Vital Views

Joe Gaccione 0:01
Welcome to Vital Views, podcast for UNLV School of Nursing. I'm Joe Gaccione, communications director for the School of Nursing. Did you know May 6th through May 12th is National Nurses Week? If you did, great. If not, I'm gonna throw some dinner trivia at you. It's an annual celebration each May that focuses on nurses from around the world. It's been an official designation since 1974. May 6th is National Nurses Day, and May 12th is the birthday of famous nurse Florence Nightingale. For this show, we wanna highlight certain positions in the nursing world that don't normally get a lot of attention, even though their roles are extremely important in nurse education. Today is all about the PTI, or part-time instructor, and today we have a few part-time instructors to enlighten us on what their roles are like. First up is Gretchen Little. She's a clinical instructor and NICU nurse. She specializes in pediatrics, adult and pediatric hospice, and home health nursing. She's a homegrown nurse here in southern Nevada, having earned her bachelor's at Nevada State and family nurse practitioner degree at Touro. She currently works with UNLV nursing students. Gretchen, good to see you.

Gretchen Little 1:03
Good morning.

Joe Gaccione 1:04
Part-time instructor probably sounds obvious, but how does a part-time instructor differ from a traditional faculty member or even a preceptor?

Gretchen Little 1:12
Great question, Joe. To start, with part-time instructors, we get a group of about eight students and they become our clinical group. I particularly have two myself, so I have two groups of eight. Some people only have one group of eight. Being a PTI allows me to connect with my 16 students, my two groups of eight. First is faculty, they teach the whole class. So, in level one, we have 72 students and we break those up into groups of eight, and our clinical instructors have typically two groups of eight. And a preceptor is somebody you would see in the hospital, another nurse, and they take on usually one student at a time and they, the student gets to follow them around the hospital, follow their assignment, see what they do day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute. I stand back a little bit and I have my group of eight and I kind of let them go through the hospital, clinical, I let them go through the floor and they'll have a nurse, nurse that they work with and I oversee their skills and them doing things like bed linen changing, passing medications, communicating with the patients, things like that on a, on a level where I have all eight at one time. So I'm kind of overseeing them, I, I tell them I'm their charge nurse, so I let them out and roam around, but however, I also do make sure that things are getting done and they're doing them correctly.

Joe Gaccione 2:43
And you're also teaching them at the Clinical Sim Center of Las Vegas and even there the, the stuff that you're, you're teaching, you mentioned before bed linens, I mean, even some of the, the quote unquote, “basic skills” are extremely important. Just as of this recording, a week ago you were teaching the, the PTIs were teaching the students how to put on PPE properly.

Gretchen Little 3:01
Correct. Yes, so we start with that, and this week is gonna be vital signs. Super important. We do vital signs all the time in the hospital, so we're gonna be learning that this week and then also maybe transferring patients from a wheelchair to a bed, bed to a wheelchair, showing them how to use mobility devices like crutches, a walker, a cane.

Joe Gaccione 3:27
That kind of leads into my next question. As a PTI, what intangibles should you have aside from the academic and the clinical experience?

Gretchen Little 3:35
They love the stories. When you can relate it to real life, it makes them understand how to use it and they can relate to you and they really engage when they hear what kind of stories you have at the bedside teaching when you can relate things like how important vital signs are and why do we take them, or moving a patient from a bed to a wheelchair. Even though it sounds like it's simple, in a sense, like getting a patient up from the bed to a wheelchair, if you have a story about it that they can relate to, they will, they'll understand that much better.

Joe Gaccione 4:08
And it's nice that you get to talk to eight or even 16 students at the most because you're closer with them and it's almost like you're talking to that individual versus a bigger classroom.

Gretchen Little 4:17
Yes. Yes, and I like to see them engage. I like to see their faces when I talk to them. I can see if they're connecting the dots and if not, how can I get them to connect the dots?

Joe Gaccione 4:31
Are there moments that you can think about that really validated what you do as a PTI? Was there one specific moment, one student, or maybe even just a cohort that really personified like, “This is, this is what I love to do.”?

Gretchen Little 4:45
I was thinking of a student that I had. UNLV demographics are usually about 20, 21, 22, and when they go into the hospital, they’re not typically thinking that they take care of people, patients that are their age. You know, you think maybe something in the geriatric population, 70, 80, something like that. However, I did have a student taking care of another patient that was their age in for a trauma. And I remember this, the student trying to connect with him, you know, trying, I said, “You need to connect with this, this patient, right?” He was very quiet, he didn't wanna talk to us, but we had to deliver care. So, I was talking with this student and I said, “We have to figure out how to communicate with him on his level. You guys are the same age, something that you can relate to, music, video games, some kind of hobby,” and he was trying real hard that week to engage with this patient. He just wasn't getting anywhere. We come back a week later for clinical again, and I gave him the same patient on purpose, and he went in there and this patient had a turnaround and he went and he's like, “Hey man, I remember you from last week,” and this student was kind of like, “Oh, okay,” and they started to connect because the week before, he just wasn't having it. He was in the hospital, you know, he had suffered a trauma, you know, being as young as they are, 21, 22, it's really, it's really difficult. And even though that time the student didn't make the connection, he didn't think he made the connection the first week, the second week came around and the patient was like, “I remember you from last week. I remember you talking to me about this and about video games,” and you know, “I play this and I do that,” and they were able to connect and they had a great conversation. And I remember the student just being so happy because even though he didn't see it the first week, his work did not go unpaid for, like, it was able, he was able to connect that second week with him. And watching that unfold and just made me really feel, feel good for this student because he was able to understand this is why we go to nursing. This is why we do nursing.

Joe Gaccione 6:49
And it's also that confidence booster when you realize like, this is not a, a quick turnaround. Nursing is not a, it's not a quick turnaround. You have to have patience, you know, patience and patients, but you have to understand that some patients might be closed off, which I'm curious about. When you have a situation like that, you're, one of the, the, the unique things about the Sim Center is that you get to simulate those environments where patients are, are a little more, they're a little quiet. They don't wanna reveal a lot of information, especially during an intake session where you're trying to get information from them. They're in their own silo. How, how do you teach that? How, like why would, I'm sorry, I'm throwing like a bunch of questions at you. How do you, how do you encourage the students to find that “in” to get the information but also just have a, a genuine connection with them?

Gretchen Little 7:37
That's a, that's a great question. I always encourage the students to get on their, to, to find something that they can relate to with the, with the patient because, like I said, our patients are different ages. Sometimes they're not 20, 22 years old, they’re, they're, you know, 80. How do you, as a 20-year-old student, connect with somebody who's in a totally different age range? And I tell them to just talk to them, say “Hello, hi,” also look around the room, something that you can engage. Maybe they're watching a TV show that you watch or you don't know about. “Hey, can you ask about this TV show?” I try not to tell 'em. I try, I try to tell 'em to not make it medically related. Like, I don't wanna say, “Hey, how are you doing today?” because that's the worst question you can ask somebody in the hospital. “How are you today? Well, I’m here at the hospital.” So, I try to get them to do it on a different level. You know, look around the room, you know, maybe they're, they have something on their, on their patient bed cart or bed tray that, you know, they can relate to, like they see a game that they're playing on their phone. I try to get them to figure out, you know, “Hey, why are you at this hospital versus a different hospital? Do you live on this side of town or do you work on this side of town?” and kind of go in from there, make that intro. “Do you have grandkids that are my age?” you know, “What about your family? Do they come to see you here at the hospital? Who comes to see you? Is it your, your, your spouse or your child?” and I try to get them to relate that way.

Joe Gaccione 9:11
I feel like your experience also deals a lot with patient connection, which probably gives you great insight for your students. We talked before in the intro about you have experience in adult hospice, pediatric hospice, where in those moments it has to be emotional because at that point you're trying to make them as comfortable as possible, but that, that relationship is key because they need, they need another person there at the very least to, to, to have that bond during those, those those tough times.

Gretchen Little 9:43
For hospice, yeah. Yes, and I did pediatric, like you said, and adult. I had no idea what I was getting into when I did hospice, and I was a new nurse at the time when I started. I was doing neonatal full-time and I did hospice part-time, but what a great experience. It really made me appreciate death and dying, but also how do you communicate, because at that time, it's not really with the patient, it's with the families and what a tough time for them to go through. It really made me appreciate death and dying as in, how do we, how do we get through this tough time in our life, and how as a nurse can I be there for this family?

Joe Gaccione 10:25
And that's a great point, is that the connection is not just with the patient, it's also with the family, with loved ones, because you have to build that rapport with them. Not just for conveying information, but also making sure everyone's on the same page and they are, you know, emotionally copacetic with, with what's going on as, as best, as best as you can. Not every, not every situation's going to be the same and some are, are probably more volatile than others.

Gretchen Little 10:48
Correct. Yeah, it's just you having that experience with communication and how do I, I definitely say the wrong thing lots of times, but I learned how to communicate with the patients, not even just with the patients, like I said, the families as well, right?

Joe Gaccione 11:05
When you're bonding with your students, is it a give and take? Do you learn from them as much as they learn from you?

Gretchen Little 11:10
Absolutely. I learn so much from them. And not just how to be a better teacher, but also just we teach each other life skills, right? They're definitely a different age group than myself. I also, I, I wanna teach them life skills, right? So I teach them how to make sure they work with other people, how to communicate with other people, because a lot of them have just kind of come out of high school, they're doing college classes, going, going, going. I'm doing nursing, they're very focused and may or may not have had a part-time job. They also teach me in the sense that, you know, how, how should I communicate with them because it's a totally different generation. Things that I think might be important may not be important to them, but yet I need to figure this out and how am I gonna make sure that they, I convey my information and they're gonna process it accordingly? But I love to talk to my students. They have great stories for me. I love to hear about what, you know, the newest restaurants around in, in town, like, what's hip, where are they going, what are they enjoying as far as music, because I get kind of outta touch with that, right? I just, I tend to listen to the same radio stations, I tend to go to the same places to eat, I tend to talk to the same people.

Joe Gaccione 12:37
In the spirit of Nurses week, what inspired you to become a nurse?

Gretchen Little 12:31
I don't have like one little thing that made me become a nurse. My, I grew up in a household, my father's a physician. My part-time job growing up was that he would have me bring the patients in at, in his clinic. He had a private practice, he was internal medicine, and I would, he taught me how to do vital signs, he taught me how to take a temperature, take a weight, and then put the patient in the room. And so, I kind of grew up in that field and then one day I was like, “I need a job. I need to start focusing in college. Like, what am I working towards?” I liked nursing because of the, the flexibility and the schedule. I like that you could go anywhere, live anywhere, and you always had a job as a nurse.

Joe Gaccione 13:12
As common as instructing is, do you think that education is still an underrated component of nursing?

Gretchen Little 13:21
I do. A hundred percent. You're talking about education, like the patients, are you, just all around?

Joe Gaccione 13:25
Well, all, all around. Not just the patients, but also the students.

Gretchen Little 13:28
I do, I, I do think that we need to focus more on education. We would love to have more nurse educators come out. Anybody that's interested in becoming a PTI, please reach out to me. I think it's a great field. I never once thought I would be in education. Never, ever. And I love it. I love it. I love seeing the students, I love teaching the students, I also like teaching my families in the neonatal intensive care. I love to teach. Obviously I don't teach the patients that much because they're little babies, but however, I like to teach the, the families, I like them to understand what's going on with their, with their baby. I hope that we can get more nurse educators out there and, and not even just educators, PTI, also preceptors. You know, I really think that being a preceptor really has its rewards, and if you can make that connection with a student nurse as a preceptor, I really, I think that's so great.

Joe Gaccione 14:28
That is all the time we have. Gretchen, thank you so much for coming in.

Gretchen Little 14:31
Thank you for having me, Joe.

Joe Gaccione 14:35
Next up, we're happy to have Melanie Sharpley on with us. Melanie is not only a PTI, she's also a psychiatric nurse practitioner. She earned her bachelor's in nursing from UNLV and her master’s from the University of South Alabama. Melanie, so glad to have you with us.

Melanie Sharpley 14:48
Thank you, Joe. I love that intro. That was great.

Joe Gaccione 14:50
Short and sweet.

Melanie Sharpley 14:51
Perfect.

Joe Gaccione 14:52
So how did you become a PTI?

Melanie Sharpley 14:54
So, it's actually a great story. Like you said, I did graduate from UNLV, so I am Go Rebels, but my best friend, who is also a PTI, she actually got me on board. We used to talk about it all of the time in nursing school, how cool it would be to be an instructor, but it just always seemed like one of those far away things you never really knew how people got into it. But after I graduated with my master's degree, that's one of the requirements to be a PTI, she was like, “Hey, do you wanna apply and see if you can teach psych?” and I did, and I've loved it ever since. So, pretty straightforward for me to get in, just finding out about it really was step one.

Joe Gaccione 15:30
What was it about nurse education where you and your friends were talking and thinking, “This would be something interesting,” like what appealed to you specifically?

Melanie Sharpley 15:38
I think just being in that level of expertise. When you're in nursing school, it just seems that everyone has so much knowledge and you feel so not at that level, and so especially when it comes to being an instructor, it just seemed like, “Wow, how do you even do that? How does one even get to the level where they can be an instructor?” And I think after working in the field for a few years, you're no longer a new grad, you're comfortable in what you're doing, especially after going and then getting your master's degree. You do start to feel, “Okay, I have a little bit of knowledge now,” and so when she let me know that there was an opportunity, I, I jumped for it. I couldn't wait.

Joe Gaccione 16:12
What intangibles do you think a PTI should have?

Melanie Sharpley 16:15
I think two very important intangibles, the first one is flexibility. I think especially with the pandemic and COVID, everyone sort of was hit with that and having to start running straight away with, “Okay, now we're doing virtual learning, now we're doing online. We may not be able to go to clinical this day.” So, I think being flexible with that and also your approach to teaching the students. Not every student is the same, not everyone learns the same way. So, I think having that flexibility in your approach and also just circumstances is huge. And another one, I would say, is compassion. That's a huge one. Being able to remember what it was like to be a student and be in their shoes and have that level of empathy I think is so important. So yeah, definitely flexibility and compassion I would say are top two.

Joe Gaccione 17:02
Now, before the interview, you mentioned the level four students are the ones you work with. Is that primarily the student group that you teach?

Melanie Sharpley 17:08
Yes, so I teach level four students, students in their very last semester of nursing school, and like Joe mentioned earlier, I do mental health in psych, so it's their first time being exposed to that field. The other three semesters are strictly medical. And so, it's really exciting also because they're about to graduate. So, I think it's just a really fun time, and I have them at a level where they do already have that background knowledge, even though they're about to learn something new.

Joe Gaccione 17:33
What's it like seeing them in that final semester? They've accumulated all this knowledge through the past three semesters, and this is it. I mean, this is, they're getting ready to hit the ground running, but they have one more, one more semester to complete. Almost like this is the, the final stage, but also, they're also trying to get ready professionally too. Watching them grow, do you, is it that noticeable in that last semester?

Melanie Sharpley 17:57
Absolutely. And I think it's great because they're, they are a little bit frazzled and nervous because, like you said, they're preparing for NCLEX, they're preparing for graduation, deciding which field of nursing they wanna go into, and I think having this psych background is great. So many of the students are fearful of the mental health field. There's still a lot of stigmas around mental health and nursing. And so, I think offering a new perspective of a field they can go into, especially right before graduation, has been super rewarding. A lot of them haven't even considered that until they take their mental health clinical rotation, and so it's really great in that last semester to have students say, “Hey, now maybe I would be interested in a psych nursing job or doing something in the mental health field, whereas before I didn't know that was even available to me.”

Joe Gaccione 18:43
Does the mental health side double for them? Not just terminology and treatment options, but also for themselves to be able to look in? I, I minored in psych and I remember my professors would say, “If you're going to major or minor in this field, you're going to self-diagnose. It's a given. Do you find that with the nursing students, that they maybe can learn some stuff about themselves as far as maybe coping, avoiding burnout, things like that?

Melanie Sharpley 19:06
Yes. Yes, all of the above. One of the first things I do when I get a new group of students is have them fill out a “getting to know me” sheet, and one of the questions on that sheet is, “Is there something during this rotation that you would like to apply to your own personal mental health?” And I do have a lot of students say, you know, yeah, they're struggling with anxiety, test-taking anxiety, coping skills, stress, and by the end of the semester, we go over those forms and talk about what they've learned throughout the semester, and it's so inspiring to see them apply what they've learned during the clinical rotation to their own lives in ways that, “Wow, I've spoken to this patient about this, but that applies to me too,” and it's great that even if they don't go into psych, they can apply that knowledge to various fields as well.

Joe Gaccione 19:51
Was there a moment in particular that made all the difference for you as a PTI, like maybe one student or one day where you thought, “This, this was, this was truly awesome,” to put it bluntly?

Melanie Sharpley 20:03
Yes, absolutely. One moment sticks out in particular, there is a very, very manic patient on the unit on one of our hospital days, and a lot of the staff, they were struggling to sort of keep her calm, she needed a lot of redirection. And one of the hard things with the mental health rotation is that the students can't pass medications, they can't do a lot of the things they're used to doing on their medical rotations, so a lot of it is just speaking with the patients and doing assessments. And I had one student who the patient really connected with and she was able to keep this woman laughing, smiling, happy, the entire shift, and none of the staff had seen it or was able to do that, and they were just commending us so much like, “Thank you for being here because even though you're ‘just a student,’” quote unquote, and many times can't do a lot in that day, they made the world of difference for that patient. And the student was really appreciative too, and that was just a very rewarding moment for me to realize, “Wow, what we're doing here matters, even if the day-by-day, it may not seem like it does, it really does have an effect on the patients and the students.

Joe Gaccione 21:10
And sometimes it doesn't take much. Like you said, even as a student, you still have those skills, you still have those abilities to influence or impact someone even if they don't know it themselves.

Melanie Sharpley 21:19
Exactly, exactly. And so, being there in that moment, I'm just there to facilitate is what I always say, but seeing it firsthand going, “Wow, this student really made a difference even though they're not working here, they're not a part of the staff, you know, core team.” It was great. It was a great, rewarding day.

Joe Gaccione 21:35
What inspired you to be a nurse in the first place?

Melanie Sharpley 21:38
Ooh, I think I've always been interested in the medical field and I always sort of grappled with what field I wanted to go into, what profession, and being in UNLV, taking certain courses, I realized that nursing was the way to go. I did a lot of shadowing to see if I wanted to go the physician route, PA route, which way I wanted to go, and nursing just encompassed everything that I liked. The amount of time spent with the patients, the caregiving, all of it. And then I decided to further that, like you said, and get my master's, become a nurse practitioner, and that's just opened an entirely new world of things that you can do in the nursing profession, so I love it.

Joe Gaccione 22:15
What is something that you think is misunderstood about nurse education?

Melanie Sharpley 22:19
I think just how to get into it, like I mentioned earlier, can seem very elusive, and a lot of people aren't aware. You just think, “Oh, this person has been doing this for 20 years and now they're a teacher.” And so, for all of my students, I always let them know there's so much you can do. It's not just bedside med-surg like you may think. There's forensic nursing, there's school nursing, you can travel, flight nursing, so many things. And so, I think being a nurse educator also is one of those things that many students don't know they can even get into. So, that's been great too, to have students come up to me and ask me questions about my journey and being able to explain to them that, “Yes, this is very much feasible. This is something that you would be able to do as well if you're interested in it.”

Joe Gaccione 23:04
Those are all the questions I have. Melanie, thank you so much for coming in.

Melanie Sharpley 23:06
Thank you so much, Joe. This was great.

Joe Gaccione 23:11
Finally, we are pleased to have Sarah Musovski. She's a rebel alumna, having earned both her bachelor's and master’s at UNLV. Sarah, thanks for coming in.

Sarah Musovski 23:20
Thank you for having me.

Joe Gaccione 23:21
So how did you become a PTI?

Sarah Musovski 23:22
Ooh, it started, kind of planted in my brain in the beginning of my bachelor's degree when I had my very first clinical. My clinical instructor actually really inspired me to be an instructor myself. I saw her come in, she was young, had just finished her master's degree, and I thought, “Wow, I just really wanna be like her.” So, as soon as I graduated with my degree, started getting some experience in the hospital, I came back for my master's degree and was lucky enough to get accepted here. And then the old OB professor, Dr. Klevessey, she actually took me under her wing and kind of was like, “We need to make sure that you get on as an instructor,” so she kind of helped pave the way for that. And it's kind of interesting, my very first clinical instructor actually was Angela Silvestri, who is pretty high up in the nursing school now, she's not a level one instructor anymore.

Joe Gaccione 24:15
No. Now she's associate dean for entry and pre-licensure. It's a, it's a, it's a wordy title, but fancy, the fancy way of saying higher up. What do you look for in educators, or I should say, what did you look for in educators that, when you decided to go on this track to be an instructor yourself, you wanted to emulate?

Sarah Musovski 24:35
I think especially with Angela, she was just so personable. She wasn't intimidating or make you feel like you don't know anything, even though level one you're just starting out like brand new. So, I really wanted to be that kind of person who was more welcoming and not so scary.

Joe Gaccione 24:52
Now you teach OB, correct?

Sarah Musovski 24:54
Correct.

Joe Gaccione 24:55
And that's level three and third semester students?

Sarah Musovski 24:57
Correct.

Joe Gaccione 24:58
What's that challenge like, if any, when you have students that are, you know, they're on the cusp of kind of figuring it all out, or at least getting closer to it, but they're still, you know, they still have an entire semester, you know, a semester and a half to go basically?

Sarah Musovski 25:13
You do have some students who are very confident, for sure. They're almost done with school. However, OB is so different than any other clinical that they've ever had, so usually they're just like, “I don't know what's going on.” So, I don't wanna say it's entirely like level one all over again, but they are very fresh to the topic. So, I don't necessarily always have students who feel like they've got it all, all ready to go.

Joe Gaccione 25:38
This may be a redundant question, but what intangibles do you think a PTI should have?

Sarah Musovski 25:43
Definitely that welcomeness, like I said, patience, for sure. It is a lot to teach somebody how to do something, especially when it's something that you're so used to doing. You have to really slow down and break things down and be patient that they're not gonna understand it the first time around. I think it kind of all goes back to just really being open with the students and allowing them to come to you when they're confused because you don't want that student that's too scared to come talk to you. So, I think having that kind of personality is important.

Joe Gaccione 26:14
Do you think it's easy for students to get intimidated by an educator, a professor, and a part-time instructor? Do you think it's that title or that status that, unintentionally, they feel like, “Oh, I don't, I, I need to make sure I'm doing well. I don't, I don't wanna ask any questions. I don't want to come off as weak or that I don't understand something.”?

Sarah Musovski 26:31
For sure. I think that a lot of students do struggle. They don't wanna seem like they don't know anything. They're like, “Oh, I, I should know this, so I don't wanna ask about it,” but that's not true. I mean, you're a student to learn, so I think any question is not a stupid question, like everybody says.

Joe Gaccione 26:48
And I've heard from alums who have PhDs that say, “I'm still learning,” which, if you're, if you're a student all the time, you probably think, “Well, even a PhD's not enough,” but the point is, it's like you're, you're always going be learning. You're always going to be asking questions, you're going to get better, you're going to get stronger, but there's never a moment where you have to have it all figured out.

Sarah Musovski 27:07
Definitely, especially in the medical field. I mean, things are changing every single day. There's no way that there's somebody who knows everything.

Joe Gaccione 27:15
We've had two other PTIs on this episode, and I've asked the, the same question, I'm curious, what was a memorable moment for you as a PTI, as a nurse educator?

Sarah Musovski 27:25
I think that the first time that I saw a previous student now working in the hospital in OB was really cool. I only have the students for seven weeks because OB is not a full semester course, so I only have a small window of being with them. So, I thought it was really cool to end up seeing a former student on the floor as the nurse and saying, “I enjoyed the clinical so much that I wanted to come back and have that as my job,” and I think that's really cool to be able to make that kind of mark on somebody in such a small amount of time.

Joe Gaccione 28:00
Do you feel like you learn from your students as much as they learn from you?

Sarah Musovski 28:03
Oh, for sure. Especially I, I say this all the time to my husband, I say the students keep staying the same age, and I keep getting older because every semester they're still in their early twenties and I'm not. So, they're definitely teaching me new ways to look at things, especially when, like we had said, you kind of get used to doing the same thing over and over, and then they come in with fresh eyes and fresh opinions and, and show you different ways of viewing different things. So, definitely learn from them, too.

Joe Gaccione 28:32
Having that part-time status is probably helpful for you professionally and personally. You're also a mom, you have twins. What's it like balancing all these roles?

Sarah Musovski 28:42
It is busy for sure. I did NICU for about seven years. I actually left last March just because having twins is a lot. It started to become a little bit too much, but the PTI role is great. I get to have that experience with my students, it's not a 12 hour shift like working in the hospital was, so that's awesome, and I feel like I still get to do my skills and enjoy that part of working, but it still is a lot to balance for sure. You're a parent also, it's a lot to handle having kids at home.

Joe Gaccione 29:16
It is, even just one. And you have twins, which, double the fun. What inspired you to become a nurse in the first place?

Sarah Musovski 29:24
In the first place? Nursing was kind of my calling because when I was younger I was in and out of the hospital a lot. When I was three years old, I had a liver transplant, so I'm no stranger to the medical world. And I think just having that experience early on and seeing the way that the nurses were with me as a kid really inspired me to come back and be that kind of nurse for children later on. Pediatrics wasn't necessarily the field that I went into. I mean, NICU was, I guess, technically pediatrics, but I didn't go into dealing with small children, just more babies, it's more my thing, but that was really what led me to want to do nursing.

Joe Gaccione 30:03
We have a lot of students that say they want to be in pediatrics, they want to play with babies and little kids. How do you hype that up for students to say, you know, “It is what it's going to, what you think it's going to be, or maybe it's not what it's going to be, because like any healthcare field, you're gonna have the good moments, you're gonna have the tough moments.”? How do you kind of settle them into that, that role?

Sarah Musovski 30:20
So I get to be the instructor for the students going into the NICU. I don't get to do peds or anything like that. So for NICU, a lot of people ask me like, “Is it really sad all the time?” And it's really not. For sure, you do have those sad moments. It is a lot, emotionally, to have a baby in the NICU, definitely. Both of my twins were in there, so I, I can relate to that. But you still are there for the first time a mom gets to hold her baby, for the first time a baby takes a bottle on their own, breathes on their own, like all of these really big moments in that family's life. And it's a really cool thing to be a part of that. So, I think there are more happy experiences, surprisingly, in the NICU than unhappy ones.

Joe Gaccione 31:03
How do you think we can inspire more nurses to be nurse educators? Because it feels like that's one of the biggest trends right now, is we need more nurses out there in the, in the field, but we also need more nurse educators to take on the load of students coming in. How would you encourage students to take on that, that role, whether it's PTI, full-time faculty, preceptor, however the role emerges?

Sarah Musovski 31:25
That's a good question because I do think you have to be the kind of person who wants to teach. Like you can't really, I can't convince you to do it. You have to have that mentality already. But I think just giving positive teaching experiences as a whole can kind of show them like, “Oh, that could be fun for me to do later on.” When students have good experiences in the hospital too and then when they have students later on, when they're the nurse, I think they think back to those experiences and they're like, “I wanna provide a good experience like I had when I was in nursing school.” So, I think kind of full circle, going back to having that positive attitude and welcoming attitude and, and showing them that teaching isn't scary and that it can be fun can hopefully inspire more nurse educators.

Joe Gaccione 32:10
One of the PTIs we had on before, Gretchen Little, she talked about storytelling as one of the big ways that she engages her students, but also reinforces positive moments. And I feel like telling stories of good teaching moments can maybe unlock that potential in someone.

Sarah Musovski 32:26
For sure. I tell lots of stories. It's super helpful when you've had a baby to teach OB to students, so I've got plenty of those. I think, like you said, just being able to relay positive experiences and in a way that is entertaining can be helpful.

Joe Gaccione 32:41
That is all the time we have. Sarah, thank you so much for coming in.

Sarah Musovski 32:44
Thank you for having me.

Joe Gaccione 32:45
Thanks for listening out there. Hope you have a great day.