Bill Klaproth (Host): This is Today in Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership.

I'm Bill Klaproth. With me is Katie Bloedau clinical Nurse III at Duke Health, and Kimberly Gordon, co-founder Healing Politics. As we talk about the strategies nurse leaders can use to support employed nurses running for office while protecting themselves, their nurse colleagues, And the institution.

Katie and Kimberly, welcome.

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: Thank you very much for having us, bill.

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: It's great to be here. Bill.

Host: Yeah, great to have you here. So This is a very interesting topic. I love this nurses running for office. Kimberly, let me start with you. Why do we need more nurses in elected office?

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: We definitely need more nurses in elected office.

And the reason is, is because we have legislatures, we have county commissions and city councils that are filled with people who don't understand healthcare yet healthcare is one of our main issues in the country, across the country, um, And we don't have professionals that can weigh in on all of the policy being made further.

We have, um, we have a very divisive politics at the time, very polarized. We truly believe that nurses, because of the skills and expertise and knowledge that we have, can work to bridge the divide and, and heal our politics And the way we discuss these issues.

Host: Well, nurses do have a unique experience. They have a lot of, uh, wisdom in these areas.

Thoughts, and it's good to have them basically have a seat at the table.

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Definitely

Host: Isn't that, right?

For sure.

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Absolutely.

Host: Yeah. So Katie, what inspired you to create a toolkit for nurses interested in pursuing elected office?

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: Yeah, thank you for asking. I was very interested in, um, how to increase nursing voice at the table at the political table.

And since most of the almost five million nurses in the country are employed, it seems to make sense to me for us to focus on the needs of employed nurses. We also wanted to give some insight for employers so that, uh. If you have a key employee That is coming to you and expressing an interest in running for office, the employer kind of knows what to say and how to navigate those conversations.

Host: Yeah, so getting them prepared for this all the way around is really an important step in this. And then Kimberly, I know we talked about it's important to have nurses at the table. What role can nurse leaders play And what impact can they have in this process?

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: That's a great question because I can build on what Katie said.

Um, Lisa and I presented for the first-time at our, at the National AONL conference in 2024. And when we, after we finished our presentation, we had a nurse leader that had come up to us and said, you should really consider creating a toolkit. Because I had one of the staff nurses that works with me came to me and said, I want to run for elected office.

And we had no idea what to do. We wanted to support him, but we didn't know how to support him or even how to begin because nurse, This is not a space that nurses explore very often. So that was really the impetus. And when Katie came along to do this project as part of her master's degree, it was perfect.

but the role that nurse leaders, it's kind of like when we think about most nurses are females, And we think about that sandwich generation of people between, you know, their parents and their children. Nurse leaders are sandwiched in between hospital leadership And the staff that they work with, And so they've got a unique role to play in that they have to protect the hospital.

But By and large, every nurse leader that we've spoken to is like, I want to do everything I can to support the nurse, but I don't know how to do that and keep the hospital safe. So they have a very tricky role, but a really important role because they're usually the first one to find out that This is happening.

Host: Yeah. So you said, uh. Nurses are kind of like the sandwich generation. They're in between leadership And the patients on the one end. So Katie, what are some of the other barriers that nurses face when considering a run for office and how can we dismantle those barriers?

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: Sure. I think that a lot of healing politics work has been focused on those barriers and facilitators and trying to mitigate the barriers and increase the facilitators for nurse candidates for sure.

Um, so nurse. Candidates are looking at navigating some really complex, uh, questions of time away from work and, um, impacts to income and benefits, that kind of thing. They're also trying to make sure that they are in compliance with, um, policies of the institution with any relevant legislation and, um, wanting to be sure that they are doing the right thing.

Nurses love to do the right thing.

Host: Well, it seems like,

Bill Klaproth (Host): uh,

Host: the real-world questions that you said are really important. How does this work? How am I going to juggle all this? All of those things. Making sure I'm in compliance.

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: Absolutely.

Host: I

would think also, does this line up with the organization's goals? I don't want to be on the.

The right or the left of what they're doing, basically. So you've got to navigate all of those things to them.

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: Absolutely, absolutely. One of the things that I heard when I spoke with nurse legislators and with nurse executives is that sometimes the candidate that's running is the first person to run from their institution that they're aware of.

And so that can be difficult to be using a pro, a process That is untested, That is uncertain and. It's always a little concerning when we're talking about approaching something on a case by case basis. If there's not a very clear process or policy that's in place, then we want to ask nurse leaders to consider creating one or making it more clear to the entire, uh, team that will be using those processes and policies.

Host: Yeah, Those are really good points you brought up. I'd like to focus in a little bit about leadership and employers. because I'm sure they're wondering, what are you going to say? What are you going to do? What kind of policy are you going to enact? So Kimberly, in your experience, what are some of the major concerns and learning needs employers identify regarding employed nurses running for office?

How do you navigate that?

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Absolutely. They're really similar—a little different—but very similar in that. Again, if there isn't a policy, we need to create a policy. And as a nurse leader in an institution, you have resources there. You have a general Counsel’s office, you have a government affairs office, you have a compliance office.

So while Those are not areas in a clinical, um, in a clinical position that we usually interface with. We've got those resources. That's part of the benefit of being at a big institution is while I might not have the answers as a nurse leader or a nurse candidate, I'm surrounded by people that can at least point me in the right direction.

So leaders might have the concern about, well, great, you know, we're already in a staffing issue and now this person is asking for a decreased FTE. Or if they're not, they're not going to be engaged as engaged. They were with their work because they're campaigning, which is another full-time job—could be a full-time job outside of their.

Regular job and they need to keep this job And it's benefits to be able to continue to do what they want to do outside of work. So there are myriad considerations from both ends, but I would say that we throw politics or we throw running into office and everybody's like, oh boy, never done that before.

Never thought about that before. But it doesn't have to be that way because you may already have policies in your institution about what happens when. Uh, a staff nurse or an acute care nurse says, I want to decrease my FTE, or I need to take a leave of absence. Or, how can I maintain my benefits and, and, um, my benefits and privileges based on reducing my FTE or moving or having, taking a temporary leave or whatever that looks like.

So using the policies that you already have in place. So you avoid that case by case basis, And then working with the departments that you have And the resources you have to create the policies that you may not have about a nurse specifically running for elected office. And,

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: and I think to add to that, Kimberly, one of the things that we heard from the nurse executives, especially that we spoke with and from the nurse legislators was that This is a type of succession planning.

If we're thinking about nurses, um, advancing in their profession and moving into perhaps a different. Mode of nursing practice, then This is simply another way that they are using the experiences And the training that they have gathered in their nursing practice in just a different realm. And so bringing that to bear for the communities that they serve.

Host: So in their experience as nurse leaders, they're used to advocating for their department, right?

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: Absolutely.

Host: This is basically advocating at a. A broader scale then

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: that's exactly, right

Host: they're using the skills that they've learned and developed over the years. Yeah. And putting it to a greater use for the whole health system.

And even beyond that,

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: absolutely. You could not have said it better. Yeah. And that's true for our nurse leaders within the institution And that candidate that they're used to caring for a patient, one patient, four patients at a time. But now This is advocacy on a much grander scale. We're talking about community and public health And the ability to really affect.

The social determinants of health in that community. Yeah.

Host: So this would add a lot of, uh, work and other responsibilities to a nurse leader's plate running for office. We know that's not easy. That's very time-consumin and mm-hmm These people have families and other commitments as well. So, bottom line Kim—and I think I know what the answer's going to be—is it worth it for nurses to run for office given these challenges and concerns?

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Absolutely 100%. We're very fortunate at healing politics. This is the work that we do, and one of the great things about the work we do is being a connector so we can connect nurse leaders who are doing this with people who want to do this, or with nurse leaders who have questions about how to support a candidate with nurse leaders who have experience in supporting a candidate or have had something.

Um, had a nurse that was interested in running. We can be that connector for all of these situations And we can provide support for everybody involved to help them be successful in whatever approach they're taking to this. But we desperately need more of us in elected office, no matter what level That is.

And like you said, it's hard to leave a full-time job or. Um, take a pay cut to go serve, but sometimes you don't have to. School boards, city councils, county commissions. We had a nurse who ran for sheriff. Um, there are some pieces of this that you can do locally that don't require travel, that don't require you to leave your position.

It just requires navigating how to make those changes so they work for everybody.

Host: Yeah. Having a seat at the table.

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Yeah.

Host: Expressing your voice. Advocating for the whole nursing community. Really, really important. Absolutely. So when Kimberly was saying, we need more nurses in elected office, you are aggressive.

You were shaking your head. You agree?

Katie Bloedau, MSN, CNML: I was I absolutely agree. I feel like one of the things That is a nursing superpower is to be able to translate really complex. Issues into something that anyone can understand. We are always trying to meet people where they are and make things make sense to everyone, and that's really needed in the political arena.

Host: Yeah, that's a great superpower. Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for that. Katie and Kimberly. I love when you said, uh, nurse leaders are connectors And that makes it sounds like they are uniquely positioned to run for office because of that.

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Absolutely. Very much. The skills that we have, we don't think about that.

Like Katie was saying, being an area of nursing practice, we don't think about public service as that. But when you kind of. Break it all down. Every nurse is a public health nurse. We're always dealing, no matter who you are or where you work, you work with the public in some form or fashion. So to be able to influence the policies that we make and nurses see health in all policies.

So whether we're talking about education or environment or business development, we understand how that affects our com, the health of our community. And so there's no, there's no profession better prepared or better positioned to really make a difference in, um, policy-making and legislation.

Host: Yeah, very well said.

I think we'll leave it there. Perfect. You wrapped it all up. Awesome. Well, Kimberly and Katie, thank you so much for your time today.

Kimberly Gordon, DNP, CRNA: Thank

you. Thank you very much, bill. That was wonderful.

Host: Yeah, you bet. Once again, I really appreciate it. That is Katie Bloedau and Kimberly Gordon, and if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels.

And check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you at aonl.org/nursing-leadership-podcast This is today in nursing leadership. Thanks for listening.