The 100th episode interview of Michelle Harris, by Dr. Chris Patty

[00:00] Michelle: Wow. Can you believe it's my 100th episode already? You know what they say, time flies when you're having fun. And I have been having a lot of fun. But before I dive into the details of this episode, I want to express my gratitude to you, the listeners you listen from around the world, from Germany, the UK, the Philippines, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and many, many more. And of course, to the many of you in the United States. Thank you for listening, sharing my work, sending emails, commenting, reviewing, rating, and engaging on social media. I do not take your dedication lightly. Next, I am grateful for my amazing guests. Without them, I wouldn't be here. I have talked with nurses, social workers, physicians, educators, and more. It's been a joy to learn from them as they share their experiences and insights. My podcasting journey started the last year before I retired. I hadn't even been a podcast fan until then and found this medium fascinating. A whole new world opened up to me. As a Listener, I fell in love with some great podcasts, some nursing, some comedy, some educational, and some were just wacky. But that's okay because it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round, and I consider myself blessed to be one of those people who have contributed to this space. Now, about this 100th episode. A few months ago, my brother Chris approached me and said, what are you going to do for your 100th episode? He suggested that I have someone interview me. Chris was my guest for episode three of this podcast. He shared what he does as a nurse researcher, and I had a ball interviewing him. There are not many people who have my utmost respect, but Chris is one of those people. So I turned it around on him and I said, why don't you interview me? This is where it gets funny. He suggested we meet so I could tell him what questions to ask me. I said, that's not how it works. You've got to come up with your own questions. I told him nothing was off limits. He could ask whatever he wanted. So he and chat GPT formulated an interview, and on an early July morning, we met in my recording closet and had a fun and candid discussion. I hope you love it as much as I have loved bringing this podcast to you. Good morning, Chris. Welcome to my closet.

[03:15] Chris: Well, it really is a closet, Michelle. I wasn't sure what you meant, you know, whether it was a figurative closet, you know, or a literal closet, I suppose. A little bit of both. Good morning to you.

[03:31] Michelle: So, you've been a guest on this podcast, and when we recorded, you didn't come to my closet. You were in your office, I believe.

[03:40] Chris: I think that's right, at work.

[03:42] Michelle: And so most of my local guests, they come to my closet if they feel comfortable.

[03:48] Chris: Okay, well, yes, if your listeners are avid, Conversing Nurse podcast listeners, they might remember that I was the subject of your interview number three.

[04:03] Michelle: That's correct.

[04:04] Chris: So early, you know, early on, back nearly 100 episodes ago. And full disclosure, I am your brother, your older brother. And so there may be some bias there, but it could be a bias that works in both directions. But very happy to be here. Thank you for an invitation to the closet.

[04:29] Michelle: Yeah, well, you sort of invited yourself a little bit, because what happened was we were discussing that my 100th episode was approaching, and you said, what are you going to do for your 100th episode? And I was like, I'm not sure yet. And you said, I think you should have someone interview you. And so that's when I said, well, why don't you be that person?

[04:54] Chris: Yeah, no, you. You. You know, you bid on that idea. And actually, my idea was really not that I be the one to interview you, but my first idea actually was, well, why don't you interview another nurse podcaster? Because this is a nursing podcast, so why not maybe interview a nurse podcaster? And then I thought, well, I don't know. That could be a difficult animal to find. I don't know that there's more than one in the world. I know the best one, but they may not be on every corner, you know? So I thought, okay, a nurse podcaster would be a good interview. You chose me as the interviewer. So can I ask you the first question?

[05:45] Michelle: Shoot.

[05:46] Chris: Okay. So, following on that idea, do you consider yourself a nurse podcaster?

[05:54] Michelle: I would consider myself a nurse podcaster or a nurse who podcasts.

[06:01] Chris: Yes. And I've thought about the distinction. You know, I am a golfer, right? I'm a nurse. I wouldn't call myself a nurse golfer.

[06:13] Michelle: I wouldn't.

[06:14] Chris: I would call myself a nurse who plays golf. But I think in your case, maybe you, you know, you've moved a little bit from nurse who plays golf. Sorry, nurse who? I don't play golf to nurse podcaster. So you've said you consider yourself a nurse podcaster a little bit. You know, a nurse who podcasts. What do you think would put you, in your own mind, solidly in the nurse podcaster? What would be, 've arrived as a podcaster. I had a career in something decades ago, but now I'm a nurse podcaster.

[07:03] Michelle: Well, that's an interesting question. So nurse podcaster, the title, it's real. And the reason I know that is because there's a hashtag for Nursepodcaster. There's also a hashtag for Nursepodcast. And I actually have interviewed a couple nurse podcasters so far. So I interviewed Brian Cerezo. He is a nurse in New York City who has a podcast called Direct Admission. I just interviewed and his episode hasn't come out yet. Josh Condado, he is a CRNA from Green Bay, Wisconsin. We had some fun Green Bay trivia in the five minute snippet. And he also has a podcast called the InvestingRnNPod, which he does with his sister and his brother-in-law. And they help nurses get into real estate investing. And there are actually many nurses who podcast. So in answering your question, I don't know what it would take to go from a nurse to a podcaster. I don't know how many episodes it would take. I'm coming on my 100th episode, but that's an interesting thought and one I will ponder.

[08:33] Chris: I'm thinking of someone, you know, like, there's a US House representative named Cori Bush and she's a nurse.

[08:46] Michelle: Is she a nurse House representative?

[08:48] Chris: I would say she's just a full House representative. I don't know that anyone other than looking up her Wikipedia page, she doesn't go out talking about herself as a nurse congressperson. Right. So her identity has transformed. Get her on the podcast.

[09:08] Michelle: Yeah, I've heard there's a few in Congress.

[09:11] Chris: There are a few.

[09:12] Michelle: There are a few. But yeah, I don't know, maybe I still just identified too strongly with the nurse that I want that word to precede everything else I do. I'm a nurse grandmother.

[09:26] Chris: Yes. I am a nurse grandfather. Wow. Yeah. So the nurses that you've described and their podcast, it seems like there's something of a theme for the nurse podcast. I do finance. I'm a nurse who does research. Whatever. If I were to have a podcast, it would probably have some scientific inquiry and some research methods and highlight studies that I find important. How did you come up with the theme for your podcast, the conversing nurse?

[10:09] Michelle: Yeah, well, I'm really weird that way.

[10:13] Chris: I like, I mean, why not just, you know, do a podcast about, you know, the nursing of neonates?

[10:22] Michelle: That sounds boring.

[10:24] Chris: Well, I told you that many years ago. You know, every baby is the same. They all speak the same language.

[10:32] Michelle: But okay, I didn't I didn't want to stay in one specialty, so that's my specialty. Peds/NICU for 36 years. I was curious when I would go down to the cafeteria and partake of that wonderful cafeteria food, of which I didn't do very often because it's pretty much trash. But I would go other places in the hospital, run things to lab, whatever, and I would see nurses from other units. Interventional radiology, ICU. No, I'm kidding. Those nurses never left the ICU. They had their own break room, and they did everything in the ICU. But I just was always interested in what did other nurses do? And, of course, you know this, we grew up in a family of nurses, and you and Joe and Bill or, you know, Martin. You guys were very vocal, and Martin wasn't a nurse, but Martin, our brother, was a surgical tech. So in that operating room world, like, I knew sort of what you guys did, but not really. And so that's why I didn't want to stay in one specialty. I wanted to get to know nurses from every specialty research, flight, you know, whatever.

[12:06] Chris: Well, so you're at your hundredth episode, and you've been at this now seems about two years.

[12:13] Michelle: Two years, right.

[12:14] Chris: Because I look back, I was only interviewed in August 2022.

[12:19] Michelle: Yeah.

[12:21] Chris: You know, you're young. You're only on your hundredth podcast. How many podcast episodes you think you're gonna have when you pack it in? When you hang up the microphone, will you find enough diversity in nursing to get to 1000?

[12:38] Michelle: That's a good question. Right now, my focus is just on finding different nurse specialties. I still want to talk to a nurse ethicist. So you and I are, you are a committee member of our bioethics committee. I was also a committee member when I was working. And then when I retired, they graciously let me stay on as a community member. And we don't have a nurse ethicist on the committee. We don't really have many nurses on the committee, which I always thought was kind of strange. When I joined the committee, I was the only representation from Maternal Child Health. And I think nurses would be more interested in ethics because we practice that every day. We are the most trusted profession 22 years in a row, according to the Gallup polls. So I want to talk to a nurse ethicist about those ins and outs of ethics, but I don't know how many episodes it's going to take for me to say, I'm not curious anymore about the nursing profession. I don't know what that'll take so far. I'm still having fun. I still enjoy it.

[14:07] Chris: Well, if you're, you know, if you. If you do this, let's say our mom's age, you know, I'm 85.

[14:14] Michelle: Oh, wow.

[14:15] Chris: Then you will be interviewing nurses who today are not been born.

[14:22] Michelle: Oh, yeah.

[14:23] Chris: Right. And so, you know, as the world changes, the nurses will change. You know, we hope that they'll retain this core thing that makes them the most trusted profession and all that, but I don't know what the nurse of 25 years from now is going to look like. Maybe they'll just be a robot. I don't know. We'll see. But, yeah. I was thinking back to some of the worst food I've had in my life and outside of France, which has terrible food, if you're me, because I was raised on a different cuisine, I haven't quite kicked it, but I remember having some of the best brisket that I've ever had in the cafeteria at our hospital. And then I also remember having the worst mashed potatoes I ever had in my life. They were kind of yellowish and kind of sticky and kind of gummy. And I remember sitting down and I was eating them. There was so much that they were impressively bad. And I said to the. To the, you know, dietary attendant, I gotta tell you, this is the worst mashed potatoes I've ever had. And she says, honey, those aren't mashed potatoes. Those are mashed turnips. Didn't you see the sign? I said, no. Okay, that explains it. That's great. Well, so this is looking pretty easy for you now, but I imagine getting started as a podcaster, there were probably some days where your hair fell out a little more than normal, and you were trying to figure out, who do I talk to to find out what I need to know and if I want to be a nurse? Podcaster, what are some of the early challenges that I'm going to have? What's hard about getting started?

[16:32] Michelle: For me, there was a strong learning curve, and I don't really know why because I've always kind of enjoyed tech and been, quote unquote, good at it. So I'm not sure what the issue was, but in the beginning, setting up a website, that seemed to be the most difficult thing. And maybe it's the company that I chose because they were absolutely no help whatsoever. Okay, here's an example. So WIX, W I X. Other people have used WIX. I don't know why I didn't use it, but they build it for you. So you say, this is what I want on my website. Here's my logo. This is what I'm trying to do. This is how I want to embed my episode. If you're monetized, this is where my listeners can buy merch, whatever, and they just build it for you for a price. So maybe it's because I was cheap and I chose a platform that they didn't do that they let you build it. Well, that backfired on me because I didn't know how to do that. That definitely was a few months of angst of pulling my hair out of emailing Tom. Tom is the sole gatekeeper of this website. He's probably a bot. He's probably not real, but because I never talked to anyone else except Tom. But I do remember at one point I was trying to set my podcast up with a, like a Pinterest link, because the Pinterest people said podcasts are huge on Pinterest, which I believe was a lie because I never went to Pinterest for a podcast, I went to Pinterest if I was wanting to make a strawberry pie, I would go to Pinterest or figure out how to do a new embroidery stitch. So, long story short, that building a website was really difficult. Finding guests was super easy. I knew a lot of nurses, and a lot of nurses would recommend other nurses. LinkedIn is a wonderful platform to meet nurses. That's been great. Instagram has been great in terms of different nurse accounts. So that part was really easy. I would say definitely building the website was the hardest thing. And then just figuring out, like, the microphone and where do I plug that in and what kind of microphone is it? Is it a plug and play? Is it a, you know, which is a USB, which is what I ultimately have. But I went through a few microphones until I found the one that I really liked that didn't pick up a lot of, you know, extraneous sound and so forth. So those little things, it did take me a good four or five months to get through that.

[19:57] Chris: So your Tom maybe want to interview him at a later podcast. Sounds to me like it recalls a Dilbert character in a occasional Dilbert character.

[20:09] Michelle: That's right.

[20:10] Chris: I don't know if you follow the Dilbert.

[20:12] Michelle: I did.

[20:12] Chris: Yeah, I. Dilbert has, you know, everyday characters, and then he has occasional characters who appear maybe once a year. You know, Topper. Right. Topper is the guy that you talk to, and whatever you say, he wants to top it. You know, there's a character on there. An occasional character. His name is Mordack. He is the preventer of information services. So maybe Tom, I think behind the scenes is Mordack.

[20:42] Michelle: Yeah. I do remember when I was trying to embed the Pinterest episode or not episode, but the Pinterest link, Pinterest has lots of, like, instructions on how to do it. So then I went to my website builder and tried to do it and, and I went back and forth weeks with Tom until I finally emailed him and said, Tom, I will pay you to do this for me. And he said, oh, you don't have to pay me. I'll do it. And it was done in like a minute. And then I was like, son of a bitch. Like, really? You let me, like, stress out on this for weeks and now I don't even use it. So it wasn't even that important.

[21:27] Chris: I forget the song from the eighties. Well, I forget how who sang it. There's a song from the eighties. Money changes everything.

[21:35] Michelle: Yeah.

[21:36] Chris: Well, I've heard a few things that you've said that I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrangle those into the name. Okay. And I'm gonna say something about nursing and nurses that I heard directly from a member of the US Congress when I went to visit his office, as it was one of my doctor of nursing practice assignments in our politics class. So anyway, that's incoming. Not a criticism, just a state of being. So you mentioned that it's not hard. It's not difficult, maybe. You said it was easy to find nurses to interview, right?

[22:22] Michelle: Yes.

[22:24] Chris: Who listens to your podcast? Who's your base?

[22:28] Michelle: My target audience?

[22:30] Chris: Well, not your target audience necessarily, but that's another good question. There's the people we want to listen, and then there's the people that do listen. Right. I'm thinking about politics. Right. A politician has a base. They have a devoted following of true believers who are waiting out there to listen to this hundredth episode and the hundred first. Now, who's that person? This is your base?

[23:02] Michelle: Yes. So my base would be nurses.

[23:06] Chris: Who's the avid listener of the conversing nurse podcast?

[23:09] Michelle: It's the average nurse. I get emails from nurses. I can't say all over the place. My listeners come from many countries, but I get emails from United States nurses that want to talk about an issue or want to hear more of, you know, this or that, or they. They are complimentary of my podcast in terms of the variety of nurses that I interview. Some of them that they've never heard of which I was the same. Like Ashley Wynn Grimes, a cannabis nurse. Didn't know that existed, but that's been a thing for a little over ten years.

[24:00] Chris: Yeah, I don't know about the board of registered Nursing's position on that.

[24:05] Michelle: Well, in Maryland, credentialed cannabis nurse, it's a new certification from the ANCC. They just Certified.

[24:15] Chris: Wow.

[24:16] Michelle: Yeah.

[24:16] Chris: So, I mean, sounds to me like a case of getting high on one's own supply. Take it a little too far. Don't get high on your own supply.

[24:30] Michelle: She's very helpful to many people.

[24:32] Chris: Well, I think I've told you this is a segue into research about cannabis. Right. Because, you know, cannabis is sort of the, you know, God of vegetation.

[24:43] Michelle: Yes.

[24:43] Chris: You know, especially in the US in the last ten years, you know, it's like we got to have at least five dispensaries on every corner. It's the thing, man. You're going to love it. It fixes everything. And then they say, well, we have to deschedule it. We have to get it out of schedule one with cocaine and heroin and LSD and move it into schedule three or maybe two, probably three, maybe four, where it's on the level of like, you know, Lomotil. You know, it stops your diarrhea, but it can make your head a little bit fuzzy because it's got a little opioid agonist in it. But my prediction is going to be that when we down schedule cannabis and when we are able to get federally funded research to study its properties properly like you would study any other drug, what we're going to find out is, this is my hypothesis. It doesn't really work for anything except getting high. You know, it's not going to be superior to, you know, zolpidem for sleep. It's not going to be superior to ibuprofen for inflammation. Not going to be superior to, you know, any drug for glaucoma. Not going to be superior to any number of drugs for, you know, chemotherapy related nausea. But if you all want to go ahead and study it, I'm not really appreciative of studying it with my taxpayer money, you know, let the Soros foundation, you know, fund that, do a goFundme. But anyway, we'll see. Hopefully we'll see what it's all about in my lifetime. So you got your base. Where do people find your podcast? Do they tell you that? How do they trip over it and decide to start listening to it? Was listening to Jethro Tull one day on Spotify, and the next thing I know, boom, this Conversing Nurse thing popped up. So I switched, and now I'm just listening to Conversing Nurse podcast.

[27:00] Michelle: I love it. From Jethro Tull to Conversing Nurse. That's quite a switch. So where can you find my podcast? Like, what platform?

[27:09] Chris: How do people find it? I mean, how do people find it? Advertise on other podcasts? 've never seen an ad for Conversing Nurse on Fox News, the channel I watch.

[27:23] Michelle: I don't advertise on Fox News.

[27:26] Chris: Okay. There's a lot of products for nurses there. You know, they have the male catheters. They have Relaxium for sleep. They have the MyPillow.

[27:38] Michelle: Yes. You know, we all nurses need those, apparently, according to my visiting angels. Yeah. My mom thinks I need Relaxium sleep whenever I mention not sleeping. Yeah. She says, have you ever tried Relaxium? And I said, for the 10th time, no, I haven't tried that. But I might one day.

[28:01] Chris: But let me call my cannabis nurse and see if she has any quote unquote relaxing.

[28:10] Michelle: How do people find me?

[28:13] Chris: You know, people. I'm just interested, you know, I mean, I found it because I know you.

[28:18] Michelle: Yeah.

[28:19] Chris: And I think word of mouth. Word of mouth. Yeah.

[28:22] Michelle: I think word of mouth is big. My instagram has grown quite a bit because I do boost my reels. So my process is every Wednesday, my episodes drop.

[28:36] Chris: Oh, I see your things on Facebook.

[28:39] Michelle: Yeah. So I'll post a little sound bite on Instagram of my guests that week with a description about what we're talking about, and then I boost that. And so that costs money to do that. But it gets in front of other like minded people, aka nurses. So Instagram has a wonderful algorithm. They know since I started my Conversing Nurse Instagram page, they know that I'm a nurse, and they know that I like nursing stuff. So what comes up on my feed?

[29:20] Chris: Cannabis.

[29:24] Michelle: Lots of nursing content.

[29:27] Chris: And so they got us pegged.

[29:30] Michelle: That's right.

[29:30] Chris: They know us better than we know ourselves.

[29:32] Michelle: That's right. So word of mouth and boosting reels that gets in front of thousands of other nurses. And they say, who is this Conversing Nurse podcast? Let me check out her page. And they go to my website because I have Google Analytics, so I can tell how many people are visiting my website, what episodes they are listening to. They can leave me a review there. They can leave me a review on Apple, on Spotify. I get those via email. So that's one way. And the other way, I think that's really, really important is just another nurse that listens to tell his or her fellow nurses, like, hey, this is a really cool podcast. It's got a huge library of lots of different nurse interviews. I think you'd like it. The host is really chill. She has a great calming voice. I hear that a lot people like to.

[30:43] Chris: That's true.

[30:43] Michelle: Have noticed that several people have suggested that I start a sleep podcast to help people sleep. Those are really big. You can go on Spotify Apple and you can search sleep podcasts. And there's one that I really love, and the name is escaping me right now, but it has to do with history, and so it's a gentleman and he's reading old historical books.

[31:16] Chris: That would probably do it. I put a guy to sleep yesterday. You know, I can't identify the guy beyond that, but I will say that people will go to sleep when you start talking about chat GPT and what it can do for you. It may put some people to sleep, but are you a chat GPT user?

[31:43] Michelle: I'm not. It interests me, though, because I interviewed a CRNA who owns her own school. CRNA School Prep Academy, it's a prep school for nurses who want to become CRNA's. So Jenny Finnell and what she does is in her academy, she teaches nurses what they need to do to get into school, how to improve their odds, how to interview, you know, competition, everything like that. And during our episode, she said that she repurposes, she also has a podcast, and she repurposes her podcast episodes. She puts them into chat GPT, and chat GPT turns them into blog posts because a lot of people don't listen to podcasts. They would rather read things. So they find her through a blog because they go and they google CRNA school. How hard is it to get into? And Jenny's blog comes up, and then she embeds her podcast episodes into her blog. If they want to hear more.

[33:00] Chris: Start playing around with it. I, you know, I've been playing around with it for about a year. Just, you know, as a one example. You know, a few days ago, I just asked chat GPT to help me prepare for this interview. And I said, my sister, you know, is a renowned nurse podcaster. I'm going to interview her for her 100th episode. Can you suggest some possible interview questions?

[33:30] Michelle: Wow. And these are really good.

[33:34] Chris: I'll leave you with that. But they are. I thought they are really good.

[33:38] Michelle: I thought chat GPT was supposed to be evil, and it's going to take away our ability to think for ourselves.

[33:45] Chris: Oh, no. Well, it will in some cases, but, you know, it has another side, too. Right. It's, you know, the calculator, personal calculator, you know, has taken away our ability to perform long division with a pencil. Yeah, but it does other things that are useful.

[34:06] Michelle: Right.

[34:06] Chris: Right. How much money am I making on this podcast? All right, so if you. How would you like to expand your audience? Who do you wish I was listening to your podcast?

[34:19] Michelle: That's a good question. I guess anyone that is interested in what nurses do. I do have some non nurses that listen, and they said that, you know, it has really opened their eyes to the field of nursing and the intricacies of the profession that they never knew about, which would make sense because if you've never been a nurse or been touched by a nurse or, you know, worked in a hospital, I guess you really wouldn't know, you know, what it means to be a nurse.

[35:00] Chris: You know, there are about 4 million nurses in the country, right? So probably everyone's bumped up against one, you know, here or there.

[35:10] Michelle: Yeah.

[35:11] Chris: You have a pretty impressive memory, it seems, just from this interview for, you know, I interviewed, you know, this talk on this person or name. I don't remember. I'm like somewhere between, you know, mom and Joe Biden with my recall of names. You know, it's, you know, the thing, you know, that's sort of where I'm at. But you remember the names of people you've interviewed. Is there, among your nearly 100 episodes, an episode that really stands out to you as, wow, that was really something. I really either were moved in some way or you learned something profound, or you just saw this person and you said, wow, I want to be like that person. Man, do they have it all wired? Is there a standout or two? You don't have to mention them by name, but if you want to, it's up to you and your audience. Well, who was the big fish that you would want to come back to again?

[36:24] Michelle: Yes, there's been as far as saying, I want to be like this person. I feel like I kind of crush on all my guests because once I learn about them, I'm just in awe of what they do and the people that they are. But I think that the standout guests that I can think about right now that have really touched me emotionally would have been two hospice nurses. So Monty Anderson. I worked with Monty for many, many years as a Peds nurse and then in the NICU, and then Cydney Alvarado. And so Cydney is a hospice nurse, and she was also our father's hospice nurse when our father was dying of lung cancer. And those two people really moved me to tears. Monty's episode was very emotional because I asked him a question about what does it mean to him to be present at a child's death? Because Monty is a pediatric hospice nurse and he got very emotional, which in turn made me emotional because that's, you know, one of the things that we never want to even think about is the death of a child. And yet, you know, it happens quite frequently. And then Cydney, just Cydney's view of death and grace and just being present with the family, it's just touching. And those two, for certain, just really touched me emotionally. And I heard a lot of feedback from those two episodes that they also touched a lot of people out there. One episode that I think I learned the most from because I didn't know, you know, what nurses did in tech is Taofiki Gafar Shaner. He was an informatics nurse, but also an innovator. He co-created Safe Seizure, which is a special pad to protect patients that are seizing. It's not your standard pad that you wrap on the guardrails. So nurse innovators, nurses that come up with, they have a problem and they come up with a solution. That's amazing. Alex Whitefield, the Break Nurse, was amazing. He invented BreakAlgo, which is a software program that hospitals can use so that nurses can get their breaks. So nurse innovators that are always thinking about, how can I help my fellow nurses? Those really make an impact on me.

[39:43] Chris: I got a couple more nurses for you to interview that, and I don't 100% hold me to this, but I believe that what we're now using as barcode medication administration systems, where, you know, you scan a person's wristband, and then there's a order and a drug and a package, and you scan that, and then there's a green check, and then you go ahead and give the wrong patient their medication. That system is said to have been invented by a nurse who was renting a car at an airport Hertz business and said, if we can get this right, with the scan on my driver's license and the windshield, why can't we use this to do better med administration?

[40:44] Michelle: Can you connect me with this person?

[40:46] Chris: I don't know. I can look her up and find her, perhaps.

[40:48] Michelle: Wow, that would be awesome.

[40:50] Chris: Yeah. So that's one nurse innovator we have a couple of physicians in our family orbit. They do a residency and they do a bunch of interviews of places they would like to be residents, and they're interviewed. And then there's this Match day, right, that everyone lives and dies by the match.

[41:17] Michelle: Yes.

[41:17] Chris: Did you match? And about 90% or so of them do. And then the other ones become nurses. Yeah. Probably come hedge fund managers. But I understand that the person who put together the system, which we colloquially called the match, but it's got a name. It's actually a nurse. It's actually run by a nurse.

[41:42] Michelle: Wow.

[41:43] Chris: The nationwide residency match program.

[41:47] Michelle: That's amazing, I did not know that.

[41:48] Chris: Nurses are very versatile people.

[41:51] Michelle: Yes, I would say so.

[41:53] Chris: Wow. Well, that is great. So you've learned something from people. You've been moved by people. What have you learned about yourself in doing these interviews?

[42:07] Michelle: That is a really good question. I have learned in running this business, I've learned that I am much stronger than I thought in terms of, I guess, being persistent to get what I need to get. So all of those things that I discussed in the beginning, like, you know, getting the right microphone, getting the right computer set up, choosing the right recording platform, choosing the right hosting platform, you know, choosing guests that are interesting, all of those things, I could have stopped at any time because that was difficult and it was out of my wheelhouse. And I could have just said, you know, this is too hard. I didn't. I guess I didn't understand what I was in for, but I didn't. And so that makes me proud that I didn't quit. And. And I guess the other thing I learned about myself is that I can keep going even when I get really nervous. Because before every interview, no matter how prepared I am, and I prepare quite a bit, I vet my guests and I find out everything I can about them.

[43:34] Chris: So that you don't just let anyone into the closet.

[43:37] Michelle: No, absolutely nothing. They have to be up here. My hand is.

[43:43] Chris: That's about 4ft. So there's a low bar for.

[43:47] Michelle: That's right.

[43:48] Chris: Yes. That's why I'm just.

[43:49] Michelle: So you guys know, it's hot as hell in here right now. And we're both sweating.

[43:54] Chris: I know, it's good. Wait, I got some cool water here.

[43:58] Michelle: So as far as what I've learned about myself, I've been very consistent. So you are correct in saying that the 100th episode is also going to be my two years of podcasting, which, you know, if there's 52 weeks in a year.

[44:15] Chris: Yeah, if my math serves me correctly.

[44:18] Michelle: Right? So two years would be what, 104 weeks?

[44:23] Chris: And you got to take a little vacation.

[44:24] Michelle: And I took a vacation each year, a couple weeks off.

[44:29] Chris: How about interviewing a vacation nurse?

[44:33] Michelle: Well, I actually have interviewed a couple travel nurses.

[44:38] Chris: My travel agent is a nurse.

[44:41] Michelle: Why have you never connected me with her?

[44:43] Chris: Well, I gotta connect you with my friend June Forkner Dunn.

[44:48] Michelle: I would love to talk to June.

[44:50] Chris: Who runs the website called Wine Knows Travel. A PhD nurse, first in the United States to do continuing education, foreign travel.

[45:10] Michelle: Well, you send me her contact info?

[45:11] Chris: I will hook you up with her. I'm telling you, I'm going to France with her in about eight weeks.

[45:17] Michelle: You've done many trips her.

[45:18] Chris: I've done many trips with June.

[45:20] Michelle: That's a really novel idea. And so send me her website.

[45:25] Chris: I will.

[45:26] Michelle: Because I will put that in the show notes for anybody that wants to travel and get continuing education as well. And then hook me up with June.

[45:36] Chris: And get educated on wine and food. This woman is a professional wine educator.

[45:46] Michelle: So she's a wine nurse.

[45:48] Chris: Something like that, I would say. She would probably answer to that, yeah. So, June, if you're out there, you're a wine nurse. And she would say, you're right. Christo. That's what she calls me. Christo. And Maria.

[46:03] Michelle: I love it.

[46:04] Chris: My wife, Maria. Well, that was great. Okay, so let me circle back around to something that I told you I would tell you. So when I was in my doctoral program and I was in our health policy course, one of our assignments was to go visit an elected official. So a couple friends of mine and I went up and made an appointment, visited a US congressperson. And what we heard from this person was, this is Conversing Nurse is on that theme. It's easy to find nurses to talk to. Who's on that theme? I know a nurse who does this is on that theme. So this guy said, you know what he problem with nurses is? I said, no, but I'm sure I'm going to find out. He goes, well, let me just tell you who's been in my office recently, okay? He goes, I got gun nuts, I got abortion nuts. I got doctors, I got pharmacists, I got drug reps, I got, you know, chemical salesmen. I got airline pilots. You know, teachers are here every day, you know, truck drivers, but I don't see nurses. Nurses don't come in the office because, you know, what's wrong with nurses? They only talk to other nurses. Right? And it's like, you know, cops. You know, their friends are all cops.

[47:28] Michelle: Yeah.

[47:29] Chris: You know, when I remember when I sold my house on Grove 25 years ago, nice little, you know, middle class neighborhood. To the left of me was a cop living there. To the right of me was a cop living there. I said, I'm going to sell this house to a cop. Hell, yes.

[47:48] Michelle: Oh, my gosh.

[47:49] Chris: We sold it to a Visalia police officer.

[47:51] Michelle: Wow.

[47:52] Chris: Guy.

[47:53] Michelle: Wow. Bet that was a safe neighborhood.

[47:56] Chris: Yeah. Because I went next door to Don. I said, Don, I'm going to be selling my house. You know anybody? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, I know. 86 cops. One of them's gonna want this house next door to the other guy, Bobby Bob. Gonna be selling my house. You know anybody? Yeah, I probably know a few dozen cops. So, anyway, there was a cop there, and I. There's some cops in town I love, you know, but, yeah, they. They, you know, they talk to each other probably too much. Don't get out and sit at the table with other people, you know, and do whatever they do, advocate for whatever they want. You know the phrase, you know, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

[48:42] Michelle: Yeah.

[48:43] Chris: Right. So too many times, I think we, as nurses, find ourselves on the menu in ways, you know, but then, you know, are we at the table when. Who's writing the menu? That's who we got to be talking to.

[48:55] Michelle: Yeah.

[48:56] Chris: Okay. So I'm going to, you know, ask you a couple of more questions. And I was thinking, because I listened to a few episodes, so what am I going to do for this five minute snippet? So I got a couple ideas for that. But one question is, and they asked President Biden this after his speech that kind of went south a few weeks ago.

[49:20] Michelle: The debate.

[49:22] Chris: Did you, sir, did you watch the debate? You know, after. And I think he says something like.

[49:31] Michelle: Well, I may have.

[49:33] Chris: What debate? Or. No, I don't know. I don't think I did.

[49:37] Michelle: Yeah, I don't think I did.

[49:38] Chris: I don't think I did. So, you know, how often or how many times, how many hours a day do you spend, you know, listening to your own old podcast episodes?

[49:48] Michelle: I don't listen on a daily basis. So my process is, of course, after I record an episode with my guest, I edit that episode. You know, I have a wonderful editing program. I will give them a shout out. They are out of the UK, and they are called Alitu. And they're amazing. But their program, because this is the other thing that I found is that you don't know how many times you say um or ah in regular conversation, because our ears don't seem to pick it up. But when you go back and you listen to yourself talking and your guests talking, suddenly every third word is an um or an ah. Well, my very progressive recording program can now eliminate the Ums, the ahs and the silent spaces. So it's cut my editing time by 70%.

[51:00] Chris: Some people I know down to zero audio. Yeah, there would just be a flat line there, you know, if all that were to, uh, be removed, there would be nothingness.

[51:19] Michelle: Well, it cleans things up very nicely. So, to answer your question, once, of course, I'm listening all through the time that I'm editing. So I listen once, and then I listen sometimes twice, depending on what I need to fix. And then I listen the day that the episode comes out, and I listen with angst in my belly, because I'm always wondering, is it going to sound as good as it did when I was editing? Did I edit correctly? Did I make all the cuts that I needed to do? Did I add the music at this certain spot? And so I'll be making lunch and I'll tell Alexa, play the latest episode of the Conversing Nurse podcast. And Alexa always gives me what I want.

[52:14] Chris: Alexa says, I'm sorry, I don't understand that.

[52:19] Michelle: And Alexa says, yes, and she plays the latest episode. And so as I'm having my lunch, I'm listening to the episode, and I'm thinking, all right, this came out well, ready to go. So I listen, maybe, you know, since my episodes come out once a week, I listen once a week.

[52:40] Chris: I have a process like that when I'm doing, you know, professional writing, right, I'm going to publish something, or I need to have something that, you know, quality piece of manuscript.

[52:56] Michelle: Is this after you run it through chat GPT?

[52:59] Chris: No, I never. Never even used that yet. But it's a thing, trust me. And so I do it, and then I let it sit for a couple days, then I come back to it, I look at it again.

[53:12] Michelle: Yeah.

[53:13] Chris: Oh, yeah. But we're, you know, we're calling it cheat GPT. Now, I didn't make that up, but I was. I was actually found a piece of research a couple of weeks ago about chat GPT and I. Academic disintegrity cheating. And, you know, last year, they say there were about 22 million papers turned in by college and university students that were written with one of these large language model artificial intelligence generative platforms like chat, GPT is the big 122 million. Wow. And they think that about four or 5% could be detected by our current detection means. So these are getting passed off as original work.

[54:15] Michelle: Oh, wow.

[54:16] Chris: So there's probably no original work out there anymore.

[54:19] Michelle: Oh, my gosh.

[54:20] Chris: So I got to be careful of that. I will tell you, my work here is original, far as I know, is not, you know, machine generated in any way. So you do one a week?

[54:33] Michelle: Yes.

[54:33] Chris: Make some time off. How do you stay on target for that or motivated? Or do you have to set a timer for every Tuesday night? Or is it just there is a natural drive where you say, time to get another one of these things out? You know, gotta get down in front of the microphone, you know, do you have to push yourself or does it push you?

[54:59] Michelle: In the beginning, I'll say the first year, I was really, really set on being consistent. I did not want to miss a week at all. So I was like, very, very on top of it, and I'm still on top of it, but just in a more laid back way. Like, if I were to miss a week, I wouldn't freak out because it's no big deal. I have already proven in my first year that I've been very consistent in the top 5% of podcasts. Only the top 5% of podcasts have that kind of consistency where an episode goes out consistently every week. So I'm very proud of that. I do have a timer that goes off on Tuesday night at 08:00 p.m. where I go check the episode and I make sure that I have the soundbite ready, the five minute snippet that I have activated, the transcript that I have activated my guest so that I can link their episode on my website and it'll show up as soon as the episode goes live. So that just makes me sure that I cross all my t's and I dot all my I's. Only one time have I gone on Tuesday night and found that I didn't have, like, a sound bite that I ever got. And that process takes about 30 minutes because I have to go through the transcript and I have to find a no more than 6o second sound bite that I can post on instagram because they only allow that that much. And it has to be meaningful and it has to be sort of summarizing what the episode is about. So that takes a little bit of time. Then I have to cut that out and put their picture on and yada, yada. So only one time have I found like, oh, shit. I don't have a sound bite prepared to post tomorrow. But otherwise, when I edit an episode, I put it all together. I edit, I make the five minute snippet, I insert the links, I put in the picture. I do everything. And then it sits until it releases and I schedule it so I can preschedule it what date and time I want it to be live. And that you don't want it to drop.

[57:35] Chris: Like, at 5:00pm on a Friday afternoon, because that's when the White House dumps all of its trash out into the media. Right. There's too much competition.

[57:45] Michelle: There's too much competition.

[57:46] Chris: Well, we failed to mention last week that, you know, president had had a minor procedure and 26 surgeons.

[57:58] Michelle: Yeah. And, you know, a lot of people say, why did you choose to drop it on a Wednesday? And here's my thinking. Could be good thinking. Could not be good thinking. But I was thinking Monday, people are not engaged on Mondays. Right? Mondays are hard. Fridays people are like, get me the hell out of.

[58:23] Chris: Disengage.

[58:24] Michelle: Yes.

[58:25] Chris: From their normal life.

[58:26] Michelle: So Wednesday shows hope because Wednesday says, here's a little glimmer in my week where I can listen to this new episode from the conversing Nurse podcast, and I only have two more days to work.

[58:42] Chris: I think that's a great idea.

[58:44] Michelle: Right?

[58:45] Chris: I don't quite. Yeah. For your work, for your listeners.

[58:50] Michelle: Yes.

[58:50] Chris: Because you being retired now, what is Wednesday or Sunday?

[58:55] Michelle: Correct.

[58:55] Chris: It's all the same. But no, retired people can be very busy. My wife's been retired for ten years. Very busy. Yes, very busy. So how do you record the five minute snippet? How do you move into that?

[59:11] Michelle: So I have a couple of questions that I ask my guests that signal that we are nearing the end of the interview.

[59:19] Chris: Sounds like a psychology counseling episode. Well, it's like we're coming to the end of our time this week.

[59:30] Michelle: Yes, that's correct. And so I'll say, is there a guest that you recommend on this podcast? I recently started asking that. I give all credit to James Geering, a retired firefighter who started a podcast for other first responders, people in the medical profession. James is an advocate for mental health because too many of our first responders are dying by suicide and cancer and other things that are affecting them. But he asks that of every guest. He has nearly 1000 episodes. James has been doing it for seven years. He's amazing. If he gets a chance to listen to his podcast, Behind the Shield podcast. Amazing. But he asks every guest at the end. Is there someone that they recommend as a guest on the podcast? And he has fantastic guests. And so I messaged James and said, I really like that you ask that. Can I start asking that? And he laughed and said, I'm not the first person that's ever asked that. Go right ahead.

[01:00:48] Chris: You don't need my permission. Just do it.

[01:00:51] Michelle: He did say that, and I just did it out of respect. Cause I really respect him. So I asked that question, is there someone you recommend as a guest on this podcast? And then my last question is, where can we find you? And that's just a chance for them to tell us their email, their social media, where they can be found so that my guests can go find them if they find them interesting. And I also put all of their links in the show notes of the podcast episode, and they're also in their bio on my website, the Conversing Nurse podcast recommendations.

[01:01:32] Chris: Yeah, right. Okay, well, that's good. Well, you've sort of done it yourself. What podcast do you listen to? Like, if you could name a couple of your favorites, who are your favorite podcasters or your favorite podcasts?

[01:01:48] Michelle: Yes, that's a great question, too. So, as far as nursing podcasts, I love Two Humerous Nurses. These are two nurses out of Australia. They're very popular in Australia and the rest of the world. But these nurses, they don't normally talk to other nurses. They talk to each other about nursing, about issues in nursing, and they're super, super funny. They also do a series on nurses who kill, which is amazing. So they highlight different nurses, like the one in the UK recently that killed 19 babies in the NICU. You know, these tragic cases of nurses who kill, who inject potassium into the IV line, and then the patient arrests, and then they go in as the angel and they try to resuscitate. And so they do some really interesting stuff. And then I just discovered a new podcast, new to me, not new. It's called Everything is Alive. And I highly, highly recommend it. It's comedy, and it's done between an actor and the host, Ian Chillag. And he's interviewing this actor, and the actor is an inanimate object. So, for instance, the very first episode is Lewis a can of Cola. And the interview is brilliant, and the actor is brilliant. And they have this great conversation, which is highly comedic, but it's so deadpan that they do it. Neither one of them is laughing. And it's like you really get into the mind of a can of cola or Dennis the pillow or Maeve the street lamp. It's amazing. The episodes are the perfect length for me, 18 to 22 minutes. I listen at the gym. I was on the elliptical the other day, and of course I have my earbuds in, so nobody could see that I had, like, headphones on, and I was cracking up, belly laughing at something Maeve the lamppost said, and tears were streaming down my eyes, and I was on the elliptical, and people were walking the track and looking at me like I'm a disturbed person. But it was amazing.

[01:04:29] Chris: That sounds interesting.

[01:04:31] Michelle: Yeah. Everything is Alive.

[01:04:33] Chris: Everything is Alive. Oh, alive, alive. That was another podcast. We'll leave that one. I hope you have a good week, you know, watching the convention, you know, if you do that.

[01:04:47] Michelle: Yes, I am.

[01:04:48] Chris: Some good entertainment there.

[01:04:50] Michelle: Yeah.

[01:04:50] Chris: It's only supposed to hit 99 degrees here tomorrow, so cool day.

[01:04:55] Michelle: It's gonna be so cool. Last week, we were 112, busting out a sweater.

[01:05:02] Chris: So I just have a couple more questions for you. Okay, fun question. Hopefully, you know, what's your dream trip? What is the trip that is in your future and you don't want to miss?

[01:05:17] Michelle: Well, interesting that you asked that question. So my listeners know, because I've talked about it several times on here, that I'm a. I'm a nervous traveler. I'm an anxious traveler. I don't really love flying, but I do it because that's how you get from point a to point b. Xanax helps some people use other substances, like alcohol, maybe cannabis. I used Xanax, and it works well for me. And then I'm not really good. I don't really like surprises, and traveling can be a lot of surprises. So my perfect dream trip would be to go somewhere, but not on a plane, just be transported there, maybe in the future. Kind of like a beam me up, scotty kind of thing. Just from 1 minute to the next, I go in this chamber and I say, I would love to go to Patagonia to see the Milky Way galaxy with my own eyes. And then, boom, I wind up here. I am in Patagonia. Because of my advanced age, 60, I have preferred to stay in sort of bougie hotels. I like nice amenities. I did fly first class for the first time this last year.

[01:06:50] Chris: Helps a little bit, too.

[01:06:51] Michelle: My anxiety had never been so low. It was wonderful. So things like that I like. But to your question, what is my dream trip? Suddenly I've become interested in the galaxies. I don't know where that came from, but it's like I am a child, and I just discovered, like, space is out there. And stars and planets and galaxies, and I'm very interested in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy.

[01:07:25] Chris: I feel we can have a nurse astronomer interview coming.

[01:07:28] Michelle: Oh, nurse astronomer, you're getting interested in space. Yes.

[01:07:33] Chris: That's great. I don't think it's on any of the, you know, I think you can't get a ticket yet, so you might want to, you know, visit Patagonia first before you think about the Mars trip. Yes, but that's awesome, man. Listen to some David Bowie, get some AI glasses, you know, and picture yourself, north Star taking a trip to Polaris.

[01:08:00] Michelle: But, yeah, well, you still need to let me read that book by Carl Sagan.

[01:08:04] Chris: Yeah, well, you come over and read that book anytime.

[01:08:06] Michelle: I read Neil deGrasse Tyson's quick reference to the universe or something like that.

[01:08:15] Chris: Cosmos is a classic. Yeah, it's probably 40 years old, maybe 50 almost now, but. Yeah, but very, very good. But. So my last question for you is going to be about your final episode of the Conversing Nurse podcast, if you can look ahead to that. And I know, of course, it's impossible to predict when that will be, but let's just say that it's the thousandth episode and you have decided to hang up your microphone and take that trip to Andromeda or wherever it's going to be. How are you going to sign off your last podcast? How would you like to leave it? What would you like to say? And you see this when people, you know, Bob Barker did his last, you know, price is right episode, you know, save the animals, you know, I'm out. How would you like to sign it off? Because this podcast, you know, it's going to outlive all of us, right?

[01:09:32] Michelle: Yeah.

[01:09:32] Chris: Someone 500 years from now could be listening to this podcast.

[01:09:38] Michelle: So true.

[01:09:39] Chris: And what. How would you like to sign it off?

[01:09:43] Michelle: Well, I think it would be a solo episode and not a guest and self interview. Yeah, I think it would just be me saying thank you to all my guests over the years for imparting on me and other nurses and the profession, their wisdom, their love for the profession, their love for people, why they do what they do. And I think it would just be a lot of gratitude for being in the nursing profession for so many years, being a part of that, and then after that's done, to be able to talk to nurses that are still in the profession and learn from them, because I learned so much from my guests all the time. And, you know, I like to think of 20,30, 50 years from now, nurses finding my podcast. Like you said, they're not even born today, but now, maybe 50 years from now, they've already been a nurse for 30 years, and they're finding my podcast. And I hope that they would say, man, things have gotten so much better since this nurse was a nurse, and since all the nurses that she talked to were nurses, the profession has improved so much. I'm so grateful for that. So that's how I think I would leave my very last episode.

[01:11:25] Chris: Well, you have already generated a rich body of work, I will tell you that. So congratulations on your 1st 100 episodes.

[01:11:37] Michelle: I like the sound of that.

[01:11:39] Chris: Yeah. What are you going to do to celebrate?

[01:11:42] Michelle: I don't know.

[01:11:43] Chris: You're going to find some hundred year old scotch to drink?

[01:11:47] Michelle: You would know where I would find that.

[01:11:49] Chris: We could probably find you something. I don't know. A hundred maybe. Stretching it.

[01:11:53] Michelle: Yeah. I don't know. I haven't thought of it yet. I think just a quiet celebration inside my own heart and mind to say, wow, Michelle, come into your own closet here, 

[01:12:07] Chris: Pop open a cold one.

[01:12:10] Michelle: It'll have to be cold because it's hella hot in here right now. We're both sweaty.

[01:12:14] Chris: Well, come back and do an interview next February.

[01:12:18] Michelle: Okay. Yeah.

[01:12:19] Chris: And see what feels like in here.

[01:12:21] Michelle: Oh, it's chilly. You'll have to wear a big sweater.

[01:12:24] Chris: Sounds good.

[01:12:25] Michelle: Yeah, I wear, like, a big parka when I'm in here in February. This is the hottest and coldest room of the house because I think there's no insulation.

[01:12:36] Chris: Probably three outside walls.

[01:12:38] Michelle: There is. Yeah. Serious?

[01:12:41] Chris: Well, we could insulate it heavily, but then there'd only be a small space to put some straw bales in here.

[01:12:48] Michelle: I mean, it's already insulated with all the clothes in here.

[01:12:50] Chris: That's true.

[01:12:51] Michelle: More clothes and the wall of dolls, which, you know, could be scary. Could not be.

[01:12:58] Chris: Well, thank you for subjecting yourself to this interview. It has been my pleasure to have this time with you on the occasion of your 100th podcast episode of the Conversing Nurse podcast.

[01:13:16] Michelle: Thank you, Chris.

[01:13:17] Chris: Looking forward to that Wednesday when this thing pops.

[01:13:19] Michelle: I will let you know.

[01:13:22] Chris: Okay.

[01:13:23] Michelle: Spend my plus two. All right. Go to work. Okay.