Latest / Nurse Leadership Dumpster Fire / Episode 6 ADHD is our SUPERPOWER as Nurse Leaders part 1
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Nurse Leader Dumpster Fire Podcast. I am your co-host, Cindy Merritt. speaker-1: I'm your co-host, Teresa Higby. We are both nurse leaders and we are here on this podcast to share our research challenges, views with other nurse leaders, et cetera. We welcome all aspiring current and seasoned nurse leaders to join in because we are hoping to bring honest, tangible and valuable tips, tricks and lessons where, regardless of where you are in your leadership journey. If this is your first time joining us, we do have an intro episode if you want to go back to that and just understand any background on us. speaker-0: ⁓ We need to note though that Teresa and I are both employees of the VA, but this podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by the VA. Anybody that we share stories about, we are going to protect the anonymity and try to just share the gist of the experiences we've had. And of course, we will also be protecting any patient privacy so that we are complying with HIPAA laws. So yeah, happy to be here. I got to say guys, we have had... such a journey on trying to figure out our sound today. Like we started this podcast thinking that we were going to just be able to get on and record and make funny jokes or tell stories. And it's been such a learning experience trying to understand for two people that have no experience in tech. speaker-1: Yeah, definitely. It's been a journey overall, like all of this. Like it's taken quite a bit of time to like figure out how to make things work, how to launch a podcast, what to do with it. Like it's, it's a lot. It's been fun though. It's been a really fun journey. I'm glad we are doing it, but there are times I think that both of us would say that it's because of the amount of time we spend that you're kind of end up feeling a little frustrated, but also excited when we complete a project. If you get that both. little dichotomy feeling of like, love and hate this right now. speaker-0: Well, we've talked about this just like in projects in general before where sometimes you start a project and you think, I just have to do A, B, C, and D, and then I'm going to get to the end and it's going to be amazing. And then you have like 17 more letters onto that steps. then, but then I don't know, maybe the reward feels better after you work so much harder. That's what I'm going to tell myself. speaker-1: I would say that's true even with the project where we did installing your lights. Cause that was ended up being, we thought X, Y, and Z, but as we got into it, we were like, ⁓ now we have to go into LMNOP. And then once we got LMNOP figured out, we realized we needed QRS. speaker-0: That section of feeling completed was so good. speaker-1: And it looked so good. It was so exciting. speaker-0: Yeah, which is kind of related to what we want to talk about today, which is overcoming some challenges that you may have as a nurse or a leader. I think we've mentioned this a couple of times on previous episodes that both you and I have at least some symptoms of ADHD and how that has affected our journey and how we have been able to work with it and maybe turned it into a superpower. Yeah. speaker-1: ⁓ So something that both of us have struggled with is different scenarios within a project. So one of the things we did, we both have a little bit of ADHD, right? And we, and a lot of people in our country and in our society obviously have some experience or, and we, think what you found as far as research is that the CDC reports that 15.5 million adults have some level of ADHD in their, that's 6 % of our population. speaker-0: I to... Sorry, I was wanting to know like what the quantity, because in nursing, it seems to me that ADHD is very in line with the profession of nursing, because one of the things that people tend to do when they have ADHD is they task split, because they have a hard time staying focused, and so they jump from task to task. And nursing by nature requires you to task split. And so I had this theory that... speaker-1: We found. speaker-0: more people might be drawn to nursing if they have ADHD. And so was curious to see what those statistics might be. So yeah, the CDC was one. I had a hard time finding anything specific to nursing, but you found some stuff related to nursing ⁓ statistics. What did you find? speaker-1: Yeah, so I found what I kind of looked at is just how many nurses do we have in the country because if the CDC says 6 % of the population has ADHD, and then the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are about 5 million RNs that hold a license and about 3.5 million jobs, most of those ones are in hospital settings. So because nurses can do a lot of different things, obviously, you can still hold a license and maybe not currently work in it or work in an area that they wouldn't... put in that category, but still requires your nursing license. ⁓ And that would be at least, even if we just want the bare minimum, that would be 300,000 nurses with ADHD. is a lot. And that's just saying at the lowest level possible. And I think there's one statistic that you found that said, what was the percentage of nurses on that one? speaker-0: This was an article I found that was related to ADHD and autism in nursing. it's similar to what the CDC said that it was about 6 % that have been diagnosed with ADHD, but up to 20 % suspected that they had ADHD. So if that's true, then the percentage of people in nursing with ADHD would actually be higher than maybe other professions. It's really hard to do a desk job if you have ADHD, right? speaker-1: Right. And that's what we both found when we transitioned into our leadership role. It was tricky, like trying to complete desk projects or put together like policies, SOPs, that type of stuff. was really challenging to stay focused. speaker-0: Yeah. So the other thing I looked up just for some context was I found an article in the Frontiers in Psychology that I was looking for some definition. the CDC defines ADHD as inattention with or without hyperactivity with impulsivity. And that hyperactivity, if you have hyperactivity with your inattention, usually decreases in adulthood. And then the Frontiers in Psychology described that the way that that often manifests is difficulty setting realistic tasks, organizing your tasks, maintaining focus in the presence of disturbances, and difficulty completing lengthy tasks and less interesting. And I found that last one was hugely problematic to me when I got into leadership. How did you feel about that? speaker-1: If I didn't like a specific thing, I would literally put it off till the very last second. So that comes, that's what I do. And then I wait for that pressure to build. So then I can finally actually complete the task. I think that was a huge challenge with that. I don't know. What did you think? speaker-0: Yeah, well, the area that I still find I have such a hard time with it is when I have to attend meetings that I really don't care anything about. But because my job requires me to like, be at least superficially aware of what's going on, or sometimes they just want me there as like a presence, especially virtual meetings. If I am not engaging in the conversation and I don't care about what we're talking about, I really, really have a hard time paying attention. It's very difficult. And I still struggle with that. speaker-1: I also have a similar thing. Like I'll just start ⁓ like wandering off or I'll be playing the meeting. Like if it's a teams meeting specifically, not a good meeting for me. If I'm also not interested, if it's a boring meeting and you want me to pay attention, it needs to be in person where I know I'm being with other people because other little distractions can sometimes help maintain my engagement. But on teams, it's a no go. speaker-0: It's so easy to just pay attention to something else, you know, especially if your camera's not on and nobody's looking at you. It's so easy to just like jump over to check your email or work on a project you were trying to get done and you just haven't had time to do until someone calls on you. And you're like, what was the question? speaker-1: Yep. That's always like, uh-oh, what was I supposed to do? So I, so let's go over my, was that all of your struggles with ADHD or just, just one of them? speaker-0: And let's see, I tried to write them down because obviously I forget what I'm talking about. Yeah, so meanings, yeah, tasks that don't directly correlate with my goals. like interest for me, if I'm very goal oriented and vision oriented. And so if I can see that a task is going to align with a goal, like even if it's an unpleasant task, if I know it's going to help me get to my end goal. I can usually work through that and get it done. But if like somebody assigns me to do a task that I have no interest in doing and it doesn't align with any of my goals, that one is very hard for me to get done. And then sitting, I hate sitting. And so being at a desk job is really hard. then I really, so sometimes ADHD can also affect your executive function skills. And so the one that often affects me the most is being organized. Like I want to be organized. have a lot of techniques to try to get organized. But what I find is that I start an organization system and then I don't stick with it. So if you like look at my folders, like I try to keep them all organized, but I'm not consistent. So when I'm looking for something, I'm jumping from all the possible areas. I might've stuck that because I can't remember, cause I haven't stuck with the systematic way of organizing and I haven't found. I think I'm getting better at it, but I don't think that it's as good as I would like it to be yet. Yeah. speaker-1: feel that. So mine are similar, not just meetings, but anything that I don't find interesting I struggle doing. Sitting for long periods of time also definitely a no go for me. My brain just literally, I can feel it shut off sometimes. it's just like, it can't no longer functioning. So that, and then I'm also pretty goal oriented, so I similarly can focus on something. For example, I recently took on a task of updating our med administration policy by taking, we have three or four policies that kind of correlate to medication administration. And we were like, we probably don't need them all in multiple places. We need it all in one to help staff at the frontline actually find it, which is a funny thing because one of the things I recently discovered was that are the way we find our policies and the way people utilize that information. Our system was not set up for success for the people that use it at the end. Now, if you're at your desk all day long, you can, you have the time to find stuff, but when you need something urgently or emergently, or you're trying to do something with your patient, but you can't find the policy regarding that, it gets frustrating. And then you're just like, well, I'm just going to wing it, or I'm going to ask someone and they'll be like, ⁓ in my experience, if you just do X, Y, or Z, and then pretty soon it's... Then the nurse gets in trouble for not following policy when they couldn't even find it. speaker-0: it can be a safety issue because you really like not have the correct information that could potentially affect a patient outcome or it could cause a delay in care. Like there's multiple ways that that can affect outcomes in your workplace. speaker-1: And I hate doing policies, not good at them, don't love them. But I know I volunteered to take that on because I know that that matters to me, that those things that the nurses are looking for are easy and they can find it. So I'm excited to take that on, but I hate it. speaker-0: You also seem to really like get a lot of satisfaction out of getting rid of redundancy, I've noticed. And so I think anytime you can take four policies and make it one, like that seems to really fill your cup too. speaker-1: It does. Because as someone with ADHD, like similar to you staying organized, I need organization. If I don't have organization, I am a complete disaster. Like if I will never find my house keys, if I don't consistently put them in the same spot every day, I will never find them again. I have, I have done it to myself. And as a, as I've gotten older, I'm like, my keys always go here. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's been sort of a coping mechanism for me in my home life. And I think I am trying to do it in work, but I have a hard time differentiating what I need to keep and what I don't need to keep. But like at home, my organization system is to just get rid of stuff and have less things. So it's easier for me to be organized if I just have less stuff. So I've by nature kind of become a minimalist because that helps me function and feel more productive. speaker-1: I like that. So what have you found that does work occasionally at home or at work? Sorry, we know home. That's easier. speaker-0: Trying to have, like trying to get better at consistency of how I organize my folders. And at least like now I know I have like two main pathways because what I've done is I have folders for like all of the different departments that I'm over. And then I have like a main folder for all the things that are at my associate chief nurse level. And then within there, I might have different folders. like. For example, I have a folder in my ACN role for hiring, and within hiring, I might have all the different positions that I've worked on hiring for, but then I might have also put the hiring under the department that I'm hiring for. So at least I know, well, if it's not in this one, it's probably in this one. So that has helped in that, you know, it's not perfect, but it is at least like simplified versus me just sharing them in random folders anywhere. The other thing I've done since I've been in this role, is I only allow myself to have one notebook because in past I would start multiple notebooks and I'd write myself notes. And then I wouldn't remember which notebook I wrote in. I would misplace the notebook. I leave it on another unit. And so having only one notebook has been better at helping me keep track. And then the other thing I do now is if when I go through the pages of the notebook, if I can read through the page and I'm like, everything on this page is done. I fold it. And then I know I'm done with that. So then I stop. thinking I need to look at that page and going back and duplicating work essentially. How about you? What have you been following? speaker-1: I actually have a similar process. have a notebook also. And if I have to do things on it, I have one that kind of helps me with what are my top priorities? What are my goals this week? And it has like a column for that. And I'll put all that in there. And then if I have random, I'll have a section for random notes. say something pops up or someone asks me to do something, I'll hurry and jot that down. And with this notebook, if I haven't completed everything on that task, what I do is I take speaker-0: I stopped being able to hear you again. I can hear you again. When you were talking about your notebook system. speaker-1: Yay! So yeah, my let's continue with my notebook system. So anyways, I will transfer anything from the previous week onto my next week if I have it. And then I just rip that paper up and I'm done. And that is like, I don't have to look at it anymore. It's not part of my things and I move it, but I also do. speaker-0: like get rid of it forever. have this like fear that I'm gonna throw something away and then something's gonna come up and I'll be like, shit, I need to know what that thing was I wrote down. So that's why it's mine. speaker-1: That makes sense. I haven't had that happen to me. So maybe I'm either lucky or I do transfer enough stuff. ⁓ I will say I don't rip it out and throw it away until I know everything is done and documented and I'm good to go. speaker-0: Yeah. I want to pause for a minute and try to share my screen to show everyone this interesting little, what is it, diagram. Let's see. speaker-1: Yeah, of note, by the way, everyone, we do stream onto Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and on YouTube, we have full video feeds. So if you ever are curious or you want to see what we're talking about, go ahead and go there. speaker-0: Thank you for mentioning that. Okay, so I'm sharing my screen right now and this diagram is showing a philosophy and how you can take viewing ADHD as somewhat of like a disability or a barrier and viewing it like people that are successful, philosophy is I'm successful in spite of my ADHD, but kind of flipping that narrative to embrace the symptoms or the characteristics of ADHD to look at the things that are actually strength based and how we can reframe that to actually consider ADHD a superpower, which I think there are a lot of things that ADHD does make for good leadership roles. in this diagram, it's showing like on the sort of in spite of ADHD side of things, it's showing A lot of times successes are unacknowledged. The journey might feel hard. You might feel directionless. You might feel like you haven't reached your potential or you might feel like you're just not living up to your best self. And the unacknowledged one was interesting. I found that in a couple of places when I was doing research because, and I didn't really cue this in as an ADHD symptom, but the thought was you work really hard to get something done. You accomplish the task, but you don't often have a feeling of satisfaction. It's just like, okay, that's done. what? What else? And it seemed like that was a little bit linked to the concept we've talked about before, which is that, ⁓ my gosh, my brain is not remembering the word. Your imposter syndrome. That you don't feel worthy. It's almost like you might, because it took you so long to get the task done, instead of feeling proud of yourself, you might feel like, I got it done, but I got it done and it was so much harder than all of these other people who just like breezed through it. And so impairing yourself to other people, which is the number one problem, speaker-1: That's a number one, my number one problem. do that exact thing. However, another thing about me though, and that is the double edged sword that I think you're getting to is like, I also, if I'm on it, I am cranking stuff out. I might have two or three days where I'm like not super productive. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So then if you continue on the journey where you essentially recognize that you have this diagnosis, you become self-aware, you can begin to have self-acceptance, and then you can redefine that success to increase the self-efficiency and then harness your strengths. So for one thing that I think you and I both have a strength in, And I see a lot of other leaders that I suspect have ADHD also do really well, because if you have a hard time controlling your impulses, that might actually translate to more of a philosophy of having, not being afraid to try things, not being afraid to take risks, which to me translates to innovation. And innovation is where we often are able to break ground and create new pathways and new systems, which I feel like has been one of the things that has made me a very successful leader is being able to innovate. Okay, so we were talking about the concept of innovation in ADHD and how that can be a superpower. Have you experienced that? Have you thought about it that way before? speaker-1: I haven't. think this, I have started to shift my thinking around it and also accepted that sometimes I'm just going to be slower at certain things than other people would be because I know it's just something and I don't shame myself as much as I used to. So that helps. But I will say lately, I have noticed that I do have more of an innovative mind than some of my peers. And I realized like, ⁓ nobody even noticed that these things were a problem. And I did. And so I like take pride in that, the fact. The downside of that sometimes is I feel like I'm the one always bringing the problems to the table. So sometimes that's like a little bit like, like, ⁓ my gosh, just we have so many other things to worry about. And it's like, I know, but. speaker-0: But I think we've been on the front line of trying new things before, which I think we both have done that. And I think that can come with some criticism from folks that don't feel comfortable with change or who think, ⁓ you don't know what you're doing or that feels very hasty, which is true. Sometimes you just have to try something and if it falls flat, it falls flat. But that's just sort of a side effect of being willing to try things, which is the other thing I'm going to stop sharing now. ⁓ So I can see my notes again. But one of the other things that came from that little way of framing things was people with ADHD are often more resilient because we are really good at failing. So we try things very easily. We fail. And then we immediately go into problem solving mode and to like, how do you get around this problem? You have a barrier. And instead of just shutting down and just being like, I guess I just can't do it. We're better at getting up and trying again. Yeah. speaker-1: I actually am dealing with that currently with a major project that has been going on and on and on. And I finally went up, I took it up the ladder and I was like, look, we need to get this done. This is how many new things are going to be coming out to new frontline staff. We can't bombard them that much with that many new things. We don't have control over some of these new things coming because they're a major equipment purchases and it's a huge coordination effort between them and us and all this other stuff. And I was like, but this thing we do have power over and we can control how we deliver this. And they're like, ⁓ but there's a supply chain issue. And I'm like, correct, there is, but we also have a way around that specific issue if we just plan, work together and, and make it happen. speaker-0: When you make a change, there's going to be a cascading fall of events, the domino effect. We found that whenever we did our house projects was that you start down a project and then you realize, ⁓ well, I can't do that until I do this other thing. And it can be the same in doing a work project. Like you said, like, ⁓ we need to get this thing done, but there's a barrier, which is that there's a supply chain issue. That doesn't mean you can't do it. It just means you have another problem within your problem. And so you have to get willing to be able to work around that. But I think people who have ADHD are used to having to run into barriers and are used to trying to find workarounds. so that's another superpower that you can have as an ADHDer is that you are more resilient and you're less likely to give up on a project because you can see the cascading events and be more willing to go through those extra hurdles that other people may just be like, ⁓ well, that is a hurdle. then the whole thing stops. speaker-1: That's literally what has happened and it's fine. I'm like, that's fine. I get it. ⁓ I understand everybody else's barriers. I can see them. The other thing is people assume they don't know that they have barriers or that I'm not understanding their barrier. like, no, no, no, no, no. I get your barrier. Let me explain. And so I have to like, show them what I mean. speaker-0: So hopefully this was a little bit helpful to you. My hope from this is that A, you learn to embrace your ADHD symptoms, understand that they actually can give you some superpowers and just learning how to harness those in. And hopefully we gave you a couple tools if you're struggling. Especially in leadership, I think it can be challenging as a bedside nurse, but once you sit down at a desk after you've been a bedside nurse for a number of years and you're used to just thinking while moving, it's a big transition. so hopefully this gives you some ideas on how you can be successful. speaker-1: Thank you guys for joining us on this ADHD episode. If you have any other ideas on topics or you want some support in any of those things we talked about, definitely please reach out to us. We have an Instagram nurse leadership dumpster fire podcast. You can also reach us at our emails, teressa at aria-nurse-circle.com or cindy at aria-nurse-circle.com. And when it comes to my name, it's T-A-R-E-S-A at aria-nurse-circle.com. So Cindy's pretty easy. C-I-N-D-Y. speaker-0: Sometimes people get confused with the Y and the I, but yeah. That is true. yeah, check us out. If you're watching us on YouTube, please like and subscribe. That very much helps us. And check us out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you like to listen while you're driving or doing chores or whatever, because you also have a PhD and you need to be moving while you're listening and learning. But yeah, thanks for tuning in and thanks for joining us in this conversation and being patient through all of our technical difficulties as we learn and grow. on our growth mindset. speaker-1: Hopefully they're entertaining. Have a good one!