See You Now Podcast

COVID-19 has changed the way we do almost everything—not just in healthcare settings, but in settings of all kinds. With reactivation and recovery being keywords in everyone's inboxes, now more than ever, we need designers steeped in public health to help us reimagine a safe and healthy return to social life in a pandemic environment. In this episode, nurse and service designer Brittany Merkle, MFA, RN, shares how she, alongside a multidisciplinary team, were able to create a game plan and playbook for returning to school, work, and play safely.

Every day nurses face difficult decisions and ethical dilemmas. They know how to deal with suffering, are accustomed to participating in life and death decisions, and advocating for human rights. COVID-19 presented circumstances that no one was prepared for including weighing personal risk against an obligation to render care. In this episode, Liz Stokes, JD, MA, RN, Director of the American Nurses Association Center for Ethics and Human Rights provides insight into the ethical and moral dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted Black people and people of color in the United States. The pandemic placed a magnifying glass on existing disparities and their underlying causes. And when we look closer into these disparities, we find that youth experiencing homelessness and mental health issues are some of the most adversely affected by the COVID-19 public health measures and Shelter-in-Place orders. In this episode, we hear from psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and researcher, Dawn Bounds, PhD, MPHNP-BC whose research covers juvenile justice and homeless youth. Dawn reflects on the complex challenges these populations face amidst overlapping pandemics.

With shelter-in-place orders in effect across the country, people are spending prolonged periods of time inside their homes but what happens when home isn’t safe? In this episode of SEE YOU NOW, we speak with nurse scientist Camille Burnett about how nurses are in a unique position in their communities to screen, access, intervene, and meet people where they are—particularly responding to intimate partner violence. Even in the middle of a pandemic nurses and neighbors are looking out for one another and finding ways to make sure people are physically and emotionally protected.

During this pandemic, communities across the globe have experienced extraordinary social solidarity with the prevailing sentiment of ‘we are in this together’. While we’ve come together for mutual support and understanding in small and extraordinary ways, there are a few who believe the necessary public health measures are too lengthy and too broad. And in some parts of the US, they’ve taken to the streets to protest mandatory shelter-in-place orders that have closed non-essential parts of our economies. The loudest voices in the midst of these debates and protests were the nurses who stood silently in solidarity for their patients who could not join the conversation. In Arizona, nurses Jade Juriansz, Jasmin Bhatti, and Brittany Schilling participated in a counter protest to provide facts about what is happening with COVID-19 on the frontlines. Although silent, these nurses’ presence and motivation resounded around the world. In this episode we get to hear the motivations of this courageous group who made a commitment to educate the public and share the facts, and the health risks—a true example of 'meeting people where they are'.

Why is it then that nurses are often not screened or provided with mental health support in their workspaces? Nurse scientist Judy Davidson DNP, RN, FCCM, FAAN works to reinforce the mental health needs of nurses while bringing awareness to nurse suicides. She creates programs that provide simple and accessible tools for health systems to adopt throughout their networks to ensure that nurses can stay strong, be supported, and get help when needed.

As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe, citizens everywhere are becoming aware of just how strained our healthcare systems are and their vulnerabilities when extraordinary, unscheduled demands are placed on them. COVID19 brought into sharp focus the critical need to swiftly mobilize our healthcare workforce --in particular, highly trained and skilled nurses needed to screen, test, and care for patients, families, and communities. In this episode, nurses Sarah Gray and Dan Weberg explain how they and the nurses at Trusted Health are modernizing, personalizing, and rapidly mobilizing our healthcare talent and workforce.

Have questions for the SEE YOU NOW team? Feedback? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.

In this episode, we virtually visit Camden, NJ, to meet veteran school nurse, Robin Cogan MEd, RN, NCSN and learn why school nurses should be at the center of re-entry decision making and how school nurses are supporting students and families while uncertainty looms.

From health bots to artificial intelligence and everything in between --COVID-19 is shining a new light on nurses and the expanding role and reliance on technology to meet our collective healthcare needs. As the novel coronavirus is changing our daily lives and the ways we work and interact, it is also accelerating the pace of transforming our healthcare systems and how we use and share data, work as teams, and communicate with patients and communities. In our latest episode of The Nurse Response, we talk with Molly McCarthy, National US Health Director and Chief Nursing Officer at Microsoft, about how this global pandemic is fast-forwarding the Future of Healthcare to the Now of Healthcare and the lead roles nurses are playing in this rapid transition.

Have questions for the SEE YOU NOW team? Feedback? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.

As the world responds to COVID-19, increasingly and alarmingly the daily headlines include the risks our healthcare teams and essential services personnel confront in efforts to care for patients and keep our communities safe. Behind these headlines are stories of daily experiences and individual lives. Nurse Jennifer Gil shares her diary about being on the frontlines of COVID-19, about contracting the virus and being isolated from loved ones in a time of immense uncertainty. It’s a powerful reminder that we cannot lose focus on the emotional impact of this illness.