Her Story
About Constance
I've been in nursing for over 30 years, since 1994, and when I look back, it's crazy how much has happened. I started as a NICU nurse, and that's where I saw my love for vascular access. I spent probably 13 years in the NICU, then specialized in vascular access itself, which is where I've lived pretty much the rest of my career and still live today. Both vascular access, which creates lifelines, and the Nurse Honor Guard, which I became passionate about around 2019 and which honors lives, really remind me that nursing isn't simply what we do - it's the legacy that we leave behind. I went into nursing not really to be influential or a leader, I went in to just care for patients, and what it has turned out to be is far greater than anything I had imagined. Even today, my cup is full, and now my goal is to help fill others' cups. It's just been a very rewarding profession. I'm a diploma grad, and I didn't go back and get my bachelor's until 2018, and then my master's in 2021, studying through the pandemic. The degree I'm most proud of is my diploma, because it gave me so much hands-on experience with the patient. With that diploma, I conducted research, published, and challenged the state of Illinois to allow RN nursing without an advanced degree to place central lines. I was able to advance my specialty into CVC placement, placing those lines in the internal jugular (the neck), the subclavian vein (under your collarbone), as well as the femoral line (in the crease where your leg meets your torso). I made sure it was okay within the state board, got hospital administration approval, and had physician champions. With my little diploma, I was placing advanced vascular access devices, and then I went on to publish that without an advanced degree. That publication reached people across the U.S., and clinicians started asking how I did this and if I could share my story. There were surgeons who absolutely pushed back, but I continued to push using the evidence and using my own physicians and organization to be my advocate. Today, in my role with Bygone as a national clinical nurse educator, I go into hospitals across the U.S. I'm also the Nurse Honor Guard Coordinator for Florida. The Nurse Honor Guard pays tribute to a nurse at the end of her life, much like the fire and police department does tributes for their fallen. I was a founding member of the Chicagoland Nurse Honor Guard as well as Southwest Florida Nurse Honor Guard. When I started as the coordinator, we only had 3 chapters, and now we have 18 out of 68 counties - we're roughly at 80% of the state covered, and it's a big state. When a nurse passes or is in hospice, we can release them from their nursing duties. One story that stands out is a nurse who was a nurse for 50 years at Broward County Hospital. She gave birth to 3 daughters in that hospital, and those three daughters became nurses who worked at Broward County. You could just feel the impact that she had made on her community and her family at that service. It goes back to that statement I mentioned - it's the legacy that we leave behind. Mike Gillivan Bardo, one of the Florida House Representatives, declared October 17th as Florida Nurse Honor Guard Day. We chose October 17th because that's when we're having our first Nurse Honor Guard Conference in Florida.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Constance
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say that would be my faith and family support, by all means. I was going to be an LPN, and I was registering in the school in Chicago, and all of a sudden, I hear someone calling my name. I go out in the hallway, and it's my husband, and when I see that it's him, I'm incredibly upset with him, of course. But he grabbed me by the arm - we're kids at this point - and he goes, if you're going to go to school to be a nurse, it's going to be for a registered nurse. So, I definitely, yeah, faith and family is absolutely and have always been, and even today, my biggest supporter.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I encourage them to go straight for the RN. I just met a nurse a matter of fact last week - she was going to be a CNA, and a lot of nursing schools encourage that first, but I know me personally, if I would have been a CNA, I probably wouldn't have continued because it would have spun me out. Not because I don't like caring for the elderly, but I just don't have a strong stomach for some things that you have to do. So I encourage them to go straight for the RN, and just let them know that nursing is so many things, right? It can be day shift, PM shift, nights, it can be holidays, but it doesn't have to be any one thing. There's psychiatric nursing, there's orthopedics, there's the NICU with our littlest of patients, and then geriatrics. So it's so wide, or you can do research, you can be a writer. The best thing about nursing is just how wide it is in what you can do. You can work for a manufacturer, you can work for a pharmaceutical company. There's just so much you can do. So say the prayers that you need to, but just put one foot in front of the other and get this done. I never thought of myself as a leader or as influential, but when you do the right thing and you advocate for patients, you kind of find yourself in those roles naturally.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I kind of stay out of and not focus on challenges, because I think we kind of create our own barriers, and then we stand behind them. But I do think, nursing as a profession, the struggle - you know, after COVID, one minute we're heroes, and then the next we're not. I think the biggest challenge today is complacency. In my role with Bygone as a national clinical nurse educator, I go into hospitals across the U.S., and nurses don't want to do the extra, like the posters or the writing of the paper. I always try to get them excited, like, let's write this, I'll help you write it, because somebody, a colleague of mine helped me write my first paper. So I was like, I'm gonna do this for anybody - I'm going to pay that forward. And I have helped two people publish, but I just feel like more and more today, I don't have time for that, I don't want to do that, I don't want to get paid for that. I think that's challenging for me to see in the profession. Complacency, maybe even lack of respect today. I see that as a bit of a struggle for many.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Honesty, I think would have to say, is the biggest, right? And doing the right thing. Always move and do from the heart. And I always try not to be reactive or make assumptions. Of course, compassion. And I mentioned legacy already. You know, advocacy - there's so many. I love nursing.
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