Nurse Medical Writer, Janelle Barowski

[00:00] Michelle: I was fascinated by Janelle Barowski's profile on LinkedIn and I knew I had to connect with her. She's a nurse and a talented freelance medical writer, having worked with some of the biggest names in the industry. Janelle found her calling in medical writing after realizing that bedside nursing no longer fulfilled her and has since achieved the work-life balance that many of us strive for. She explained that nurses are highly sought after in medical writing due to their expertise and compassionate writing style, which is very similar to how they speak with patients. I discovered that there are numerous outlets for medical writing, including nursing curricula journals, NCLEX questions, continuing education, medical blogs, and more. Janelle even referred to medical writing as an entry-level job that requires no prior experience. But what I appreciated most was Janelle's perspective on nurses leaving the bedside to pursue writing. She reassured me that they are still helping patients, but just in a different way. In the five-minute snippet, is there such a thing as a poor ski bum? Here is Janelle Barowski. Well, hi, Janelle. Welcome to the podcast.
[01:34] Janelle: Thank you so much for having me.
[01:36] Michelle: It's my pleasure. We met on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is a wonderful platform for meeting all kinds of professionals. And I've connected with a lot of people and a lot of my guests. So I say yay to LinkedIn. And when I read your bio, it said that you are a medical writer. And it really piqued my curiosity because I've heard it before, but I've never thought of nurses being medical writers. So when I saw that you were a nurse and a medical writer, I was like, I need to find out more about her. So I am so glad you're here.
[02:19] Janelle: Actually didn't know about medical writing either until I made a LinkedIn. It's funny how I made a LinkedIn, nurse Keith from the Nurse Keith podcast. Actually, I used to listen to him all the time. He recommends making a LinkedIn if you're looking for any sort of entrepreneurial ideas and just so you know, send a connection request and say hi. And I saw someone that had the title Nurse Writer, and I was like, oh, my gosh, what is that? So I sent a connection request and I just asked that. I was like, what is a nurse writer? And she told me. And then I found health writing and medical writing, and they're pretty much the same thing and the rest is history.
[03:01] Michelle: And you talked about being on the Nurse Keith podcast, and I listened to that episode and you were fantastic. And I did see that he has a course on how to kind of shoosh  up your LinkedIn, so I'm very interested in that. But why don't you just start by kind of telling us how did you get to this space that you're in right now? What's your background? How did you come to be a medical writer?
[03:32] Janelle: Absolutely. So I've been a nurse for about six years and a medical writer for about four years. And I started off working with geriatric patients at a nursing home, and I really loved some aspects of it. Before I was a nurse, I was a waitress, so I loved running around. I love multitasking and I love doing a million things at once. I'm just definitely an Energizer Bunny in some aspects like that. But I found that it was really starting to affect my mental health, because when I got home from those shifts, I really struggled to wind down that fight or flight reflex, and I couldn't sleep. And I found that it was actually starting to give me anxiety outside of work. So even though a part of me really did like that type of work, I realized that it wasn't the best for my mental health. And the patient loads are really tough, too. There were a couple of other things that I wasn't super jazzed about. So I decided to switch over to school nursing, which is where I went from there. I was a pediatric school nurse, and I still actually do that in a limited capacity. And I love it, I absolutely love it. Special needs kids are just so much fun. They just brighten up my day. But still, I just feel like I wasn't quite scratching that itch, I guess. I feel like I didn't quite find my place in the nursing world. I was like, this is so much better. But I'm just, like, not quite there. So I was considering my options and I went for a promotion at my job because I saw that there was a need for an additional manager there. My manager was really overworked. She was the only manager and she could never take a vacation because no one was trained to do her work and she was just really burnt out. So I made a proposal and they agreed with me that there was definitely a need for another person to help out my nurse leader and to take some of the load off of her. But it ended up getting denied for financial reasons. So I ended up getting denied the promotion. So I just kind of did some soul searching and I decided to give myself a promotion and see if there were any other ways that I could find an upward trajectory, I guess, and what my other options were because I kind of started thinking and I was like, I'm just not super happy in this role. I do like it. I like it a lot. It's better than the last one, but it's still not perfect. And the wheel started turning. Can I be here for the next 20 years? Am I going to be happy at the bedside for the next 20 years, I decided that I probably wasn't. So I started looking at other options, and I ran into that nurse writer on LinkedIn, and she was kind enough to tell me what a nurse writer was. And in the meantime, I was actually already doing some writing stuff on the side, but I didn't have a word for it. I didn't know what it was, and I didn't know how to market it. I was already a freelance writer because I was taking these side jobs for writing that I would find, but I had no idea that this was, like, a thing that I could do for a career and that it was scalable, and that it could someday replace my actual nine to five income. So I started to get a little bit antsy, started to look around, and I'm a really big reptile person. I have a lizard at home that I really love. And I was on the reptile subreddit, and someone had made a post that asked if anyone wanted to be a reptile writer, and I absolutely jumped on it. And I was like, I would love to be a person to write about reptiles. It's such a cool thing. My rate was really low to start, but that kind of opened the door for me. And I leveraged every freelance job since then. So because I was writing about reptiles, it was technically blog writing. So then I got a job writing blogs about nurses because I had that nursing background. And then after I got my foot in the door through healthcare, it just kind of exploded from there, and I just found, like, more and more little niches that I could be in and that kind of brought me to where I am today.
[07:51] Michelle: That is a fascinating story. I love a lot of things about that. I love that you really liked working in a nursing home, and I could totally just from your personality, I could see you just being loved by the patients there and just your energy. I think they would just really love that. And I also love that you were thinking long-term. I think that some of us don't really think that. We just kind of fly by the seat of our pants and, well, I'll do this for now because it feels good, but you're thinking long-term. And then I love reptiles as well. Yeah, I don't own any, but I just recently went to my great nephew's fourth birthday party, and they hired a reptile guy to do a show, and I had these snakes, like, wrapped around me. I was like a little kid there. I love it. I love everything about them. I love how they feel. They're just so interesting. So I think you obviously had a love for reptiles and a passion, and that probably came through in your writing, and it was easy to write about. And then also, as you said, you're a nurse and you're passionate about that, and you just kind of switched over. And you're all already kind of familiar with writing about reptiles, so it gave you a really good basis, I guess, to take all your stuff further.
[09:33] Janelle: I always tell people to start with what you like, whether it be cars or tech or anything. Just see if what you like has a popular industry around it and see if you can write about that because it is so much easier to write about what you love. Sometimes, I swear, some articles will take me, like, five years, and then other ones I can write in just a couple of hours. So that always helps.
[09:58] Michelle: So true. Yeah. And just meeting you and seeing what you do and just finding out a little bit, it's got my wheels turning because anybody that knows me by now, knows that I really love the NICU, and I'm very passionate about it. And so my wheels were turning in my head about what could I write about the NICU. So, yeah, let's get into some of this writing. So you had already been a nurse for a couple of years before you started writing. Is that true?
[10:32] Janelle: Yes, that's true. Probably two to three years, about that.
[10:37] Michelle: Okay. Like, how much experience as a nurse do I need to be a writer? Can I be a nurse for a year and then start writing? How do you feel about that?
[10:48] Janelle: Yes, this is my favorite question. So I love to say that medical writing is an entry-level job for nurses because it is. We are so used to collecting all these fancy credentials, which is great. I love how knowledge-based our field is, but it's easy to get stuck in that mindset, and it's easy to forget that other industries aren't like that. So people are so impressed that we have even studied some of these concepts in school, never mind having worked on the floor. So it really is an entry level profession, so you don't need to be working, for example, within a subspecialty to write about it. And you also don't have to have years of experience at the bedside. It definitely helps if you have certain niches, like if you're a nurse educator, then that means that you can probably break down complex concepts for people to understand, which is awesome for blog writing. Sometimes if you've worked on an oncology floor, you're very desirable for certain niches, like regulatory writing, which is very dense. But for the most part, there is plenty of room for people that want to write, for example, nursing textbooks. I started off with NCLEX, test prep questions, and that type of thing. So it's very attainable.
[12:11] Michelle: So along those lines, I saw that you have your Master's in Leadership and Management, and I would think that having that advanced degree would be really kind of desirable for companies that are looking for nurse writers. But is it crucial that you have an advanced degree? Can I write with an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree?
[12:37] Janelle: I love this question, too, because I actually started my career with an associate's degree, and it kicked my buns. I think my associate's degree was one of the hardest degrees I got. They jammed so much information in those two years. So I have so much respect for everyone with an associate's degree. That being said, my master's degree definitely gives me a competitive edge, especially in more competitive industries. You have to think, too, that writing is so broad. So there are so many little niches and sub-niches that you can go into. So there are some niches that are a lot more competitive than others. So regulatory is hyper-competitive, and they usually do want like, a master's or like, a PhD. And then if you think about blog writing, no one's really ever asked for my master's degree. And I think also when I started writing, I was only writing with my bachelor's at the time I got my Master's, like, halfway through when I was writing. So I started off with my bachelor's.
[13:46] Michelle: Got it. Okay. And you talk about blog writing, and I know what a blog is, but can you explain what regulatory writing is or give an example?
[13:55] Janelle: Yeah, so I'm just going to give a couple of examples of a couple of different ones. So I'll start with regulatory writing. So regulatory writing is a really dense type of medical writing, and regulatory writing is kind of a little bit of an umbrella term that covers the type of writing that regulatory agencies use to check the safety, efficacy, and other properties of medications, devices, and treatments. So you would send out a regulatory document to the FDA for drug approval for a clinical one trial, that type of thing. So it's very high paying, but it's also hyper-competitive in that niche. And that's a type of medical writing. And a blog is actually a type of health writing. And the difference between health and medical is medical uses a lot of really dense medical jargon. So the wording would be similar to a nursing note, but if it was in long-form sentences. So, like, super dense medical terminology versus a blog would be how I would explain a skin condition to my mom that doesn't have a medical background. So plain terms like the difference between saying maculopapular and reddened, raised bumps.
[15:20] Michelle: Got it.
[15:21] Janelle: And then you also have academic writing, which is the nursing curriculum. You can write nursing textbooks, you can write NCLEX test prep questions, which they are redoing the NCLEX. So there's a big push right now for the next generation of NCLEX writers. You can do continuing education. And then my favorite game that blew my mind when I was writing when I first started writing, was I started thinking about all the times I had seen text related to health, and all of those instances were written by a health or medical writer. So anytime that you opened a manual for a kangaroo machine in a hospital, that was written by a health writer, and then they also have to make the infographics. So if you want to be more on the visual side, there's also an area for that. Anytime an email is written from a hospital, from a facility that was written by a health writer, actually a copywriter, anytime you see, like, a billboard, that's another form of copywriting. Anytime you see like, a Facebook ad or a new healthcare facility opening, all of those are forms of copy. So there's like a ton of little sub-niches that you can get into.
[16:36] Michelle: It sounds so complex and complicated and then just very I don't know what the word for it is, just logical. So who is reading these publications? Obviously, like you said, if you're doing a blog, it's going to be somebody that Googled something, but who would be reading like, a regulatory piece?
[17:04] Janelle: So that's usually like, someone from the FDA. But there's also other forms of medical writing. So I write news briefs too, and that's when I take a research article. So from a nursing journal, like a database, I translate it for a clinician to understand so he can use it or she can use it in their practice. And then also a medical writer actually has to physically write the nursing journal that that news brief came from too. So I don't know. It's like an onion. You keep peeling. You're like, oh my gosh, more medical writers. More health writers, yes.
[17:43] Michelle: There's so many layers, that's so true. Well, I see that you write for a variety of different organizations and just to name a few, Health Grades, Hay Market Alphanumerics, those are some pretty big ones. And how does that work? Do those companies come to you or do you go to them? How does that work?
[18:08] Janelle: It's been a mix. When I started, I was reaching out to companies. I work for other companies besides those too. Medical news today. And then some smaller ones. I would call them mom-pop types of publications. Or like, maybe for example, I write for a podiatrist that has his own practice, and it really varies. A lot of the time they're actually finding me now, but for a while I was doing outreach either through email or through LinkedIn, just organically starting conversations with people and just letting them know my services. A lot of the time they can see my LinkedIn profile and they know what I do, so I don't have to do any really hard sales. It's more of just like an introduction and it goes from there. If they need a writer, they usually let me know.
[18:59] Michelle: Well, I love your website, Willowparkwriting.com. I got on there and it's great. So much information. And I'll definitely put that in the show notes so that people can find that. One of the things I'm thinking about is when I first thought of, oh, maybe I could write something, I immediately got that pang of like, but what if it gets rejected? And sometimes rejection or fear of rejection has held me back. And so how do you coach your clients to kind of get past that?
[19:41] Janelle: Yes, I actually knew exactly where you were going with that question because I get that all the time, and honestly, it literally breaks my heart. It's called like, impostor syndrome. And I just do, like, great big pep talks all the time, and I just remind so many people that I run into, especially nurses or healthcare workers, that we have experience that no one else has. Most of us have worked at the bedside with these patients. So even if you're not in that specialty specifically, you've still used most of us have used, like, an empathetic tone to explain a condition in plain terms to a person. And that's something that other journalists and people writing healthcare articles don't have if they're not us. So not only have we gone to school for two years, four years, six years, we've actually lived those conditions. So I understand how hard it is, because even still, sometimes I get it, not with writing, but with other things, like with coaching people. I'm like, am I good enough to coach people? And then I'm like, yes, I am. I can do this, I can do this. So it's just remembering that we have such a unique background and we have our education to back us up as well as the bedside, that makes us such a unique dynamic, like, a double threat to any publication. And honestly, most people are really excited when I reach out to them. They're like, nurse, writer, like, yes, please, this is awesome. So just to remember that and honestly, just to get over the hump, too, take a couple of deep breaths, shake it out, go for a walk, whatever you have to do, just, like, remember that you're valuable, your education is valuable, and people want to hear from you.
[21:27] Michelle: Well, I absolutely love that because the impostor syndrome, that is very real, and it can really hold people back from doing things like, exactly like you said, that they have the knowledge, they have the experience, they have the intellect to be able to do it. But that little voice in their ear, that's like, who are you to think you could write for a magazine or a publication holding them back? So I'm glad that you're really coaching them to see their strengths and to just go for it. So how long do you think you had been writing before you started coaching others in writing?
[22:13] Janelle: I actually just started coaching people this year, about six months ago. It was always in the back of my mind, I was really burnt out at one point at the bedside, and realizing that I didn't want to do a bedside rule forever just left me with this deep sense of just like, I don't know, like, sadness. So I found writing, and I was like, I want to help people do this. If anyone's feeling how I felt, I don't want them to feel like this. So even though I just started coaching pretty early on, I was like, I'm going to help people do what I did. I want to get as many people to find their happy place in the world, whether it be bedside writing, other nontraditional roles, or whatever role I can play with that, I want to help them where I can. So I started taking notes on things that confused me and things that I would want to know about the entire journey. But I just started coaching people about six months ago.
[23:12] Michelle: Okay, you sound like you've just been doing it for years. I think you're a natural.
[23:18] Janelle: I think I'm an older sister, so I think a lot of it comes from that.
[23:24] Michelle: Okay, so what about the legalities of medical writing? Like, what if I write something and I get it wrong? How does that work?
[23:34] Janelle: So I write everything with the frame of mind that it has to be evidence-based. So not a single word goes on to paper that I don't know is a fact. And I use leading organizations like the CDC, the WHO, the National Institute of Health. If I'm quoting something on diabetes, I go to the National Diabetes Organization and specifically find out the data. I never quote a number unless I have the research study that that number comes from. So I never say anything about opinion. And I'm also really careful with the words I say. I'm not a prescriber, so I never say, you should take 650 milligrams of Tylenol if you have a headache every 4-6 hours. That's not within my scope. So instead, I might say something like your healthcare provider may recommend over-the-counter medications to treat your headache. You should take them as indicated on the label. And then I'll never say, probiotics will cure your digestive issues. I might do something, yeah, that's it. I might say something like, probiotics may help improve your digestive symptoms. It's the difference between will and may. Those are like, little touches and just making sure that everything is cited in all of my articles, which is what we do anyways, right? We make care plans where everything has a rationale. Everything we do is evidence-based. So it's really no different than what we're doing at the bedside. It's just we're just doing it on paper.
[25:26] Michelle: Now, do you have to cite those sources in the article, or do you cite them for yourself or reference back to"
[25:37] Janelle: It depends on their editorial process. I always cite and just keep them in my own reference. But most of the time, I've only had one publication that was like, we don't really want to see your references, and I was like, I think I'm all set with you guys. This is weird. But everyone else yeah, they make me cite right in there. It's really easy. You just do you cite the source in there with a little SuperScript or something like that. It's nothing complicated.
[26:09] Michelle: Well, let's talk about your clients. So I'm sure at any given time, you're working with several clients, if not many, because I'm very organized. And so how do you organize your clients or the contracts that you're working for? Do you use a certain system? Like, do you use a spreadsheet? How do you do that?
[26:33] Janelle: Yeah, I just counted real quick. I think I have nine clients right now.
[26:38] Michelle: Right.
[26:41] Janelle: So some freelancers like to use tools. I can't even think of their names because I'm very low tech. I use a spreadsheet, I use Google Sheets, and in the column, I'll just say who it is. So if it's like Haymarket, I'll say, Haymarket, what the title is, how many words are due, the dates that they're due, like, all in different columns. And then I'll write any notes, like if I started this or if I didn't start this. And then also in my Google Drive, which, once again, there are databases that you can pay for and use. But I love Gmail. It's so simple, I can take it anywhere. I'm a simple low-tech gal. So in my Gmail, every client has a different folder, and under every folder, I have their previous work, current work, and then I also keep any resources that I need. So any style guides, any reference guides, anything like that. And then I have another spreadsheet just tracking invoices and everything like that. It sounds like it's a lot, but it's actually really organized just to have it under one spot. It's really easy for me to just go in and out. And most of the time, I actually don't even check the spreadsheet. I just kind of keep it on the top of my mind. I mentally check off one, and then I know what article is up next.
[28:11] Michelle: Well, it sounds like we kind of have the same system. I'm a fan of Gmail, like yourself and all the like, I use Google Docs for all my scripts and all my questions. I use a spreadsheet to organize all my guests and their emails, and if I have finished their episode, if I've published it, all those things. And it makes it really easy. And I think when you are working with multiple clients, you have to have some kind of system.
[28:41] Janelle: Yes, definitely do. Whatever works for you. I just find that Gmail is just so accessible for me.
[28:47] Michelle: Exactly. Well, you talked for a second in talking about your spreadsheets and so forth, about when the item is due, and so what kind of timelines are there?
[29:03] Janelle: Yeah, so usually it's about a week. Usually that's a good time frame. I'm trying to think if there's any clients that are less than that. I'm actually rewriting a website right now that's like a bigger project. You really have to be in that catchy copywriting type of frame of mind. So that's going to take a little bit longer than a week. We haven't hashed out a deadline, but we're just talking about the creative process right now. Probably about three weeks. But I would say the standard is about a week, which is nice because you can kind of mull over what you think you're going to write about. You don't have to jam it all in one or two days. It's a really good balance.
[29:43] Michelle: So, yeah, a week, that sounds so fast to me. I feel like, oh my gosh, I would need about at least three days to just think about what I'm going to write and then another maybe three days to write it. Yeah. And so how do you do that? How do you balance your writing life? And then you said you still work sometimes for the school district and your family life, and how do you balance all that?
[30:18] Janelle: So I think it helps that I genuinely really enjoy writing. I really love writing and I've also really always loved learning. So for the first time ever, I'm not paying someone to teach me through a degree. I'm getting paid to research crazy disease processes and cutting-edge neuromodulation devices for migraines and seizure activities. I just get so jazzed and so lost in the research. So I really enjoy it. When some people are watching TV, like, my fiancee really likes to watch TV. I'll just be like, ticking away at like, a research article and that's just kind of what I do. I will say that I'm a really avid skier, so I get out on the slopes every single weekend of winter. I do about 30 days of skiing a year. And that's something that will always come before writing. So I definitely kind of have a hierarchy. And then as far as a family life, it's just me and my fiance right now, which I think is also why I can balance all of this. Obviously, I have extended family and we do see each other and everything, but I think it would be different if I have kids in the house. Reptiles are very low maintenance. They don't need me that much, so I can write more. And also the other thing is, with freelance writing, if I'm stressed out, I can just drop a client or I can just very politely just be like, hey, instead of three articles, I'm just going to do one article for the next couple of weeks, which is actually what I'm doing because we just opened my pool. So I'm like, I need to be swimming more. So I'm just going to very politely cut down on a couple of articles and then I'll pick back up in September, and that'll be before ski season. And then I'll drop back down in ski season. So there is freelancing that allows that flexibility and that ebb and flow for you to kind of pick your clients and also pick your availability. So it works with my lifestyle.
[32:20] Michelle: That's amazing. Yeah, I didn't know that you would have that flexibility with a client who said we need three articles by this time and you have the flexibility to say you're going to get one article.
[32:35] Janelle: Yeah, well, usually they have a team of freelancers, so usually if one freelancer is unavailable, they'll just draft it to another freelancer. And also it's not like in nursing where everyone needs their meds at noon, you know what I mean? Most of these deadlines are pretty loosey goosey. Some are hard deadlines, especially if you're doing copywriting and there's like a product that's going to launch, but for the most part, no one really cares if a blog is pushed back a little bit.
[33:03] Michelle: Okay, that's good to know. Well, I use Grammarly when I'm writing to kind of check my grammar and my spelling. Do you use anything similar?
[33:15] Janelle: Yeah, have you heard of Hemingway?
[33:18] Michelle: No.
[33:18] Janelle: Yeah, you should totally give Hemingway a try. I use Grammarly and then I use Hemingway right after and then I'll check it through myself. I like Grammarly, but Hemingway I like better. I use the free options of both. Hemingway will highlight any awkward-sounding or difficult-to-read sentences for you and then you can kind of rework them. And the reason why I don't do the paid version is because I want to become a stronger writer. So I kind of like the puzzle piece of figuring it out on my own and then it'll tell me when I get it right. And he'll be like, oh yes, that makes much more sense. And it just picks up on small nuances that I won't pick up on. And it also will kind of simplify some of your words which are really good for blogs. I find that I still will get stuck in a little bit higher words, not medical jargon, but I can't think of any of the words that I usually use. Instead, I'll say something will accumulate and I'm like, no, accumulate, people don't want to read that word. So it'll say you will have extra or something like that. It'll just be like I'm like, oh yes, that is the simpler version of that. So. Yeah, I really like Hemingway.
[34:38] Michelle: I'm definitely going to check that out. So what about plagiarism? How does that work? Is your work run through any kind of plagiarism checker? Talk about that.
[34:53] Janelle: Yes, I am almost positive it is in my contracts. It will say I have so many contracts with as I said, I think I have nine clients right now. So everyone has their own editorial process in their own contract. But I am almost positive almost all of them are checking for plagiarism. And honestly, they should be, because they're paying me to write. They're not paying me to copy and paste. So I think it's totally within their right to do that. And it's easy to not plagiarize. I'll read a couple of articles, like a couple of research journals, to kind of get an overall idea, and then I will take key facts that I'll cite, but I'll make sure that I'm using my own words to cite them. And I won't ever cite, like, three facts in a row right, from one journal because that's too close. So it's all about making sure that you're not pulling someone's idea out of their concepts and that you're making your own. Still, something that's really interesting that I'm actually starting to see now is that they're running it through, like, I'm not quite sure how this works, but they're running it through AI checkers. So now my contracts plagiarism has always been there, but now my contracts are saying, you cannot use AI tools to write. And I think Hemingway is technically an AI tool and so is Grammarly, but they don't mean editing tools. They mean, like, the chat box bots and the Jaspers, where you just put in a prompt and it spits out a blog. So that's something that I've seen with the few recent contracts that I signed.
[36:29] Michelle: Yeah, that was actually one of my questions about AI, because the use of it is escalating so quickly and all of its simplicity is touted and so forth. And I thought, I wonder if anybody's using that to write. So you answered that really well. On your website with your coaching, you talk a lot about building a portfolio, so this might seem like a stupid question, so just laugh if it is, but is this a physical portfolio, like with paper, or is this a digital one?
[37:07] Janelle: Well, first of all, there are no stupid questions with medical writing because I didn't know what any of this meant. So no worries. And no, it's a digital portfolio. So what that pretty much means is, how are you supposed to get hired without proof that you can write a blog? So your portfolio is just like three to five pieces of what you want to write. So say you want to write a blog. Usually people start with blogs because they're like lower entry, they're easier to get in. So it would just be three to five blog pieces. That's all.
[37:41] Michelle: Okay. When you're working with a client, they say, let me see your portfolio. Then you would send them that?
[37:48] Janelle: Yes. Almost every single person that I talk to will ask for my portfolio, and about, like, three-quarters will ask for my resume. So everyone asks for the portfolio.
[38:02] Michelle: So once you get kind of known in the business, do these businesses talk to each other? Does Hay House say to another organization, hey, we're working with this really awesome writer, and you should check her out, or does any of that go on?
[38:21] Janelle: Well, I think you'd actually be really surprised to hear about how many publications are actually working under the same umbrella. So Medical News Today and Health Grades. And they also own Opt-in Perks. And I can't remember the other one. Oh, Healthline. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's Healthline. They all work under Red Ventures. So because I worked for Health Grades, the editor wanted me to work for Medical News Today and also offered me Opt-in Perks, but I had the decline due to scheduling. I couldn't take on more clients. And then the same thing with Haymarket. Haymarket actually has, I don't know, something like ten smaller publications. Underneath them, there's, like, Infectious Disease, pulmonary, rheumatology, dermatology, all these small little areas. So because I worked for Infectious Disease, I got asked to work for the pulmonary branch of it.
[39:24] Michelle: Okay, and thank you for clarifying that. I think I called it Hay House. That's a different organization. So thanks for clarifying that. It's Hay Market. Okay. So working for institutions, there are some good benefits, like the actual benefits, like insurance and 401K and everything like that. When you left the organization or the institution to go out on your own, did you have any fears about losing all those benefits, or did the benefits of leaving kind of outweigh the risks?
[40:07] Janelle: That's a great question. It's a question I see a lot of the time with people that are on the cusp of leaving. I think that it was just kind of obvious to me, I think that deep sense of burnout and almost I wouldn't quite call it depression, because in my family life and in my friend life, I was okay. But I don't know if you've ever been in a job that you just really hate and it makes your skin crawl to walk through that door. That's how I felt, and I have never been happier. Like, absolutely, I am so overjoyed. I've also paid for my own health insurance before as a waitress, so it wasn't, like, a totally foreign thing for me. You can get it from the federal healthcare market now. It's easier than before. And I also contribute to my own retirement. I was also very blessed that I was only a couple of years away from a pension, and my plan is to head back for the end part of my pension, and I only have to complete three years, and I don't even have to go back to that same facility. It's any public health job in my state. So I do have a plan.
[41:21] Michelle: You do. And again, that goes along with your forward-thinking, thinking about the future, and also just I think that would hold a lot of people back, because, sadly, I think a lot of people stay in jobs with big institutions at the bedside for a long time when they're not happy, but they're there for the benefits. And I think that would be, just like you said, a sad feeling walking into work every day, not loving what you do, but stuck because maybe you just don't know how you would get those different benefits. So thank you for talking about that.
[42:05] Janelle: I always say, too, that they can go back. It's not like you're closing the door forever. I always like to remind people that they can try freelancing for a year, and if they don't like it, they can go back. I also always recommend that people try freelancing on the side because I started just doing it on the side. I originally just wanted like a couple of extra bucks to help me afford the down payment for our house, and then I turned it into a full-time job. One of the ways I like to explain it is that if you write a blog once a week, which is what I was doing at the time, I was doing a lot more. But if you only wrote one blog a week, which is very doable for about $300, which is also a very doable amount for a blog, if you do that for a year, I think it comes out to like $13,000 about that before taxes. So you could just do one blog a year and that's it. You could have an extra $13,000 about that in your pocket just by doing that, and you can keep your benefits, and then you can decide if you want it. Maybe it's not for you, but maybe the next year you're like, oh, I love this, and I want to do two blogs so no one has to jump into it. Everyone can kind of take it easy.
[43:15] Michelle: Well, I think that there's so much flexibility, and I think it's perfect for a work-life balance, and I think you definitely have shown us that today. I appreciate you answering all these questions that I had in my mind, and I know many people have in their minds too. Before we close today, is there anything else that you want to talk, about writing? Anything else that you want to say?
[43:51] Janelle: I guess the last thing I would want to say is that I just kind of equate it to nursing in so many ways, in that if you do decide to leave the bedside, you're not less of a nurse because you decide to leave the bedside. You're just helping patients in a different type of way right now. Sometimes patients can't get the same level of client education because of nursing-patient ratios. Or maybe they were just really stressed out at the hospital and they heard the doctor's office and they got white coat syndrome and they just didn't really quite understand what the doctor is saying. And now they're going home and they're googling their new skin condition, and your article is coming up, so I just really want to drive it home. That you're not leaving the healthcare industry and that you're still helping so many different people and that your work is complementing the work at the bedside and that any nurse that decides to do a nontraditional role, it doesn't make you any less of a nurse. It just means that you're supporting nurses and patients in a different capacity.
[44:58] Michelle: I think that was beautifully said, and I just thank you for that. I feel like you were talking right to me because as a nurse for 36 years, when I decided to retire, I had a lot of guilt and I had a lot of those feelings, like, I'm not a nurse anymore and I'm not doing what I love. And I think many others can relate. So I thank you for just putting it so succinctly, and I just really appreciate you being here today, Janelle, thank you so much.
[45:34] Janelle: Thank you so much for having me.
[45:37] Michelle: Well, you know, you can't get out of the five-minute snippet. Are you ready for it? It's a lot of fun.
[45:47] Janelle: I sure am. Let's go.
[45:49] Michelle: Okay, so I'll just start my timer. If you were a captain of a ship, what would you call it?
[46:03] Janelle: Mermaid Moby.
[46:08] Michelle: Wow. Okay. I love it. Which actor would you want to play you in the movie of your life?
[46:15] Janelle: Oh, 100% Audrey Plaza.
[46:19] Michelle: Okay. I don't know her, so I'm going to have to do some research. This is a would you rather and I think I know your answer. Would you rather have a secret handshake or a secret language?
[46:36] Janelle: Probably language.
[46:38] Michelle: That's what I was thinking. I'm like she's probably a Word file. She loves language. She loves words. She loves writing, obviously. Is there a word that you struggle to spell correctly?
[46:53] Janelle: Oh, actually it's cucumber. I can never get it done right. How many c's?
[47:03] Michelle: That wouldn't be one that I would think. I have trouble with the I before E but not after C and all that silliness. Here's another would you rather: would you rather choose a shorter life and be super rich or a longer life and be somewhat poor?
[47:22] Janelle: Oh, totally. A longer life. Especially if I can just hang out by a river, an ocean. I could just live in a shack by an ocean.
[47:31] Michelle: And what about those slopes that you like to get out and ski on?
[47:34] Janelle: Well, did you know that you can actually hike up and ski down? It's not my favorite way to do it, but you can do it.
[47:40] Michelle: Okay, extra exercise, right?
[47:43] Janelle: Yeah.
[47:44] Michelle: What would you do with one extra hour in your day?
[47:50] Janelle: Definitely sleep or swim in my pool. I don't know which one.
[47:55] Michelle: Right. Swimming is wonderful. I swim in my pool every day, sometimes twice a day. I love it. What are most people afraid of that doesn't scare you?
[48:09] Janelle: What are most people afraid of? Like bugs. I totally love bugs. I'll totally touch them. Spiders are like, the cutest. I'm fine with them.
[48:18] Michelle: I love that. Okay, do you catch them and then feed them to your reptiles?
[48:24] Janelle: I actually have a Dubia colony, because you can't feed them outside stuff. But I feed them, like, bugs from my Dubia colony.
[48:32] Michelle: Okay, let's see one more. Would you rather live in a cave behind a waterfall or an underground cavern?
[48:44] Janelle: Oh, the waterfall one for sure.
[48:47] Michelle: I'm with you. I'm a little claustrophobic, so the underground cavern does not sound good. Wow. You did awesome, Janelle.
[48:57] Janelle: Thank you.
[48:57] Michelle: And we still have, like, a minute and something left and I'm out of questions.
[49:02] Janelle: Oh, that's good, though. That first one was going to confuse me. I was like, oh, my gosh. I don't know what I would name my ship.
[49:10] Michelle: I love it. You were just efficient. I love your energy. And I really love everything you're doing. And I so appreciate you coming on today and just talking about medical writing, because I know that so many people have so many questions. Again, I'm going to link your website there, willowbarkwriting.com, and thank you so much, Janelle. I appreciate you talking to me.
[49:37] Janelle: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
[49:40] Michelle: Same here. Have a good rest of your evening.
[49:43] Janelle: You, too.