know something, ask the question, get
- 19:42the resources of the people that can help you so that you know
- 19:46how to care for this patient to the best of your ability.
- 19:49Integrity is everything, and I think this goes with
- 19:52transparency is always be willing to speak up when you
- 19:55don't know. And here's the thing guys, we're
- 19:57not perfect. We don't know everything,
- 19:59especially as you're starting out and even after flying for
- 20:02seven years, there was just things that.
- 20:04We don't know everything and I think confidence really comes
- 20:07from being able to express, hey, this is what I am confident
- 20:10about, this is what I'm not. And being willing to seek out
- 20:12the resources to find out what can help you and your patient
- 20:16and your team at that time. OK #9 You will fail a lot, a
- 20:24lot. And I know that there's this
- 20:26huge fear of failure. And I want to offer you guys
- 20:30that failure is required where you're going.
- 20:33And so instead of fearing it, just lean into it will happen.
- 20:37Failure is required because it's how we grow.
- 20:40It's how we learn. And so one thing that Ioffer
- 20:44that I teach inside the flight prep Academy and then I teach
- 20:46everybody that I would precept and every new hire that I'm
- 20:49helping transition now into flight is debrief after every
- 20:52call. When I say brief, I mean with
- 20:55your team, with your partner, with your pilot, with your
- 20:57preceptor. What did you do well?
- 20:59What did you not? What didn't go well?
- 21:01What do you want to do differently?
- 21:03Those three questions are so key because you will learn a lot.
- 21:07And if you can look at it from, hey, what did I do really well
- 21:11in this? What did I didn't do well?
- 21:13What do I want to do differently?
- 21:15Excuse me? And that's how you're going to
- 21:17learn and grow. And that's how you are going to
- 21:20level up with each call that you're doing.
- 21:22That's how you're going to work through the fail failures.
- 21:24You're, you're going to not make it, meaning that you're not
- 21:27meant for the job. You're going to be able to look
- 21:31at it critically, take the criticism, and then bring into
- 21:34your next call what you want to do differently.
- 21:36So debriefing and knowing that you're going to fail a lot #10
- 21:42when you start out, you are going to feel like this is what
- 21:50I see with new hires. Sometimes you want to hold on to
- 21:54your old job because you are afraid that you're going to
- 21:58fail. And I think that this is the
- 22:00worst thing that you can do for yourself.
- 22:02How I like to explain this is going to the island, which is
- 22:08your new island of flight and you leveling up, and you went
- 22:11there in your lifeboat. But what I see is people, you
- 22:13have one foot on the new island and then you're holding onto the
- 22:16lifeboat. And what I tell people is you
- 22:19got to be willing to burn the boat down, which means you got
- 22:22to decide you're all in this no matter what.
- 22:25Through the failures, through the criticism, through the
- 22:27discomfort, through the fear, through the doubt, through you
- 22:30becoming the new version of you. You got to be willing to burn
- 22:34the lifeboat down. When you hold on to the
- 22:37lifeboat, it it has you toggling in between your new life and
- 22:41your old life. And what happens is when you're
- 22:44in the discomfort, you want to go back to the last comfortable
- 22:47version of yourself. And so I see a lot of people
- 22:50hold on to both jobs. And then when it becomes
- 22:53uncomfortable or when they start to fail, which of course you're
- 22:56going to do when you start something new, you get back in
- 22:58that lifeboat and you go back to your old life.
- 23:00And you think you do that because that's the most
- 23:03comfortable version of you. That's you where you felt the
- 23:07most comfortable because you knew that life, You knew that
- 23:10job. But I want to offer your you
- 23:12that you're lying to yourself thinking it will be easier
- 23:16because if you're anything like me, who's an overachiever and
- 23:19who drives and who always wants to continue to grow, you will
- 23:23feel way more angst going back to what you think is going to be
- 23:27easier because you will always wonder what if.
- 23:30And same for those of you guys who are on the fence of do I go
- 23:35for a flight or not? That's a worse place that you
- 23:37can be because you're holding on to that lifeboat.
- 23:40And I just want to offer you burn that boat down.
- 23:43Our brain likes to do this because it likes to tell us,
- 23:45hey, if you don't know that you can do this yet, then we need to
- 23:51hold on to our lifeboat. If you know that you can't do
- 23:54this yet, then we can't be 100% confident about it yet.
- 23:57But I want off you. That is simply not true.
- 24:00You can just decide that you're going to go all in, pass or fail
- 24:03because you're going to fail a lot and that you're going to
- 24:06step into the discomfort of the new version of yourself.
- 24:09So I want to offer you, if you're on that new island, burn
- 24:12that lifeboat down, decide to go all in, and you're going to
- 24:16watch the part of your brain that's going to want to go back
- 24:18to the comfortable version of you.
- 24:20And it's going to offer you when you first fail, it's going to
- 24:22tell you words like this, hey, I guess this isn't meant for you.
- 24:27Or you get a no in an interview, a flight interview, and you're
- 24:29like, oh, I guess this job wasn't meant for me.
- 24:32But no, it's going to play tricks on you by saying that.
- 24:35It's just because you haven't decided to go all in.
- 24:38You haven't decided to burn the boat down and get off the fence,
- 24:40and failure after failure, you're going to keep working at
- 24:43it. OK, so that was big.
- 24:45That's number ten. Burn the boat down #11 And I
- 24:48alluded to this, but I think that it needs its own space as
- 24:52well. Hold on to your why, we all got
- 24:57into healthcare for a reason and then you all want flight for a
- 25:01reason. For me, I have this deep desire
- 25:04to help people in the most critical days of their life.
- 25:08My wife getting into nursing and I shared this with you guys
- 25:11before, but for those of you guys who are just joining me, my
- 25:13wife getting in getting into nursing is I had my twins at 26
- 25:17weeks. They were born 3 1/2 months
- 25:19early. 1 LB and 2 lbs, one pound, 13 oz 2 LB one ounce.
- 25:23They told me and I had actually doctors tell me to not even go
- 25:26through with delivering them. And I mean to not delivering
- 25:29them but not do life saving things for them because they
- 25:32were going to have so many issues later on or we're
- 25:36probably not going to survive and make it.
- 25:38Listen, they're almost 18 years old.
- 25:41My twin boys 61, my twin daughter's 55.
- 25:44If you guys listen to my last podcast, she was on it.
- 25:46They're doing great. They're top of their game in
- 25:48sports. And so getting into nursing was
- 25:54because of the nurses that helped me in the NICU, spent 75
- 25:58days in the NICU and they helped me hold on to those moments.
- 26:02And that's why I got into nursing and that's why I wanted
- 26:06to go into critical care. The reason why I wanted to go
- 26:09into flight is because I had this deep desire to help people
- 26:12on the worst day of their lives. And I wanted, I knew I had the
- 26:16skills to not only care for them critically, but to be there for
- 26:20them. And that's the why I held onto
- 26:24in the months that I first became a flight nurse and that
- 26:29it was really, really hard and that I wanted to give up.
- 26:31You got to know what your why is and you got to hold on to that.
- 26:35And that becomes really important post your offer.
- 26:39And when you're feeling discomfort and when you're
- 26:42feeling fear, so ask yourself why, Why?
- 26:45Why am I doing this? Why do I want this goal?
- 26:47And then really dig into that desire of it because that's
- 26:51going to be the thing that you're going to want to hold on
- 26:53to. OK, the last 1 #12 this is what
- 26:57I want to leave you guys with. Enjoy this moment.
- 27:02If I could go back, this would be the one piece of advice that
- 27:05I would have told myself even before getting in the flight.
- 27:08Enjoy the process of leveling up.
- 27:10Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the hard climb because you
- 27:16will never have your first scene call again.
- 27:18You will never have your first IFT again.
- 27:21And I wish I would have told myself enjoy that first scene
- 27:25call even when you messed up. Enjoy that first really high
- 27:29acuity IFT. Enjoy that first life that you
- 27:33got to save you and your teammates because you can spend
- 27:40so much time having anxiety and angst and working yourself up,
- 27:44or you can just enjoy this moment to have the skills and
- 27:48all the hard work that you did to pay up to this moment in
- 27:51time. And I wish I would have told
- 27:54myself to enjoy it more. And this is really what ioffer
- 27:58you inside the Flight Prep Academy is a look at your
- 28:01thoughts, the strategy and the mindset to get to flight so that
- 28:04you can learn to take some of these negative emotions with you
- 28:06and enjoy the process. Because really, as I look back
- 28:10at my time in flight, it was about the person that I became.
- 28:14I loved every moment of being able to fly and work with the
- 28:18best of the best teams. In fact, the people and my
- 28:22teammates are what I miss the most.
- 28:26But enjoy this moment of having the skills and the training and
- 28:32all the dedication that you have put in, the time, the countless
- 28:36sleepless nights, the studying, all of that to be in this
- 28:41moment. And I want to offer you that you
- 28:45have an opportunity to enjoy it as you're getting to it and you
- 28:48have an opportunity to enjoy it afterwards.
- 28:51And if you want the support, this is a community that I wish
- 28:55I had as I was trying to get to flight and that I wish I had as
- 28:58a nursing student, as a critical care nurse, and as a flight
- 29:00nurse inside the Flight Prep Academy.
- 29:03You will get ongoing daily support and you'll get weekly
- 29:07calls so that we can work on the strategy and the mindset piece
- 29:11so that you can enjoy the process and become the person
- 29:15that you are meant to become to get into this role.
- 29:18I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast.
- 29:20DM me, let me know what you thought and I answer every
- 29:24single DM back and I hope to see you guys inside the flight Prep
- 29:28Academy. Join us there.
- 29:30It's a lifetime membership. I not only help you get into
- 29:32flight, but help you transition confidently in the role and then
- 29:35you can be in this group for a lifetime support for however
- 29:38long you want to fly. That's it this week.
- 29:40See you guys next week. Bye.
- 29:42If anything in this episode sparked your interest into
- 29:44getting into flight, come join my flight flight group.
- 29:46We are an entire community that meets together on a weekly basis
- 29:49with an ongoing group chat. And if you are already flying
- 29:52and you are currently a flight nurse or flight medic, you can
- 29:54join my all flight clinician group as well.
- 29:57You can click on the link to join in the show notes or you
- 29:59can DM me on Instagram. I hope to see all of you guys
- 30:01inside.