Episode 16: Breaking News - Introducing Nurse Alice

Cara Lunsford

Oh, hey, nurses. Welcome to the Nurse Dot podcast. Giving nurses validation resources and hope. One episode at a time. Oh. Today on Nurse Dot podcast.

Alice Benjamin

We're going to change some things. It's going to be really exciting. It's kind of getting back to the basics with a creative way and a creative spin to address modern day problems. There's going to be something for everyone, and I'm hopeful that not only are we addressing important issues that nurses are faced with day to day, but then also we can kind of get ahead of that and also celebrate one another and the great accomplishments that we're doing because everybody deserves their flowers while they're still here.

We've not given them enough roses for all of the great work that they're doing.

Cara Lunsford

In today's breaking news episode. We're celebrating an exciting milestone as we welcome the esteemed Alice Benjamin as MP to our News.com family. Affectionately known as Nurse Alice, she's not only a beloved figure in health care, but also America's favorite nurse celebrated for the vast experience she shared across media platforms. Nurse Alice is renowned for her role as a health correspondent on NBC, and her valuable insights have graced the stages of the doctors and Dr. Oz.

Her media presence reflects not just the breadth of her experience, but also the depth of her dedication to health, education and nursing advocacy, making her an invaluable asset to our News.com community. I'm your host, Kara Lunsford, registered nurse and VP of community at Nurse Icon.

Oh, all right. Hey, nurse Alice, I want to start by saying I was a huge fan for a long time. Your face has been everywhere. I've heard you speak in the media and you've been with Nurse Oregon. You've you've just been out there at the conventions. And, you know, part of like huge things that are happening behind the scenes that people probably don't even know that you're a part of.

And so it is really, honestly one of my biggest honors to have you here and be able to introduce you to the nurse dot com audience and to have you really talk about nurses in the media.

Alice Benjamin

Mm hmm.

Cara Lunsford

So I'm going to kick it off to you to introduce yourself for people who don't know who you are. And then we'll kind of kind of get into some stuff.

Alice Benjamin

Hey, so, Alice Benjamin, I am a family nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist and medical contributor on television. Outside of being a mom, playing the flute, being an avid ice cream lover, and I've been in health care, I think in total, 25 years. But who's counting, right? Starting from the bottom now we're here right now. The high school became a a LPN.

And when it came to our and I started with associate's degree bachelors and then went back, got my master's in science, and then postmasters as an MP and I was working, I was going to school. So I can appreciate the hustle and the grind that it takes to be a nurse to work, and then also to, you know, go on for more education and I think as if I didn't, I don't know where I found the time.

I think I was so passionate about things. I just you make time for things that you're passionate about. But along the way, always involved in my professional nursing organization and from Asian to American Nurses Association, you know, I did a lot of community service. So when I entered into nursing because of my inspiration, my dad was my inspiration for me becoming a nurse when he died in an emergency room at the hands of inattentive staff from a massive heart attack and at that time I said, I'm gonna be the best cardiac nurse in the world.

And I set out to do that. And in doing that, I volunteered with the American Heart Association. I've done community work also with AARP. All of these things. But community education, health, education and helping nurses to be better nurses is always something that I've wanted to do. And I think in that journey, if I could take all these bits and pieces, they kind of like synergize and then they kind of started to align.

And as I was being a very proud nurse, wanting to do community education and volunteer service and all those things, I found myself at the American Heart Association at a health care, and they said, you know, you really get people to come get their blood pressure taken. Usually people are afraid of that station. And they said, Can you come on radio to talk about how to be heart healthy doing the holidays?

That's a sure no problem. That went off well. And then it's like, hey, can you come back and, you know, talk about the signs, symptoms of a stroke and what people should do. I did that, no problem. And then I kind of found myself coming on radio pretty frequently. And then producers would talk amongst producers. And when someone had a health story, they're like, Hey, I know a nurse, Nurse Alice.

And that kind of that was at the time when blogs were just getting started. I created the websites are doing articles and stuff like that, and then one thing led to another and next thing you know, I'm on national television with Megyn Kelly, America Live talking about the importance of health care during Obama's administration. Like the health exchanges.

And from there it was just like people would find me, you know, doing Internet searches. And I found myself entering the world of media, which, by the way, most health care professionals that are have been in the media, usually physicians mail. And not that there's anything wrong with that, but I felt like there was definitely a gap or a space, something that was missing, especially when you have men who try to manscaped women's health issues and things like that.

So I felt like it was so important and which is why I take great pride in doing what I do now as NBC medical contributor. But talk about important health and practice issues so people understand how we as nurses, what is it that we really do? What are some of the barriers to our workflow and how we can optimize our work for our scope of practice and help consumers better understand health care using health literacy?

And then also representation matters. Being a woman, being a woman of color, I get to educate from a different lens and I think a lens where I come off more relatable than the doctor in a stiff white lab coat on, you know, talking monotone. I keep it real. I keep a real calm. You know, I've found myself outside of working as a nurse practitioner, emergency room, outside of being a mom, taking care, that kind of stuff, loving the world of media and using that as a platform because nurses, we do a lot of education already.

This is just instead of just that direct family, that direct patient using a platform to educate people, the masses.

Cara Lunsford

I love that. I love that. And, you know, I think that a lot of nurses have started branching into social media, which is a form of media.

Alice Benjamin

Yes.

Cara Lunsford

And they're taking to that platform, whether it's Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or LinkedIn, really utilizing that as a space to have a voice share about subjects that matter to them, issues that matter to them, to educate the public in some capacity. Some some clinicians are using it really as an education tool, clinical education tool and other people are using it more as a kind of social kind of political platform in a way where they're talking about the issues within health care, the health of health care, if you will, but not that many nurses have been really seen in mainstream media.

You know, aside from, you know, the occasional television series, which I would not consider necessarily nurses in mainstream media. But that's why I think it's so unique what you've done. And like you said, you're a woman, you're a person of color. You know, a lot of times people don't see themselves represent mented. And it's so important. I wanted to ask you, you've also been a part of working at the political level, working in politics to correct.

Alice Benjamin

Yes. And, you know, I'll say this. If you were to ask me when I entered my nursing profession, if I would be doing what I'm doing now, I would have said no. Like I had no idea. And again, like the stars aligned for me. And I think what happened is I found my passion. So cardiovascular health became very, very important to me.

You know, my dad's story and I dove into that, especially I worked in, you know, critical care, stepped down to the unit. I was going to every conference that I could even once for physicians about how to rate echocardiogram and all of these things, even ends that aren't entry level still. And I just wanted to get so much knowledge and information so I could understand everything and I think that that passion is what inspired me to do all of these different things that I'm doing now.

And so when I when you talk about politics, I would have never thought, oh, politics, I'm do that because I did not like political science, just I but I found myself, you know, tobacco, tobacco initiatives, propositions about, you know, sugary drinks on school campuses and things that led to heart health, because I was very passionate about the health part of it.

I realized as a nurse, as a direct care provider, I can do something. But when the patient's at the bedside, how can I help people before they get into that situation? Because one of my mantras is I want to talk to people before they become my patients. So I learned early on and this is through my volunteer work with the American Heart Association, that it really takes a village.

We can have the direct care providers that we have to work with other, you know, just like we have a multidisciplinary team, everyone's role is very important. Everyone from the nurse to the doctor to the community clinic, to the hospital, to the legislator. And I'll be honest, I didn't even know who my legislator was at the time, so I was kind of its crash course.

But nurses were so knowledgeable. We have hit bottom line, but stories to tell about what happens when people don't take care of themselves. So with American Heart, I was able to advocate for bills and legislation that helped promote health and safety and well-being and equitable access to health care, working with the American Heart Association and found ourselves knocking on congressmen's doors.

And even with the work I did with AARP when the state exchanges opened, I don't know how I found myself here, but I became one of two people who was like the Cal State of California AARP advisor. I I'm like advisor. So I actually went up and down the state talking at different town halls with different congressmen and congresswomen.

And so here I am, I think, oh, I'm just a bedside nurse, but I'm being introduced by like the congressman about and we have, you know, Nurse Alice Benjamin here who's going to talk to us about the importance of health care. And I have this platform in the stage and I'm just like, wow. So I got to do that and even go to the White House to represent the American Heart Association during Obama's administration and on a committee for cardiovascular health.

So, yes, gosh, there's so many things you can do in nursing. There's so many things you can do in nursing.

Cara Lunsford

I hope that that's what people are listening to right now and they're when they're listening to the podcast, I'm just going to say, you didn't even mention that you have a podcast, which is the Asner's podcast. You've done so many things that you can't even remember how many things you've done. I'm going to have to remember them for you.

Alice Benjamin

You know, because I'm so passe. It's I mean, it's hard for me to wrap my arms around everything that I do. So sometimes when people introduce me, I'm like, I did that, I did that. But it's just because I love I legit, legit love what I do and I just find myself in the moment just doing, doing, doing.

And I don't necessarily look back to say, Oh, I did this and I do that. Now, while alphabet soup does matter behind our names, I've just never been that nurse to always. I did this and I did that and I just get it done. I can show you better than I can tell you.

Cara Lunsford

That's true. You are a real doer. And even in the time that I've known you and in our conversations, I am in awe of the things that just like, run through your brain. And I always think of myself as super creative and thinking out of the box in a, you know, just a very holistic global thinker. And I was like, Oh boy, when you put the two of us together, watch out.

It's very exciting. I mean, just the fact that you've been in media, you've been represented, you know, at that level of, you know, in the government and and knowing that you can speak to people who are maybe listening and making less legislation that matters to us and the public. But I think one of the things that I really love about you is that you really bring together this beautiful mix of clinical you're an amazing clinician, so just your level of knowledge as a clinician, the way you can talk about all of this clinical information in a way that is digestible to the general population because health literacy in this country is a major issue.

Alice Benjamin

It is.

Cara Lunsford

And now more than ever, people are going to need to be their own health advocates because we are in a really difficult time right now where there's a shortage of nurses who are willing to work in the current conditions. And we've got a lot of really young nurses in to not age wise, but like just in terms of how much experience that they have, they're not getting the mentorship that maybe they would have gotten historically because a lot of the more seasoned nurses are leaving.

So going into the health system these days as a patient can be anxiety producing at the least. Yes. So really having a strong understanding of the health care system, having a strong understanding of, I think, diseases that affect a huge number of people in the world, not just even the U.S., but in the world. And we know that that heart disease is one of those things.

Heart disease is prolific, right? Yeah. So what would you like to see happen?

Alice Benjamin

Oh, good. I'm glad you asked that, because it's almost like reverse engineering, because sometimes I'm where I'm at, you know, I feel like I feel a strong need to give back to my profession and to like, reach back, pull someone's hand and bring them along with and offer that mentoring and support that. Quite honestly, I didn't really get a lot of because it was like a young type of thing.

But I'm a little bit of a I'm very curious car, so when I understand something, I'm like, Well, why? Well, how come? How can we do a better hmm, let me you know, and I'm like, my creative mind is going and going. And so I nosedive into, like, self-improvement. I'm very proactive. And I was the nurse at the staff meeting who wasn't afraid to speak up.

I'm probably the nurse. They probably said, Shut up so we can go home. But I'm also the nurse who wasn't afraid to speak up. So before I become a nurse practitioner, I became a clinical nurse specialist on a clinical expert and I drove into cardiology and critical care. But, you know, in becoming that clinical expert at APRN, I still got a lot of advanced physical assessment, advanced pathway, advanced pharmacology, all of these things.

And so I kind of took that. I took my own natural curiosity and experience says with inequitable health care, not being mentored as a nurse, kind of being eaten when I was a new nurse or those type of not so good experiences and I took some as a part of my professional nursing organization, I participated in those. So I was like Secretary.

I started off like secretary, vice president, and I had leadership in those areas because I was not I wasn't a leader per se in the hospital because I wasn't a manager, I wasn't a director, but I took all those experiences and I blended them all into one, which is why I think I have this unique set of skill sets that's able to kind of I can maneuver through groups, I can maneuver through the staff nurse group, I can maneuver in the directors group, I can maneuver in the finance business world group, because I've learned all of these skill sets and I've kind of just mirrored them.

But I wish I wish I had a nurse mentor to teach me that early on so I didn't have to bump my head ball down, look silly, filled, dumb or any of these things along the way. And it would save me a lot of heartache, kind of a safety net, something that will help bridge our new graduating nurses, early career nurses and keep some of our more senior nurses, perhaps in the profession a little bit longer because maybe they'll enjoy it better.

They won't feel so jaded. So one of the things that I'm going to be excited about in these new ventures that we are coming up is creating a mentorship program and a program for first, starting with the early career nurses, because that's a make or break time. That's a make or break time. You just suffered, I must say, suffered.

You suffered through nursing school, you suffered through your end clicks, and then you're going to be suffering as into your first position. Why do we have suffered so much? We are the large segment of the health care workforce. We should be if we were happier in our roles, we probably be able to retain more nurses. We'd have better health for ourselves because, you know, the health of nurses, that's a whole nother topic.

But there's a lot going on and I really want to tour and not just myself, but invite other people who are interested in mentoring nurses and let's help find each other. We got to find our tribes. So I want people to find each other, people who want to mentor and people who want to be mentored and create this safe place where we can come together.

We can talk about what's going on and offer solutions to everyday problems and collectively as a voice, help actually make some change.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah, it's been really fun working with you. We're kind of working on a project right now and I'm excited. What you're doing and because one of the things that you and I talked about the other day was just and you mentioned it just now, too, is that there's this like kind of golden period, right? Where if you can really help nurses right out of nursing school or even at the end of nursing school and into their first, you know, two years, if you can really help to kind of cocoon them in a way, provide them with a lot of support, mentorship, resources, all of these things so that they can feel really good and capable

and competent at their jobs. Because nobody and I'm just going to say this across the board, nobody wants to go to work every single day and feel like they are putting people at risk, that they don't know how to do their job, that they could potentially hurt somebody, that they're not a good colleague or coworker because they can't help in the ways that they want to be able to help.

They can't be a good team member and that is really not sustainable. And this is why you're seeing people leave the earliest they've ever left. Because it's one thing if you go into a job right where you're and I don't want to make any of these positions sound like they're not important. But what I'm saying is, is that maybe it's not life or death, right?

You're working at a a convenience store or you're working at a retail store. If you don't really know how to sell, it might be uncomfortable to be out of your element to feel like you're kind of having to struggle or figure out how to do it. And it might take a while for you to get into your groove.

But if you're not a great salesperson, nobody's dying. Nobody's going to get hurt, right? Maybe the business isn't going to be as healthy, or maybe, you know, it doesn't feel great to not be really, really good at your job, but it doesn't feel like as heavy or as weighty as if I'm not good, if I'm not competent at the worst, I could kill somebody.

Alice Benjamin

That's the scariest feeling about being a nurse, especially a newer nurse. And there's nothing wrong with being a new nurse. Everyone starts from somewhere, but when you don't have kind of systems and support and structure in place, you can feel alienated. You can feel like an island all by yourself. And then you take at on tremendous responsibility of GI bleed.

Over here, someone is having a chest pain over there and then there's someone running up and down the hallway naked. There's a lot going on in nursing, and I know that without those systems in place, nurses, we can internalize this. We start to actually feel bad for moral distress. We feel anxious, we feel depressed, we're sad, and we're internalizing all of these feelings.

And then that further inhibits our ability to think quickly, to critically think, you know, all of the things we want to do. We no one comes to work, like you said. No one comes to work saying, I want to hurt somebody. I'll give the wrong dose of heparin today. I'm going to nobody wants to do that. But I feel like we saw this play out like during the pandemic about how many things are not in place for nurses and how undervalued we are.

And it shows not just in our salaries, but the environments where place in our staffing ratio, the communities they lay on is how they expect us to make a dollar out of $0.15 when it's like, Hey, I got one glove, you'll be take care of 50 patients with one glove, like, come on. And so we really got to turn that around.

And I know there are professional nursing organizations out there. You know, those are helpful. And I know not every hospital has this, but some hospitals, they have like shared governance units, practice councils and stuff like that. But I feel like unless you're a member of that professional nursing organization or unless you're at a hospital that have a good unit practice council, where do you like?

You're floundering, you're on your own. So that's why I'm really excited about the work that we're going to be doing and creating a safe community place. It doesn't matter if you work in a little community Podunk hospital or you work at the top. Most elite hospital. Maybe you're out of between jobs right now, but, you know, creating the safe place to help nurses feels heard, supported and to kind of brainstorm ideas amongst each other about how we handle situations.

I feel like there's so much that we can do and all of us in the effort to help support our newer nurses. And I think that we're going to you know, you're not going to dump you after your very experience or anything like that. But, you know, let's let's start with our nursing students.

Cara Lunsford

Bye bye.

Alice Benjamin

Bye bye. You graduated from here. Bye bye. Nobody had a place for whether you're pre licensure, nursing students, new nurse, experienced nurse, create a home for you, a safe place, a community.

Cara Lunsford

Well, if you become an experienced nurse. Right. If you come through and we've created this space, then at some point, you know, it's kind of full circle, right? Like you can come back and be a mentor. You can come back and help. And like you said earlier, pull that person up who's behind so that they kind of like on your shoulders, right?

Like sometimes you're the one that's standing on other people's shoulders and sometimes you're the shoulder. Right.

Alice Benjamin

And absolutely.

Cara Lunsford

And I think that that's exactly what we're trying to do. Get nurse dot com nurse outcomes been around for such a long time. It's gone through so many kind of phases or different phases of life. But I actually kind of love what we're coming back to because I think originally the nursing spectrum and Nurses Week magazine and that I always thought of these women and men probably at the time, but probably a lot of women.

It was in the 1990s and even before they were writing magazines and those magazines came and became nurse dot com in the digital era and things just kind of moved on to the Internet and that was truly built by nurses. Foreigners is trying to get industry news out there, trying to educate from the bedside and then beyond. Right.

And what I love is that we're coming back. We're we're taking all of that history that we have. We have a lot of it. And then we're bringing it to a day and age where we're we're looking at nursing as it is today. We're saying there's a major issue with retention. There's a major issue with the sustainability of this profession being able to really sustain and thrive within this profession.

And I don't think it's too much to ask sustainability. Yes, I don't think it's too much to ask to say I'd like to thrive in my profession. I really don't. I think it's capable and I know that it's easy like nurse dot com. We could just do giveaways all the time and that'd be great. And, and we do, we do giveaways and we do stuff like fun stuff like that.

But I think what we're really about is wanting to make this the best profession in health care.

Alice Benjamin

It is nurses are.

Cara Lunsford

The best, like most sustainable like, right? Because right now they're not able to sustain it because of the environment and the lack of skills, the lack of support. And so if we can even just affect that area, I think that that is a huge that we've done something for the public because that really this is a public health crisis of not having enough nurses at the bedside.

That's a public health crisis.

Alice Benjamin

It absolutely is. It absolutely. And we we've got to do something about it. I mean, I know we have, you know, nurses entering the profession, but just as much as we have them entering, we have people exiting. And with the growth of the population, we're going to burn out the nurses that we do have. And I think it's a multiple layered, multipronged approach and it's going to take a village.

I know nurse dot coms going to be a great resource, not just for nursing students and nurses themselves, but also for nursing schools and hospitals and clinics and stuff. So I'm excited. I don't know how much I can share in this interview, y'all, but just so y'all know, there's some stuff that's going down. That's going down. I love.

Cara Lunsford

That. You just you're like, I don't know, I wish I could share, but I was going to tell you, there's some good stuff.

Alice Benjamin

It's good stuff.

Cara Lunsford

I mean, that's enough. That's that. They don't have to know yet. That I have to know. I know.

Alice Benjamin

You'll know.

Cara Lunsford

You'll know it's going to be out there. So what I'm so excited about and that I will say on this interview, is that you have decided to come and join us and I'm so honored, really, genuinely honored to have you be part of Nurse dot com. I'm not really a believer in competition or anything like that. I think people just, you know, they they pivot and they make moves and they spend time in one place and then they move into another place and there's nothing wrong with that.

Like, there's so much that we can all be doing in this space to help nurses. There can never be too much being done to support nurses. So I think that we're going to do some really fun stuff. I know we're going to do some really fun stuff. We're going to do some stuff that really affects change, and that's what I'm most excited about because I don't want to just do things on the surface, you know?

Right? So I get in there really, really change something.

Alice Benjamin

Oh, we're going to change some things. It's going to be really exciting. And I think kind of alluded to this earlier. It's kind of getting back to the basics with some things. But in it with a creative way and a creative spin to address modern day problems, I think it's going to be cooking. I don't know how much I can say, but I just feel like there's going to be something for everyone.

And I'm hopeful that not only are we addressing important issues that nurses are faced with day to day with their work, but then also we can kind of get ahead of that and also celebrate one another and the great accomplishments that we're doing because so many times we're just trying to catch up. We're trying to keep up, keep our head above water that we don't even have time to celebrate the many things and great things that nurses do.

So that's something else that I'm also excited about, because everybody deserves their flowers while they're still here. I think so. In nurses, you know, we've not given them enough roses for all of the great work that they're doing.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah. And the other thing I'm just really excited about, you're going to be with us for a while, which is exciting. We're going to like Jesus stuff in the media, like we're going to do some fun stuff in the media.

Alice Benjamin

Listen, everybody, get ready, okay? I'm just saying, where do you want to be? In front of the camera. Behind the camera. We're taking you along for this journey. Nurses. We do patient education and we talk about practice issues at our conferences, peer to peer and things like that. Well, get ready, because we're about to tell the world about all of the things that we're working on we're doing.

And it's not just me. I know I have been fortunate to have a regular reoccurrence on television, but again, there's broadcast main broadcast television, like the Netflix, those type of on demand type of things. There's game shows. A mentor told me this Wherever there's a people, there's a problem. And whenever there's a problem, there should be a nurse.

And I think using media to kind of broadcast this message and also on social media, right, as well, we're going to be out there to and we are because I'm ready for some nurses to join me. Are y'all ready to join me? Join us because I think there's a really cool and fun thing that opportunities for people to kind of get out of their shell if they want to and, you know, be a ham for the camp.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah. At some point you're going to have and by the time this goes live, I don't know, maybe you will or maybe you won't. We're going to have a landing page for you. So that is definitely a priority. That way, people who want to connect with you want to see what you're up to. You want to see the programs you're creating.

And with the support of Nurse dot com and reliance, of course, and that they will be able to go to like nurse dot com for recession or Sally's. Yes and that is where all of your stuff will be. So again, I'm going to say I'm very excited you're going to be with us for a long time and I'm hopefully even longer than what we planned for and that we're going to make some real change in the health care system, really, so that it benefits the people who work in it and the people who are the patients of that system and the consumers of that health care system.

And I think that if we can do that, even in a small way, we will have made a big change and big impact. I think that's what we both want to do.

Alice Benjamin

Absolutely.

Cara Lunsford

Alice, I love you. Thank you so much for being here with me.

Alice Benjamin

Thank you for having me. I mean, this is the tip of the iceberg. I'm so excited for this new chapter, for this new adventure. We're going to be taking care. I mean, listen, nurse dot com and everyone who's listening, I believe people are going to be really refreshed with the things that we're gonna be doing and kind of feel like finally a place where I can go to be heard.

A community of other nurses that I can join forces with and then learn and have fun with along the way.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah, absolutely. From your mouth to God's ears.

Alice Benjamin

There you go. And then, hey, don't forget to follow me on social media, too. I'm on there.

Cara Lunsford

Yes. As Nurse Alice. And of course, follow your podcast, because at some point, like maybe I can be a guest on the Asner's podcast.

Alice Benjamin

Of course.

Cara Lunsford

Just invited myself.

Alice Benjamin

Yes, I love it. Please do. I mean, listen, one of the cool things about having a podcast and, you know, you get to talk to some cool, amazing people that you maybe wouldn't have necessarily ran across in the grocery store or something like that. And then you get to share this with all your nurse friends. So as far as podcasts and follow me on social and Asner's out on everything is Asner's Alice They go, Absolutely.

Cara Lunsford

All right, till next time, man. I If you're a nurse or a nursing student who enjoyed this episode, don't forget to join us on the nurse dot com app where you can find the nurse discussion group, a place where we dissect each episode in detail and delve deeper into today's topics. Nurse Dot is a nurse dot com original podcast series, production music and sound editing by Dawn Lunsford, Production Coordination by Rhea Wade, Additional editing by John Wells.

Thank you to all the listeners for tuning in to the Nurse Dot podcast. Until next time, keep spreading the love and the care.