Brynna Lewis (host): Welcome to Nurses Connect, a podcast from Children's Health dedicated to exploring critical issues and dynamic topics that shape the nursing profession today. I'm Brynna Lewis, senior vice president of nursing excellence, innovation, and patient experience.

Kristy Welter (host): And I'm Kristy Welter, program director of nursing communications and events. We are your co-hosts for Nurses Connect, and we're so happy you've joined us today. On this special Nurses Month episode, we're talking about what it means to be a nurse.

Host:  We have two guests today, vice president of the Heart Center, Jennifer Dixon, and Annie Tolliver, our director of Magnet and Recognition for Northern Market. Welcome to Nurses Connect, Jennifer and Annie.

Jennifer Dixon: Thank you for having me. Thanks.

Host: We really wanna dive into your experience as nurses. So, either one of you can take the first question, but I just wanna know more about your nursing journey so far. Why did you get into it, and what are you doing now?

Jennifer Dixon: Well, I'll go first. So this is Jennifer, vice president of the Heart Center. I have been a nurse for 23 years. Always wanted to be in the healthcare profession. Nursing for me was an equal, open opportunity to explore from an educational standpoint, and I think it was the best decision I ever made. My journey into nursing always started at direct patient care, so bedside nursing, night shift nursing. Really, I think it's pretty funny where I find myself today because I had no aspirations to be in nursing management, certainly not administration. But I think all of my experiences across my positions, whether that was bedside nurse, nursing education, nursing management, really helped shape who I am today and led me here.

Annie Tolliver: I'll go next. This is Annie. I fell in love with nursing out of an unexpected place. I was in college exploring careers and knew healthcare was an option and started volunteering in a hospital emergency department and just seeing the different roles that came into play there. I saw the work of the nurse and how they were so integral into every single piece of what was happening in that emergency department. They were providing care to the patients. They were collaborating with physicians on what would happen next. They were being there in those vulnerable moments and also being there for those really critical moments where they were doing just amazing things I had never seen anyone do before. And I was like, "Well, I wanna do that. That looks really awesome." So I got into nursing school, just right down the road here from Children's Health, and saw, I was like, "Oh, that looks like a really cool place to work." And so I set my sights on being a pediatric nurse here at Children's Health and started that journey back in 2017 as a nurse in our clinical resource team, which is our float pool. And I just loved seeing all of the options I had as a nurse to learn and do so many things and provide care to so many different patient populations. It was really incredible, just getting to come to work and learn something new every day. And as I grew in my nursing career, had many mentors, because I was able to get engaged so early in things like professional governance, and saw, wow, there's a lot of paths that I can take to grow as a professional nurse. And so I was able to grow into this nursing excellence journey that I'm in now as a director of Magnet and Nursing Recognition, where I really get to help support what it means to be a professional nurse and recognize and celebrate all the work that our incredible nurses do.

Host: That's awesome. So I'm gonna touch a little bit on your journey because I want to expand a little bit about how you got to your director of Magnet position now.

Annie Tolliver: This is funny, Brennan, 'cause I have a student with us today and she was just asking me the same question. I was in a program manager role for nursing professional governance. Having been in many councils, that opportunity opened up, and I felt really comfortable in that lane of supporting councils and doing that work. And then this director position was available, but I really felt maybe I'm not quite ready for this role. I hadn't been doing leadership for a long time, but I came and talked to Brennan here and was like, "Well, what do you think about this for me? I do think I have skills that would align really well with this role, but I don't know that I'm quite ready." And she gave really sage advice and said, "If you feel like you're completely ready for a role and you wait until you're completely ready for a role, it has already grown beyond you. Apply now and work towards growing into the role and what it can be." So I'm really glad that she gave that advice, and I was able to go into the position and am doing that now, really growing into this director of Magnet and Nursing Recognition role.

Host: I love it. Jen, we've known each other for quite some time. Right. I think we first started working together when you were nurse manager over the cardiac and inpatient care unit. So tell us a little bit about your journey in the Heart Center.

Jennifer Dixon: Sure. When I started at Children's in the year 2000—so don't do the math, but 26 years ago—I actually started as a patient care technician. I also did health unit coordinator and was trained to be a telemetry technician at that time. I hadn't even started nursing school yet but was about to enter nursing school. That unit at the time was a combination unit between cardiology and renal—very large unit, 36 beds, just extremely busy. I didn't know quite yet what I wanted to do, and I actually had the opportunity to talk about this this morning with some visitors to the campus that I was just afforded the opportunity to go into the OR with Dr. Nakaido, who is a world-renowned cardiac surgeon, and my life was forever changed. It was just an extremely welcoming experience to learn and to see, and I enjoyed all of the patients. So one, it was cemented that I had chosen the right path. I knew that this was a place for me. The patients I took care of at that time, I still remember to this day. I was positioned to consider the management role—set of skills that you may have that will be much like Annie said; I think you have the skills; I think you could build into being a great leader. And so I took that shift into management. I certainly went back and got my bachelor's degree, thanks to great benefits here at Children's Health to support that endeavor, and kind of the rest is history. I then really came back into the role as a senior director of outpatient cardiology in the Heart Center, which came with a much broader business strategic lens that complemented all of my nursing experience. That led me to the outpatient role, which really rounded out all of the service line experience from a Heart Center perspective. And so when the vice president role of the Heart Center came open, much like Annie, I wasn't quite sure about it. You can feel confident in some areas but know you need to grow in others. Certainly that was true for me too. But what I felt most confident about is that I do believe that nursing should have a seat at every table. I do believe that I have valuable experience from my work at the bedside. I have worked really hard, and it's a constant, intentional work every day to remain connected to the bedside, no matter how far you get. So that's my journey—it took me up from 26 years ago to today pretty quickly.

Host: I love that. Thanks for sharing.

Host: Yeah. So you both have worked in several positions across the organization, so you have different perspectives on what nursing can look like. I would love to hear from both of you—starting with you, Annie—what does it mean to you to be a nurse?

Annie Tolliver: So it's kind of funny because when you first step away from that bedside role where you're not in that direct patient care, you can be talking to people and you're like, "Well, I used to be a nurse. I used to be a nurse." But the reality is I am a nurse, not because of my position of taking patients but because I've been trusted by the public to have this role that I fulfill as a nurse—that we are doing advocacy for patients, that we are making sure that we are growing within our profession, that nurses have a seat at every table so that we're promoting health for the public. That is really a role within nursing, and it can look like direct patient care, but it can also look like a whole bunch of other roles—even many non-traditional roles that nurses hold. They still bring that background as a nurse, regardless of what they're doing in their day to day; they think like a nurse. I always also say that there should be a nurse on every team because they can solve any problem ever—they've been there. They've been in those tight moments where you're trying to solve a problem, and you're really having to think about that whole picture and how can I see this through from beginning to end. And so nurses not only have that incredible ability to be adaptable in any situation, but they also have that responsibility to the public—to promote health for them, to work toward improving patient outcomes, to think about all of those things that nurses impact at the end of care delivery. And so I may not do that directly anymore, but I still have a huge impact in the way that we provide care to patients in many different ways. One of the ways that I get to do it now, which is really exciting, is I get to promote and celebrate where we see that throughout our organization and really come alongside our nurses and say, "Hey, this incredible work that you did—here's the outcome that we're seeing. You worked on this project to reduce falls, and we were able to prevent harm in this many patients, and that's because of the work that you did." And so I love that part of my role and really still feel that responsibility regardless of the title that I have.

Host: You touched on so many things there. I think there is a misconception from the public or others that aren't familiar with the profession of nursing, but there are so many different ways to practice within nursing, which makes this, in my opinion, the best profession. It's often that I get asked by people, "You miss being at the bedside?" And some days I do, but more often I love what I get to do because I get to care, support, empower, and inspire the nurses that are now caring for the patients at the bedside. So I don't feel like I'm missing anything. And much like what Jen said, you stay connected with rounding and touching base with nurses and meeting with them and hearing about their stories, but also just celebrating the incredible work that they do. The other thing I'll talk about that you brought up—you kind of alluded to return on investment and how much of a difference nurses can make in really helping them to see the difference that they are making within the profession of nursing. And so by nature of implementing evidence-based practices to prevent falls, the impact of preventing patient harm, reducing potential length of stay, et cetera, and just the multitude of complications that can come from that, it's such an impact and the value that professional nurses bring every single day.

Host: What does it mean to you to be a nurse, Jennifer?

Jennifer Dixon: So for me, I think there's definitely personal and professional significance. I honestly cannot imagine being anything different than a nurse. I think I did choose a profession that gives me great joy every single day. Personally, I think it's really important that all of us collectively as a body of nursing feel very strongly that each of our individual efforts need to represent the body of nursing well, whether that is professionalism or trust. That work to me as a collective is very important and empowering—so much so that when in the few years that I left Children's, I did still work on things that promoted the body of nursing and promoted that trust in the community that Annie talked about too. Like, just having that ability to be in the most trusted profession—I think we all carry that responsibility equally—and I think that's very profound. I think professionally—thinking about what Brennan said—I look at both of those all the time. I think every day I could find great joy being at the bedside because there's no greater gift, no greater responsibility than to be with a family during their most difficult day. And that ability to remember every day when you cross the threshold that this may feel like business as usual for you, but this is not business as usual for that family, is such a profound gift that nurses really get to embody every day. They spend a tremendous amount of time with that family, whether it's educating or comforting or intervening or leading. So I could find great joy in that. You know, if this didn't work and I'm at the bedside, I would be very happy in that position. And I think to what you said, Brennan, it is because nurses can hold so many different positions—they can use this expertise to impact industries and to impact the body of nursing or to impact outcomes in a variety of positions. For me in this role, I just am very fortunate to be impacting all of the outcomes for us in this institution through the collective body of just hundreds of nurses that I have the benefit of overseeing, and there's great joy in that too. There's great joy in moving big things forward. There's great joy in creating opportunities that are going to benefit patients on a grander scale and a greater scale. Thinking about… we were in a function this morning, and we were talking about our new pediatric campus and just how part of building something new is that we're bringing forward what we should be designing for in the future—meaning what healthcare has done over the last 25, 50 years. We're innovating and doing things that we never used to do. And so having a room that's 100 square feet really doesn't make a lot of sense anymore when we're innovating on patients who now have higher survival rates. But those higher survival rates mean that they're spending more time in the hospital to overcome highly complex and comprehensive issues, and so we're treating the whole family. And so just bringing forward even those nursing insights in designing a building to make sure that it's the right thing for patients and families, I think we just have such a great opportunity. And so I think personally and professionally, there isn't a day that enjoying being a nurse doesn't come forward in some aspect.

Host: All right. Wow. This conversation's been so amazing, and just hearing each of your journeys in nursing and sharing a lot of lessons learned that others can take from you guys. As we wrap up this episode of Nurses Connect—and in honor of Nurses Month that's coming in May—what are you most excited about to celebrate your nurses in May?

Jennifer Dixon: I think I alluded to a minute ago just how many nurses we have in the Heart Center. Obviously, we have so many nurses in the entire organization. I enjoy that we take a moment to pause and recognize the nurses. That is just fundamental to what our organization wants to do—which is to recognize all of the efforts that it takes from individuals every single day to do this work. And so I appreciate that we're very intentional about that and spending that time to do that. So it's not just about what we do for patients, but it is equally about how we take care of each other because we are doing very hard things. We are doing very complex things. We are also human beings who are traveling through some of the most difficult moments with people. And that is something that I think is very admirable to the body of nursing and the profession of nursing, that we stand in that moment and we stand in that gap, but we are also humans. And so just honoring each other and recognizing each other and supporting each other, I think this month gives us an opportunity to just reflect and to stand in all of that very intentionally.

Annie Tolliver: I love that, Jennifer, about reflecting, and it really can be a time to reflect on the joy of being a nurse. We have a lot of great things planned for Nurses Month here at Children's Health, a lot of events, and I get so much energy from being around other nurses and having those moments to connect and feel that community with my nursing community here. So very excited about those events. One in particular that I'm just excited to see is that we have an innovation event—so really seeing how nurses are innovators and how they're creating even products to help move healthcare forward. Nurses think in ways that others don't, and so I'm really excited to see what they bring forward at that event, and I think we have some really exciting things to come. So very much looking forward to celebrating with all of our 3,300 nurses during Nurses Month.

Jennifer Dixon: We appreciate the Nursing Excellence team for everything that they do to put this together.

Host: Thank you. Thank you both for joining us today. Appreciate your time, and it's just been fun reflecting on our amazing profession.

Host: If you wanna know more about nursing at Children's Health, we encourage you to visit childrens.com/nursingannualreport. Here you'll find information that summarizes a variety of our nursing initiatives. Thank you to our listeners for joining us today. We'll talk to you next time on Nurses Connect.