Her Story
About Patrice
I am the Executive Director of the Bailey's Heart and Soul Foundation, which I founded after the devastating loss of my 16-year-old son Bailey to sudden cardiac arrest five years ago. Bailey collapsed while running a 100-meter track event at his school, and CPR was not started for over 8 minutes and 45 seconds, which led to his death. I channeled that unimaginable pain into creating a foundation focused on awareness, education, and CPR training, with the goal of preventing other families from experiencing what mine did. We conduct heart screenings for middle and high school athletes, performing physicals, EKGs, and echocardiograms to identify at-risk individuals who may have underlying heart conditions that wouldn't be diagnosed during a typical 15-minute physical. I go into schools regularly to train students in hands-only CPR, and just today I trained 75 middle and high school students, using Bailey's story to help them understand that this tragedy could happen to anyone and they need to know what to do. We have about a thousand heart screenings scheduled for June to prepare kids for the upcoming sports season. Before pivoting to focus full-time on the foundation, I was a nursing home administrator for at least 10 years, working in regional roles overseeing larger communities and campuses. I'm also a family nurse practitioner, and after losing Bailey, I became a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner to better understand the grief process and help myself and my other three children navigate this new territory. I realized I wanted to make an impact at an earlier age, reaching kids when they're 12, 13, 14, rather than working with people at the end of their lives in long-term care. I successfully advocated for the Bailey Bullock Act to be passed in Maryland, which now requires cardiac emergency response programs in place at the middle and high school level. I recently published my first book, '8:45 sec,' referring to those critical minutes when CPR wasn't performed on Bailey, and I'm working to get it into schools so kids, parents, and coaches understand what it means and what it feels like. My main area of expertise is heart awareness, and my greatest professional achievement is teaching someone how to save a life.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Patrice
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being the best version of myself and serving as a role model for my children. I don't want to be an overachiever, but I want to show them what's possible. I remember when my oldest son was in college and struggling in one particular class, and I told him, 'You know you can graduate with a C, right?' He was surprised, and I explained that once you graduate, the only person who knows you received a C is you, and once you have your license or certification, you do not see a C on that certification. It's about finishing what you start and being the best version of yourself, not about being perfect.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is that I cannot do it all by myself. I need collaboration, and I need a variety of strengths on the team. What I mean by that is, I may have someone that's a 95% strong individual, and then I may have someone that's at a 5%. In other words, it's a puzzle, and I need input from all of those various entities in order to make that puzzle work. Everyone brings something different to the table, and you need all those pieces to complete the picture.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be yourself. Don't be afraid to take chances. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable. I like to use the phrase about jumping in the ocean, because once you're in the ocean, you have two options, probably three: either you're going down, you're floating, or you're going to swim. Taking that leap will actually help you to decide exactly how you need to pivot and what direction you need to take. You won't know what you're capable of until you take that chance and see where it leads you.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges in healthcare right now are staffing shortages, AI coming into the market, and not enough hands-on experience for individuals to really learn. New healthcare providers, especially nurses, are not having enough hands-on experience so they can develop that critical care thinking. It's not just healthcare either - I was watching CNN a few days ago and noticed that team members who normally did their 7 to 3, or 3 to 11, or 11 to 7 shift were working different shifts, and I thought, is CNN short-staffed too? Welcome to healthcare, CNN. Cost is also a major factor for everyone these days when it comes to healthcare.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Trust and honesty are the most important values to me. They go hand in hand, because even if you may not have done the right thing, at least owning it and saying, 'Hey, I didn't do it this way, but I learned from it,' is what matters. I usually say to individuals that I've supervised that a mistake is not necessarily something that's always punishable or requires discipline - it's about the learning approach and what can be done differently next time. It's about being honest about where you are and what you need to improve.
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