Open for Discussion: Introducing a New Podcast About All Things Nursing

Podcast Transcript

Carol Pehotsky:

Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the very first installment of Nurse Essentials. This is a podcast about all things nursing, from tips to make that next day a little bit easier in terms of patient care, all the way to advice on how to handle the big challenges you face. My name is Carol Pehotsky. It's my honor to be Associate Chief Nursing Officer for Surgical Services Nursing at the Cleveland Clinic, and an extreme honor to be your host in this journey that we will take together. Becoming the best nurse, you can be is a career-long journey. It has been for me. It probably is for you, no matter where you are on that path. We want to be here to help on that journey, to really inform, entertain, advise, with hopefully some laughs and maybe a few tears along the way.

Maybe you're a nursing student. Or maybe you're somebody who's just begun your studies, trying to decide if you want to be a nurse. Maybe you're at the end of your career or somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out what's next for you. Maybe you're a family member or a loved one of a nurse who's trying to figure out what on Earth makes us tick (laughs) and how you can help be part of that. Either way, we hope we have something for you.

A little bit about me. I've been in healthcare for 22 years, 18 of which as a nurse. My healthcare career has taken me everywhere from a burn unit to a behavioral health unit to medical-surgical nursing to education, specifically in PACU, to education and even to leadership. I'm married to a nurse, and our 12-year-old still thinks she wants to be a nurse when she grows up.

So, why a podcast? Why this topic? At least for me personally and professionally, I am a huge fan of podcasts. I'm a little bit late to the podcast game than many people who've been listening for years. It was probably about mid-2020, somebody said, you've got to check this out. And for me, it ranges anything from a serial podcast, uh, covering the same topic for several episodes, to standalone content. Whether it's true crime, leadership advice, or parenting advice, it, for me, is a fantastic venue to learn something different, to get a fresh perspective, and to really clear my head on my commute home, so I can then concentrate my efforts on what I need to do for my family and loved ones. So, hopefully this can be that for you as well.

And with that accessibility comes hopefully a way to have a bit of a two-way conversation. This won't be, you know, a live call-in show, but we're gonna provide you at the end with an email address. We want to hear from you. And that will be at the end of every podcast so you can let us know what you think. Is there a story that you'd like to tell? Is there a topic we've missed that you'd like to hear about? We want this to be something that works for you.

And why now? Well, we are recording this in January of 2023, and it's been a heck of a couple of three years, hasn't it? And what I think a lot of us are reaching, whether it's personally or professionally, is that the tincture of time is not necessarily going to make it all better. A lot has happened to our world. A lot has happened to the nursing world. And with that has come lots of misconceptions, myths to bust, etc. And we want to use this as a venue to help you think about what it means to be a nurse, why you got into this in the first place, and what keeps you coming back for more. Because sometimes we need to have those reflective conversations. And so perhaps in this 15 to 20 minutes we have with each other on an ongoing basis, it gives you the opportunity to do that.

We want to really restore the joy. I know I need it. I'm sure you might as well. And so, how do we really bring that joy back to everything we do so that our families see it, our loved ones see it, our patients see it, and we feel it in ourselves? And for me, being a podcast fan, this is truly a dream come true. When I got the call that said, would you consider being a host? People actually stuck their heads out and looked at me because I squealed so loud, they were worried. So, this is gonna be a ton of fun, but it will be its most fun if we do this together and make sure that we are meeting your needs.

To hear future episodes of Nurse Essentials, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, we want to hear from you. Do you have ideas for future podcasts or want to share your stories? Email us at nurseessentials@ccf.org. To learn more about nursing at Cleveland Clinic, please check us out at clevelandclinic.org/nursing. Until next time, take care of yourselves and take care of each other.

The information in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute medical or legal advice. Consult your local state boards of nursing for any specific practice questions.