Why Nurses Need Mentorship with Jenny Finnell | E. 69

The Healthcare Leadership Experience

Growing numbers of nurses are struggling with the demands of their profession. Jenny Finnell explains the benefits of mentorship and the expanding mission of Nurses Teach Nurses to Jim Cagliostro.

Episode Introduction

Jenny shares her foundational belief in ‘’paying it forward’’, how everyone has a role to play in mentorship, why nurses need a safe zone, and the impact of the pandemic on burnout. She also highlights the financial benefits for hospitals supporting mentorship, her global vision for Nurses Teach Nurses, and why a 45% rise in demand for advanced practice nurses reinforces the urgent need for support.

Show Topics

• Journey to CEO and Founder of Nurses Teach Nurses

• The reality of a career in nursing

• Providing a safe zone for struggling nurses

• Learning to cope with suffering and death

• How the pandemic contributed to burnout

• Encouraging nurses into mentorship

• The benefits of mentorship for hospitals

02:35 Journey to CEO and founder of CRNA School Prep Academy and Nurses Teach Nurses,

Jenny explained how Nurses Teach Nurses grew out of community.

‘’I've been an anesthesia provider now for nine years. Prior to that, I was a medical ICU nurse for three years. I've been in the realm of nursing for 14 years in total. Back in 2018, I actually got on social media for the first time since prior to grad school and I called myself Jenny CRNA, and I started getting direct messages on, "Hey, I've been facing a lot of setbacks and failures. Can you help coach me on how to get into CNA school?" I started doing that and I handed out my cell phone was chit chatting with people, probably about 10 or 15 people when I actually decided, "Wow, this is getting to be a lot. Let's make a Facebook group so I can talk to everyone at once. I'm kind of a broken record sometimes, so that way I can say one thing and have everyone hear it." I had a network, I had a community. I knew program faculty, I knew a lot of CRNAs, a lot of CNA leaders. I really pooled on my community to really help these nurses. They were finding a lot of success and just overjoyed with the help they were receiving. Before I know it, that group grew to 6,000 people. I was finding myself spending a lot of time mentoring and coaching, and that's when I started CRNA School Prep Academy because I was kind of burning myself out, if I'm being honest. I was working 40 hours a week, had two little kids and spending 20 hours teaching for free. I'm like, "Wow, I really want to do this, but how can I monetize my time?" CRNA School Prep Academy was born and where Nurses Teach Nurses comes into play is I've been doing CRNA School Prep Academy and mentoring for three years now and we've mentored over 5,000 ICU nurses and went through the pandemic during all that time.’’

08:13 The reality of a career in nursing

Jenny said nurses are the only people who relate to the needs of other nurses.

‘’…I think what's hard is the reason why I like the concept of Nurses Teach Nurses is no one can really truly understand the footsteps of a nurse unless you have been there. It's like being at war and being in the trenches with someone else. You understand what it's like, and that's what nurses need. They need that relatability piece. They need their peers to fall back on for that support. I knew now was the time, because I don't want to see this happen to our profession. I want to see a big change happen in a big way. Sometimes I think I'm crazy for dreaming up all the things that I hope to accomplish. I think a lot of people are stepping up to the plate, but we have to try to tackle this big problem in our country. We're all going to be in big trouble. We rely on nurses for healthcare, and we need to help them flourish in this profession, not deter them and help them leave, which is all we've been doing. While this is not one thing fixes all, I do think providing support and mentorship and career opportunities, career advancement opportunities, connection with community, that's a huge part of it. We've never had a platform to really stick together and do this. I hope to create this big platform to bring nurses more career opportunities and satisfaction.’’

12:42 Providing a safe zone for struggling nurses

Jenny explained why the absence of the right support is having a significant impact on nurses.

‘’So I think a lot of nurses struggle with guilt and wanting to leave the profession that they thought they were so passionate about and loved. I know a lot of ICU nurses feel that way. I didn't cut it, I didn't cut it. I thought I was capable and I clearly wasn't. It's not their fault. They just didn't have the right support system. I think that's part of the reason why we're seeing these nurses in the first few years burn out because they were struggling and they feel alone and they're scared, they're fearful. All this media that has been pushed in the media, they're afraid to go to jail. They're afraid to be put in prison. They're afraid to make a mistake. They're afraid my coworkers are going to think I'm stupid. I'm not capable. They don't tell a soul. They don't think they can even talk to their coworkers or they're afraid they're going to be a black sheep now in their unit. What I think about Nurse Teach Nurses is, we can provide that safe zone of, I don't know who you are, I don't even know where you work. Let's talk. I know you're a nurse in the ICU, in the medical I C U. I need support. I feel like I can't get it on my unit because maybe it's a toxic unit and I wish that wasn't the case, but it's true. I think all nurses need access to a safe place to ask questions.’’

16:23 Learning to cope with suffering and death

Jenny said young nurses in particular need support in dealing with the trauma of their job.

‘’…. if you think about where you are when you graduate nursing school at 21, 22 years old, you really are, I feel like I'm aging myself, but you are a very young adult, if not a very large child. That's for my own self. Right? I know for me, speaking back when I first started in the medical ICU, I saw death all the time. I didn't live through a pandemic. H1N1 was the scariest thing I saw. I saw girls my age dying, having babies in the ICU on ECMO and Prisma and things like that. It was terrifying to go into a room with someone on my birthday and take care of them on their deathbed. That being said, it was so hard for me to cope. That was the only time in my life I could probably say I was clinically depressed. It's because I was faced with the fact that I was taking care of death and suffering all the time, and it really broke my soul. I think as a young adult, if you don't have a good idea of what death is to you and what it means for afterlife and all of the things that you have to really think about as you get older and you typically do when you have more death around you, it's abrasive. It's like a gut punch in the stomach. It's a hard face of, this is a really cruel, harsh world we live in. As a young adult, it's hard to cope with that. You feel like maybe you're not strong enough and you kind of take this badge of honor. I should be tough and I don't want to cry. I cried one time so much in the ICU that I actually got a tear duct clog the next time.’’

21:10 How the pandemic contributed to burnout

Jenny said a focus on mental health and support through mentoring can help nurses to cope with managing complex emotions.

‘’… I do think the pandemic poured gasoline on a fire essentially where it was already burning and now we're burning more. We're seeing a more noticeable statistical exit. I also think that the stress the pandemic has put people in a mental state of not having the energy to talk about it and to deal with it. I experienced this particular experience when I was in grad school where just the idea of coming home from a stressful day and trying to talk about it, I was like, I can't. I'm empty. I can't. The whole idea of talking about it rehashes those emotions and feelings and stress to where that in itself seems like a huge chore. I think that's where nurses are at right now. They don't even want to try to deal with it because that in itself would be the breaking straw that could kill them. Mentally and physically, burnout and doesn't just affect your mental status, it affects you physically. The stress hormone, cortisol does wreak havoc on your body, panic attacks, high blood pressure. There are a lot of things, no sleep, insomnia. There are a lot of physical problems that develop from emotional stress that's not handled. I think we've let it go so far that we just, I don't think there's a way to turn a hundred percent back, but what I do think is going forward, we have to focus on mental health and support and guidance and the outlet for these nurses to share what their emotions with someone who gets it, someone who's lived through it with them, who can give them that sounding board of you're not abnormal. It's okay to feel these frustrations, anger, grief.’’

28:31 Encouraging nurses into mentorship

Jenny said mentoring offered a huge opportunity for professional growth and fulfillment in the nursing profession.

‘’…how can we get someone's interest in doing this? That's why, again, they monetize their time. Do you go out and garden for an hour, or do you spend an hour on a call with a nurse? Both are really rewarding, but I think it's just getting someone in that habit of, okay, I'm being rewarded for my time and I'm getting people kind of used to that. This is a normal relationship to have between nurses. Yeah, what my fear is, if we don't make a big change to allow nurses to connect with other fellow nurses and bring in all of the expertise and like you said, the retirement nurses brains or experienced brains to share with our next generation, we are missing a huge opportunity for growth both professionally and innovativeness for the community, but just fulfillment wise for the actual nurses who are currently doing the job.’’

35:31 The benefits of mentorship for hospitals

Jenny said partnering with hospitals is beneficial to nursing, without requiring a financial investment.

‘’What I would say is it's no risk in my opinion with promoting mentorship among nurses, especially through the platform Nurses Teach Nurses because it's self-fulfilled. It doesn't require an investment from a hospital. Nurses are clearly already willing to pay for someone else's time. If you go to Nurses Teach Nurses and read through the testimonials just within the anesthesia space, they're glowing reviews. Again, with the first month that we actually were open, we were already profitable. Again, this could be looked at as a partnership or maybe could even be a partnership where again, we could actually help the hospital system not only provide mentorship, but again, if it's a partnership program where, again they're sending us nurses who need the mentorship, it could be a really beautiful relationship where both parties could win. I think that finding ways where we're not going to drag more money out of the healthcare system because I'm very aware that most hospital execs feel like there's just no more money to spend. I get it. I've been fortunate enough to be a part of monthly meetings where I currently work as a CRNA, and we talk about stuff like financials, and I know some hospital systems are really in dire constraints. I think that we need a solution that's not going to pull more of those resources out of the system, which is why I feel like the system kind of fuels itself and which is why I designed it that way. I want it to be, if you think of Fiber or Upwork, it's kind of like a freelancing marketplace. This is kind of what this is.’’

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You’ll also hear:

Jenny’s motivation behind Nurses Teach Nurses: ‘’I wanted nurses to support nurses. And I also believe in the power of nurses mentoring, precepting, teaching, supporting. Nurses Teach Nurses was born, which is an open marketplace where nurses can act as a freelancer and get paid for the time they spend mentoring.’’

From resume edits and transcript audits to mentor coaching, why everyone has a role to play in mentorship.

Why the pressure to prove themselves can have a negative impact on nurses. ‘’It’s a very female based profession…there could be something that women feel like they have to prove because we've always been kind of held a different standard and to men.’’

The need for mentors: why the increase in demand for advanced practice nurses emphasizes the need for mentorship. ‘’I've read a statistic that we're going to grow by 45% with the need for advanced practice nurses by 2027. That's huge. The fact that we're going to grow by 45%, that's double what most other career paths are.’’

How Nurses Teach Nurses helps health systems: ‘’For every 1% decrease in hospital churn, I think I read that it saves $250,000 for the system.’’

Phase 1, 2, and 3 for Nurses Teach Nurses: Jenny’s vision of global expansion, and helping nurses to overcome limiting beliefs and step into leadership.

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