Nurse Coaching

I have been fortunate to have been a nurse for over 30 years now, and continue to fulfill that calling in various ways. In my first career nursing ‘job’ straight out of school, I worked in a Boston hospital in the famed Longwood Medical Area. I felt I was living my dream, helping people and also doing it in what felt like the fast lane of cutting edge medicine and nursing. I had aspired to continue my education, get my Masters degree by age 28 and become a nurse educator or similar. I enrolled back in college the following semester out of my diploma degree program to get my Bachelors degree at a college right near work. I was adjusting to commuting, working a day/night shift rotation, attending 2 in person classes (online learning didn’t exist then) while studying for my nursing boards. Behind the scenes, I was also battling some anxiety as I literally had a more senior nurse bullying me as nurses often ”ate their young” as acceptable behavior. I feared somehow, that I was going to fail at all of it.

I loved my patients and so many of my co-workers, but I became increasingly concerned that the setting I was in was more of a ”sickness model” than a health model, both for the patients and for the staff. Flash forward, the stress and some physical injuries on the job led me to seek alternative career options. After what felt like the death of a dream, a failure to be able to stay in the fast lane, I saw that it really led me instead to my true passion in nursing, Wellness. From being an educator in an outpatient behavioral programs to school and employee health nursing positions, I have been able to share a holistic health philosophy with people of all ages and backgrounds. It is rewarding to empower people to discover their own health priorities and solutions and meet them in whatever phase they are in. I became a board-certified nurse coach in 2015, as a true fulfillment of my nursing dream, and incorporate what I learn in both my career and community work. If you explore more about nurse coaching, there are lots of resources. Check where I began and stay tuned for some more of my posts about nurse coaching. https://inursecoach.com/about/