This podcast is available on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Google Play
Articles contain affiliate links. For more information on affiliate links, click here.
Who You’ll Hear
Kati Kleber, MSN RN – Nurse educator, former cardiac med-surg/stepdown and neurocritical care nurse, author, and speaker.
Want to Connect With Other Nurses?
Join our non-Facebook online community just for nurses.
I’m Ready
Tamar Rodney, PhD, MSN, RN PMHNP-BC, CNE – Board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner who has worked in trauma and psychiatry. Her PhD research looked at biomarkers for PTSD in veterans with a traumatic brain injury. Her career goal is to change the way health care professionals approach diagnosis and treatment planning for individuals with mental health needs.
What You’ll Learn:
- Tamar Rodney is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins school of nursing as well as a board certified nurse practitioner who has worked trauma and psychiatry.
- She finds biomarkers for PTSD in veterans.
- Tamar is the CEO of her nursing license.
- She started in a nursing home, then switched to in patient psych, she’s also done outpatient psych, ER, trauma setting for head and neck trauma, and is now in the community setting.
- Her favorite has been in patient psych, so you can be there for those that really need you.
- It can be sad and very hard, but it gives you a different outlook.
- Progress can be seen quickly, as soon as within hours.
- She was terrified of trauma and psych after those rotations.
- She felt like she hit a roadblock.
- A professor recommended that she take more psych courses, which helped her see that the more she knew, the more she wanted to know.
- Learning more about human behavior helps you realize why we make certain decisions, and the impact it has on your life.
- You can’t fix a psych patient!
- you give them medications and tools and a different outlook so they can live life the best that they can.
- In mental health, you want the patient with you as long as they can to make sure that they’re OK.
- They need to be looked at as a whole person, not just their injury.
- Nursing can be hard and frustrating, but you’re learning so much as you go.
- Once you pass your NCLEX it opens a door to so many pathways.
- You can use your strengths in various areas of nursing.
- You don’t have to work at the bedside.
- Use what brings you joy through your nursing career, don’t just go for a certain specialty because you think it looks better.
- You can change lives without ever working with patients.
- You can save thousands of lives through the research aspect of nursing.
- You can enact literal change on a global level.
- For Tamar, group therapy sessions where someone says “that makes sense” it is the most rewarding feeling. It reminds her that she chose the right career.
- So much growth occurs through your career in nursing.
- Some happens naturally, like promotions.
- Other times, you see things that you would like to do, and decide to go for other certifications and degrees.
- Think of nursing as a platform to do other things.
- Pay attention to things that really excite you.
- Give yourself permission to get what you want.
3 pieces of advice to young Tamar.
- It’s totally worth it. What your doing is not just for a job, it’s for a career.
- Nursing is so much more than a paycheck, “Service to others is the rent we pay to be on this earth.”
- Yes, you can do it all! You can teach and research and see patients.
- It’s great to have a fabulous salary while you’re doing what you love and saving lives.
- While you serve your patients, you should feel confident to ask for what you’re worth.
- There should be a higher value financially as well as in how nurses are perceived.
- As a nurse, you need to be the advocate and negotiator for all nurses.
- If you’re skilled in public speaking or feel like you could run for office, you could impact millions and save lives.
