Kimberly Havers

I would say probably, well, first, probably my husband, because he's been my strongest supporter. But really, I've had some pretty influential leaders in the past who believed in me and encouraged me, so I would say just leaders within the nursing profession that I've had the privilege of working alongside with. Just, you know, being my cheerleaders to say, yes, you can.

To not sell myself short. That I, as long as I have confidence in myself, anything's possible. So, you know, just because it's scary, or you've never done it before, doesn't mean you can't, so be okay with being uncomfortable in situations, because that's how you learn.

I would say they should really find a mentor, somebody that they can lean into that's outside of their nursing unit or space. They should not be narrow-minded and think that what they're doing is the only option. The beauty of nursing is you can do anything with it. You can go so many places. There's so many ways that nurses can help people, not just working in an office or hospital. I would tell them to keep their eyes wide open and think about what their true goal is, and know that they can get there. Take every experience as an opportunity to learn. You're gonna have really great days where you're appreciated as a nurse, and you're gonna have days where you feel like you didn't do anything right, where you couldn't do enough for the patient and they were still angry. It's not personal. We're seeing people at their worst, at their worst day ever. You really can't take it personally. You just have to go in with grace and kindness and recognize you're not the reason that person's having a bad day. It's that diagnosis they received, maybe an argument they had with their loved one over a treatment plan, or maybe they were just told they're terminal. So just be there for them in that moment, present in the moment, and continue to do what you can for them. But don't take their anger as something you've done wrong.

Obviously for most industries, but healthcare especially, we struggle with staffing, and how do we take the resources we have and utilize them in a way that doesn't cause burnout for the nursing teams? How do we help them work within what they have? Nursing's a very hard profession. People either go in it not understanding, and they don't stay in it. In the 26 years, the patients we're caring for are much sicker, and when you give, when you expend your emotional energy into other people, you have to find ways to recharge your own battery, and I don't know that people go into nursing always understanding that. The political environment we're in right now, where reimbursement is different and we're trying to navigate that, does put a strain on the healthcare system overall when you don't have the available money to be able to hire those nurses. We're seeing hospitals close because of it. And at the end of the day, it's impacting the patients. They can't get the access to the care that they need. People are losing their health insurance, so then they don't go to the doctor, and when they finally reach out for access to care, it's almost like it's too late, and they're coming into our emergency rooms, and then the bottlenecked effect of that is now your ERs are backed up, and it's just this cascade of things.

Really, for me, authenticity. I think that it's important for you to stay true to who you are and be okay. If you're a direct communicator, then be that direct communicator, just do it kindly, so I think kindness is super important, and honesty. I think that if you're willing to acknowledge you've done something, it's a mistake, okay, well, we're gonna talk about it, we're gonna understand what went wrong, and we're gonna try to do better for the next time. Just owning it, not being afraid to say, I made a mistake. It's okay.