Episode 16: The Good Nurse

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

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.

Amy Loughren

When I confronted him, she truly changed his eyes, changed, his voice changed. I was watching his mask, his physical mask change and switch up. His posture was different. He became the murderer.

Cara Lunsford

Joining us today, Amy Lofgren, trauma ICU and E.R. nurse, also known as the Good Nurse for her part in the arrest and prosecution of American serial killer Charles Cullen, who may be responsible for as many as 400 deaths over a period of six years. Amy describes her relationship with Charles Cullen and how after his arrest, she overcame the guilt and anxiety of knowing that one of her closest friends was a murderer.

I'm your host, Kara Lunsford, registered nurse and VP of community at Nurse Com. Oh, hi. How are.

Amy Loughren

You? I am fantastic. How are you?

Cara Lunsford

I'm doing well.

Amy Loughren

This is such an honor.

Cara Lunsford

I've been talking about this podcast interview for probably the last couple of weeks where I was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm really, really excited to dig in on some of these big burning questions that I'm sure so many nurses have asked while they're watching this documentary, while they're watching the made for TV, Netflix, The Good Nurse. I had just watched it before I found out that you were going to be doing some blog interviews with Nurse dot com.

So I had just watched the actual documentary of it where I saw you and it was a big topic of conversation here in the house.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, the subject matter is so interesting because it just causes so much fear and people that are going into the hospital are at their most vulnerable. And I think one of the most burning questions for most people is can it still happen? Could it still happen to my loved one, to myself?

Cara Lunsford

That was exactly the questions that I felt like I was fielding as a nurse from people who are in the public. Yeah, right. So I did want to just get a little bit of background on you because a lot of times when I come into these interviews, I try to come in with as little knowledge, back knowledge as possible so that I can get this really like authentic conversation going.

And also where, like, I'm authentically surprised about things that I learn about someone like I don't want to Google you and find everything I can possibly find.

Amy Loughren

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because it's the discovery process for me. Also, I actually love when people happen read anything about me because they make up these stories already about me and I'm like, No, that's not the way it happens. It's not the way it happened chronologically. And I think also many times people have this angelic idea about who I was from watching the movie, and I was not angelic.

I was a little naughty.

Cara Lunsford

Well, then we will get along perfectly.

Amy Loughren

There you go.

Cara Lunsford

So really, this should have been called the naughty nurse. Let's just I.

Amy Loughren

Have been saying that, you know, I said if I ever wrote a book, it would be the naughty nurse, but then people would read it for other reasons and that would be so boring. I love.

Cara Lunsford

It. I love it so much. Yeah. So I was like, you know what? I just want to learn. First of all, I want to like, learn a little bit about you. Just how long have you been a nurse and what made you want to go into this profession in the first place?

Amy Loughren

So I was working in a nursing home as a nurse's aide way back in the eighties, like early eighties. This was like 1984, I think. And I had run out of college money. I was going to be a psychiatrist, so I needed some money. And back then, you didn't need a DNA or any type of certification. It was just you went in and they hired you.

And I was working the night shift, and I saw a nurse and LPN abuse one of the residents. When I talked to my supervisor about it, she said that this was just a misunderstanding and that it was a personality conflict. Well, it was very, very obvious that these residents were not being cared for. So I was kind of like, really?

Okay, hold my beer. And I went to nursing school because I said I was going to go back and fire her. So it really started out with me wanting to protect people. And then I ended up instead of being a psychiatrist, I ended up being a trauma nurse and was really interested in ICU and critical care and became a critical care nurse.

And then I became a travel nurse, which the really naughty part of all of this about how I ended up in New Jersey, which embarrassing going to share with you. I actually had an affair with a medical student and he lived in New Jersey. And so I was moving to New Jersey and we broke up. But I already had this job at Somerset Medical Center as a travel nurse just to get myself to New Jersey.

And I decided not to move there, but to work in the hospital, stay there in the hospital on weekends, and then come home during the week so that my daughters thought that I was a stay at home mom. During that time that I was working at Somerset, I received a diagnosis of electrical cardiomyopathy. I had been sick for quite some time.

I did not know how sick I was. I did not know how serious my just rhythms were. All I knew is that I had become exhausted. I didn't realize that my injection fraction had bottomed out and my F was at about 30%.

Cara Lunsford

Oh, my gosh.

Amy Loughren

Yeah.

Cara Lunsford

30%.

Amy Loughren

I was in and out of paroxysmal atrial fib, which also was causing syncope episodes because I was having dramatic pauses. I had six sinus syndrome initially, and those pauses could be up to 6 seconds. So I was passing out at work. I was sick as hell, but I now had a diagnosis. But because I was a travel nurse, I could not miss more than I think it was five shifts in a row.

Or they could revoke my contract, which also meant I would lose my insurance, which also meant then I couldn't get another job because I was sick. So I was stuck in this job trying to finish out my contract and in the middle of that also, I ended up getting a pacemaker and I couldn't take time off, so I had to have it done on a monday and then go back to work on a Friday and wow, I don't take any time off.

So I went in, got a pacemaker and I was not doing well with that. So, I mean, it was a really, really tough time in my life and I was told I would need to go on the transplant list.

Cara Lunsford

Oh, my God. Now, when you got the pacemaker and what year was that that you got the pacemaker?

Amy Loughren

I met and I'm probably getting this wrong. Charles Graber, the author of The Good Nurse, he has everything in chronological order right down to the day. I always have to use him as my memory. I believe I met Charles Cullen in 2001. I received my pacemaker in February of 2003, and during that time I was so super sick that Charles Cullen was helping me with my patients.

Cara Lunsford

Got it. Wow. Oh, my gosh. What an incredible. I mean, you've worked as a nurse. First of all. It's hard to work as a nurse. Yeah, let alone having to work as a nurse when you are struggling from heart failure.

Amy Loughren

Yeah.

Cara Lunsford

I mean, really, Because that's what it is, right?

Amy Loughren

And work the night shift.

Cara Lunsford

And work the night shift and have children.

Amy Loughren

And have children.

Cara Lunsford

And travel back and forth.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, yeah.

Cara Lunsford

And then like, let's just take that all in for a second, right? Because I've been a nurse for 16 years. I talk to nurses all the time. I've spent my life, or at least the last like few years of my life really trying to help with the sustainability of this practice. What gets me up in the morning is how can I help nurses to show up one more day, show up one more year, and then have this be a sustainable profession for the long haul and be able to retire at a reasonable age and oh, I don't know, maybe go off and like travel and live your life and enjoy your grandkids if you have

them or whatever it is. But what I look at consistently is what it is that nurses are taking on and then all the stuff that's already going on in their lives, right, Because it's already a hard job and then you compile all of that with your own health problems and just the fact that you have to be a parent and, you know, you're just like trying to survive.

Then of course, in a situation where somebody like, wants to show up and help you, yeah, I'm going to take that help. I'm going to connect with somebody who just seems to care and want to help me.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, and he did. He definitely helped me. He helped me emotionally because he was so funny and he just made every situation funny. And working as a nurse, you know that we have to push our emotions down. We disassociate from not only our emotions, but listening to our own bodies because we don't have time to do that. So the way that we disassociate is gallows humor and sardonic humor.

And it's a survival strategy because we are all in survival mode, all of us. Yeah. And it helped it it definitely helped to have someone that helped me laugh at the ridiculousness of both of our lives. And he was a good friend. I thought he was a good friend.

Cara Lunsford

And I think that that's the tough part, right? Because I think we want to put people in a box, I think for safety reasons, to feel safe navigating the world, it's really easy to put people in a box. And we want to be able to say, this person is good, this person is bad. It's like I'm going to say, and I'm sure every listener is going be like, Here comes, here comes Brené Brown.

Brené Brown says, Our brains are wired for story. Yeah, we want a for you and against you. We want a good and a bad. We want to categorize because that is how our brain then gives us a story that then can keep us safe. If I know who someone is and I can figure out who someone is, then I can figure out how to protect myself from that person or from anyone like that person.

And I think it's really difficult when you hear stories like this because you go, Oh my gosh, look at how many people he duped and how many people genuinely were like, I liked him. He was a good friend. He took care of me. He made me laugh. He was good with my kids because immediately you start to think, oh my gosh, who can I trust?

Amy Loughren

So that is also another aspect. All of this is two things happened to me. I questioned my own instincts and I questioned trust. I had grown up with an abuser. I had a pretty challenging childhood, so I thought that that gave me the superpower of believing I would know when there was a monster in front of me. So I had this delusion that I could see through people that I would be able to recognize when someone had that monster type energy.

And when I realized I really didn't know, it made me question everything. So what is reality? And it went that far. Like what is real? And is anyone real? And then it wasn't just about the trust aspect of Can I trust that someone is actually my friend? It was more about can I trust that I would know whether somebody was my friend or not?

And it wasn't about trusting other people, it was about trusting myself. And when you start doing that, everything kind of falls apart. You start questioning boundary. So you start questioning. It wasn't that it made me not trust other people. It made me not trust myself.

Cara Lunsford

And that's the worst part, right? If you then question your own abilities. And I think too, as a nurse and I'm going to kind of generalize a little bit, but I would say that nurses, especially seasoned nurses, feel like they have a pretty strong gut instinct. Yeah. And that a big part of our nursing is that gut check.

How do I feel? You know, I know everyone here is telling me that the vital signs are normal and they labs are normal and the scans are normal. But I'm telling you, I feel it. Something bad is going to happen.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, Something's going south and I know it's going south and I don't know how to tell you that. I know, but I just know exactly.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah, it doesn't really surprised me. And the one thing I did know about you is that you pretty much, like, stopped working after this happened. Is that right?

Amy Loughren

Kind of, yes. Yeah, go ahead. Yes.

Cara Lunsford

Did you stop working as a nurse or specifically in that field?

Amy Loughren

Yes. I stopped nursing for a while and went on a deep spiritual path. I became a hypnotherapist Reiki master. I went through every energetic modality to teach myself about that instinct process, and it gave me back my trust and it gave me back whatever I lost in that moment of understanding. And that one of my closest friends was a serial killer.

That paradigm shift shifted to a much more beautiful and open space and I'm so grateful for that moment.

Cara Lunsford

Congratulations.

Amy Loughren

It also helped me to understand that I did have a superpower, and that superpower was seeing the good in people, truly only seeing the good in people. I used to believe in that seeing the good in people was something that could hurt me. And one of the only reasons that Charles Cullen is behind bars is because I was able to open up to him and see the good in them.

It's why he was able to confess to me because the love and the friendship that I felt for him was real. It was real, and that was my superpower. So I left nursing and when I was able to go back to nursing, I went back as a person who could connect in a way that was so much deeper that the nurses I worked with, I could look at them as people who were struggling with mental health issues.

We do not pay attention enough to our own emotional and mental health because we just don't have the freaking time. We just don't. And we put ourselves last and we put our emotional and our mental health last because we're so strong, because things have to get so damn bad that it's in crisis mode. And it's why we had a Charles Cullen, because he was not able to get the mental health help that he deserved.

And that is where I went back, knowing that I wanted to connect in that way with other nurses. Giving people that love and that mothering that I now had for them, and how to create teams that were emotionally healthy because I was emotionally healthy training. Oh.

Cara Lunsford

Coming up after the break.

Amy Loughren

So I believe he was obsessed with killing and he was compelled to kill. He just could not stop himself. He said that someone had to stop him, physically stop him.

Cara Lunsford

Hello. Welcome to a segment we call the Dark Spot, where you will hear more of your voice and a little less of mine. You can visit Nurse dot com forward slash podcast to share stories, feedback and requests. As a valued listener, you will also receive discounts on nurse dot com courses and C use by using code nurse dot at the checkout.

Hey there, it's.

Amy Loughren

Brooke Brown, VP of Product Management at Reliance. I've been building health care software for over 15 years and I've also been a nurse since 2011.

Cara Lunsford

I'm truly passionate.

Amy Loughren

About nurturing and supporting the nursing workforce and policy.

Cara Lunsford

Implementation and.

Amy Loughren

Activation. But enough about me. What a great conversation Cara just had with Amy Laurent about the very real and emotional toll of the good nurse. It's time to embrace automation.

Cara Lunsford

And data integrity to.

Amy Loughren

Prevent these situations from being ignored or swept under the rug. We need to implement systems that are immutable and aligned with the latest policies and best practices. But here's the thing It's not just about technology.

Cara Lunsford

We need a healthy.

Amy Loughren

Organizational culture that fosters transparency and participation from.

Cara Lunsford

Staff.

Amy Loughren

A just culture where we can all be open about risks and work together on solutions. That's how we make real change in health care as.

Cara Lunsford

Well as attract and retain.

Amy Loughren

Great nurses. If there had been a culture of safety and encouragement coupled with effective regulation, Charles Collins actions may have been detected sooner in patients lives could have been saved. Currently never. Events are the only category of event or incident that is required to be reported, and this is a CMC requirement, but there are many smaller, seemingly less significant events that go unreported and could be a prelude to the next never event.

The current regulatory landscape contains no considerations or language to support and increase the reporting of all incident types.

Cara Lunsford

We must be governed.

Amy Loughren

By regulations and guided by organizational policy designed to increase transparency and trust. As health care regulation works to mature.

Cara Lunsford

To more fully address these kinds.

Amy Loughren

Of situations.

Cara Lunsford

So when I hear you talking about this, and when I hear you say, like my superpower is seeing the good in people, I absolutely agree with you 100% that the reason why Charles Coughlin admitted to what he had done was because he looked at someone who was looking back at him, who saw a piece of him that he was just hoping someone could see.

Amy Loughren

Yes, absolutely.

Cara Lunsford

I mean, I'm sure that there's sociopathic types of tendencies involved in anyone who can kill that many people. But was he diagnosed with any specific type of mental illness?

Amy Loughren

So when I saw him in prison, I asked him if he was in therapy or if he was medicated, and he said no. He had turned back to the Catholicism and he was not interested in being diagnosed. He was not interested in someone studying him. He did not want someone handing him a label. And I understand that he was pretty narcissistic and not as a diagnosis, more as a buzz phrase that we use now.

The narcissism that we understand of someone only really thinking about themselves. She truly wanted to place the blame back on the hospitals, and she wanted me specifically to still see him as heroic as being a good friend. And that's all he really wanted to talk about, knowing him and having these conversations with him not as a diagnosis. More.

It's interesting to me to believe that he had some type of an obsessive compulsive disorder that just went awry and went off the rails. He was obsessed with certain aspects of nursing, and you could see him separate over that, certain medications, ways of teaching he would separate. So I believe he was obsessed with killing and he was compelled to kill, and he just could not stop himself.

And he did say that in interview was he said that during his confession and that the only reason that he would stop is that he was finally stopped. Someone had to stop him, physically stop him. He would never have been able to get his brain to stop. So to me, just interestingly, I think it was an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure like combined with some, like you said, a level of narcissism, a lack of empathy, you know, this kind of sociopathic tendencies where you're not connecting with the impact that this is having on someone else's life, on someone else's family, on a disconnect.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, absolutely. Some delusional disassociation that he made. I also believe that there was a disassociation because when I did confront him, when I was first wired and I confronted him, he truly changed. This was not a person who is caught in something. And then they go blank and they become pale. This was completely different. His eyes changed in a way that one of his eyes I had never realized.

He had something with his eyes. One of his eyes just sort of trailed off. I was watching his mask, his physical mass change and switch up. His voice changed and it was a much lower pitch, almost like a growling type of voice. And his posture was different. He became the murderer and the mask of being my friend was this sweet, kind of trippy dude who was in Mr. Roger's kind of sweaters.

And he went to this very proud, angry, don't get near me kind of persona. And it was a physical change. It was an emotional change. And I watched it happen. And I watched it happened twice.

Cara Lunsford

How scary was that for you? That must've been I don't know. I'm just imagining myself sitting in your position and like, how terrifying that would be or shocking? I don't know. Like, I'm not sure what the emotion is.

Amy Loughren

I think that I was disassociating myself. But I did hear in the documentary, you hear my voice, he and I speaking that conversation, and I did not realize really what I was saying and how I was presenting it to him. Even in Charles Graeber's book, you can read it word for word. Everything that I said to him and I was much more afraid and much more timid.

And then I saw it. I mean, I thought that I was kind of being brave then. I really wasn't. I was scared shitless. I mean, most of what was going through my mind is if he goes free after this, he is going to kill me. He will kill me, because obviously he didn't know I was wearing a wire.

And if he was going to go back out there, he knew where I lived. He knew everything about me. And I was thinking, I'm not going to be able to go home after this. I'm not going home. Wow.

Cara Lunsford

Boy, that's just kind of like takes the air out of the room, doesn't it? It's just overwhelming to even think about, you know, as you were describing that and describing him. It almost makes you think about when somebody is exorcisms, like when when they're possessed, when they're possessed, when there's like some element of possession happening. Oh, there must be someone living in you.

There must be this other entity. Yeah. Kind of living inside of you. And it is surfacing right now because it's been seen. I saw it and now it's coming up to the surface.

Amy Loughren

You know, what is a little different spin on that was the realization I made many years after. Not during that time I had really decided that the person who was my friend was the real person and that he had this other small aspect of him that was killing people. And years after I started to understand, I wanted to believe that.

I wanted to believe that the persona that I had assigned to him was the real one. I realized that was his mask. The mask was the friend he was being the mask was the good nurse. The mask was him being sweet and kind and gentle because who he really was was that murderer. Wow. That's the real person. And during the documentary, it solidified for me because I saw the recordings.

And when he had given me the confession, I walked away. It was done. It was over. So watching that back and seeing how performative he was during that confession really, truly made me understand that he was acting and she was the murderer. She is true person. His core person was the murderer. Wow.

Cara Lunsford

I know that he you mentioned that he places a lot of blame on the hospitals and that's an area that I want to talk about actually within this interview, because it's also something I feel pretty passionate about is like regulatory compliance and greed and all the things that kind of play into allowing something like this to happen and for so many people to get affected by this.

But did he ever indicate any remorse?

Amy Loughren

No, no, no.

Cara Lunsford

No, no, no. No remorse.

Amy Loughren

No, no. He told me he was sorry. He got caught. He was sorry he got caught. And that was the only time I heard him apologize in any way. And he never really even apologized to me. So I know in my heart there's no remorse. He's angry that he was caught. Wow.

Cara Lunsford

And scary that someone can masquerade around for so long.

Amy Loughren

Yeah.

Cara Lunsford

So was there a moment where you can look back and say, I saw a couple of things that felt like now if I look back on them, like red flags, like, oh, maybe this guy's maybe he's a little narcissistic, or maybe he's a little obsessive compulsive. Like, not really any like, anything that really, like, was like a red flag.

Amy Loughren

No, I was so blind to it. I was so invested in him. Being my hero is that I was blind to anything. And even looking back with a 2020 and looking back and thinking he was the murderer, there was nothing specific where I would have been, Oh gee, maybe he's harming people. Or maybe he's not a good person.

Or maybe no, I mean, truly nothing. And I've you know, I've had 20 years to go over this and there was nothing that I picked up on.

Cara Lunsford

Yeah. And I'm sure that many of us come across people and we we don't even realize maybe until we pass over and we're like looking back over our lives or something. And they're like, Wow, you came in contact with a few people that were like this or, you know, and we just think this has never happened to me or I've never been duped in this way, or I would No, I don't think so.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, I think that is really the funny part is when people see his photograph or when they see him on video and they're like, Oh my God, he was so creepy. She really wasn't. And when people see him like this 60 Minutes interview that he did on that interview, he had already been in prison almost a decade. Like you change everything changes.

He had aged, he was malnourished. But the Charlie that I knew was actually kind of cute. I mean, there was no boy girl shit going on between us ever. And that's why we were such good friends is because there was any boy girl stuff going on. Yet he was very pleasant, He had a pleasant face, he had a pleasant smile.

And no, you wouldn't have known. And I think people saying, you know, he was creepy or he looked weird or most everybody looks weird. I mean, everybody's got like, weird shit when you really. Yeah. The other day, being in the airport, I was like, No one here is Instagrammable. Like, there was not in the airport waiting room because I was there, like in my pajama pants and my hair up in a ponytail.

And I'm looking around and I'm like, No, none of us would be on Instagram. Not one freak, maybe TikTok, but not Instagram. And I think so. That was just like a aside.

Cara Lunsford

And I do think that those are defense mechanisms. I think when people come up and say, This wouldn't happen to me, I would have recognized this, I would have seen him. Doesn't he look, it's so obvious he looks okay, but that is just people's defense mechanisms kicking into gear and saying, this can't happen to me and this is why it can't happen to me, because I would see this or I would, you know, that's all that is.

And because the more humble you are, the more you realize, of course, this could happen to me. You know, you can look at the entire scenario, just as we talked about earlier, like Perfect storm, right? It's like you were sick. You needed that help. You needed that hero. You needed someone who was going to help you keep providing for your family.

And that's perfect. Storm Any one of us could be that story.

Amy Loughren

Absolutely.

Cara Lunsford

And then that's what I think like takes us into where we have to know that there are systems in place, you know, that there are regulatory compliance systems in place that liability and money and greed and profit and revenue and all of that can never be more important than identifying something as egregious as this or even less than that.

Amy Loughren

However, yes, it was the individuals in the hospital who allowed that system to be perpetuated 100%.

Cara Lunsford

It's always the people.

Amy Loughren

You know, I was part of that system. You know, no one else was jumping up to help.

Cara Lunsford

So do you think that this is where we have to, like, take this is going to sound horrible, but we're having things that are more automated, things that cannot be, let's say, manipulate, aided by people. For example, if you put stuff into a system, let's say you, you document something, right? And it doesn't go to a person per se, but this is logged into a report and then that report is shared externally in some way outside of the hospital, like in some way, not someone that is invested in the profitability of the hospital or the safety of the hospital.

Amy Loughren

I see where you're going with this. Yeah.

Cara Lunsford

I guess I'm just wondering if this is kind of the direction in some way. You know, I know we always go, oh, you know, like technology and AI and this and that and, you know, are these things that are going to benefit us? Are these things that are going to cause more complications or more difficulty for us? But in some way, is there regulatory compliance that we should be putting in that is not a human who can then not say, Oh, I don't want to escalate this, or I'm going to sweep this under the rug, or I'm going to like advise that H.R. dismiss this person and let's just look the other way.

Amy Loughren

Well, the other thing that was discovered is that no one was really keeping track of the Pyxis. So that piece of it, he was not hiding. And what I saw on the Pixies printouts it was so obvious. And those were the two things I was afraid. Is that okay if someone did see this and they've noticed what I've noticed and no one's done anything about it, that's scary.

It's just as scary if someone didn't notice. So.

Cara Lunsford

Or do you think they don't look because they don't want to know?

Amy Loughren

Well, at the time I think that it just was an oversight of someone was probably supposed to be looking at that stuff and they just weren't. I mean, I'm almost glad that that was the answer that came up, is that they should have been and someone wasn't because when it was discovered, when someone did see it, they did ignore it and they did cover it up and they were shredding that information.

So initially someone overlooked it, but then someone did see it. And actually it was anywhere from 5 to 8 patients were murdered after the hospital knew undeniably, that he was murdering people. So they kept him on. They kept him working, knowing she was murdering people, knowing until they had a good way to avoid liability.

Cara Lunsford

So at what point are they held responsible now?

Amy Loughren

They won't.

Cara Lunsford

I don't understand this. Like, I just do not understand how. You can destroy evidence. You can knowingly impede an investigation or you can. I don't understand. Is anyone pursuing any kind of legal is anyone prosecuting?

Amy Loughren

I know that there were civil suits and I'm not privy to any of that information. I do know for certain there were civil suits that went on. I do know that Somerset Medical Center, which doesn't exist anymore, they were not held liable, but they paid out for the civil suits. But I don't know. I don't understand. I know people were fired, but it was the direct managers.

I mean, Mary Lund, who was the person who covered everything up, she was promoted. So that to me was the biggest kicker, how she sold her soul to be able to do that, I don't understand, except that it's money and it's surviving. I wanted to say survivability for her. Whatever She needed to survive in that moment. Perhaps it was she needed to feed her family.

I don't know. I just know that morally I would would have rather been punished by the hospital and punished by whoever for smuggling out documents or whatever. I did then to not be able to sleep at night knowing that I allowed a murderer to hurt my patients.

Cara Lunsford

There must be some story they tell themselves. There must be some confabulation that they have to create in order to justify what they've done.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, delusions, absolute delusions.

Cara Lunsford

There has to be absolute delusions in place to support those kinds of decisions. And those actions.

Amy Loughren

Yeah. Doesn't it still come back to mental health? It yes, it all comes back to mental health. Because if she had her emotional and mental health intact and was able to stand up and say this is wrong, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. We would be saying, yay, Somerset Medical Center. They stopped a killer, right?

Cara Lunsford

Psychological safety. Yeah. So? So this is actually something that I interviewed role AMR. She has her Ph.D. in behavioral health and she specifically has focused in on burnout and moral injury of late. And one of the things she talks about is psychological safety. And when I think about creating an environment where the staff feels safe, psychologically safe, yeah.

To be able to say exactly what's going on, exactly what they see, to not get gaslit, for example, or to, you know, make them feel like they're crazy or they don't know what they're talking about or they're, you know, seeing things that then aren't really there. But to have a really supportive environment where the best risk management is to have the eyes and the ears of every single person within that institution looking, listening, watching and then reporting.

There's no better risk manager isn't really. And then to have your administrators be receptive to that information and responsive and then not be afraid of, Oh my gosh, did we have one person who died because someone here in our hospital did something wrong and is a potential serial killer? And we found out that one person to have them step in and go, okay, we have to do something.

One person died, just one, and now we have to notify the family. We have to do something about it. We have to escalate it to the police department. We have to do all of these things and then get this person out.

Amy Loughren

One person in that administration. Why wasn't there one person that said, I don't care how we get him off the floor, I don't care? Why wasn't there one person that was strong enough to say, this is so wrong, I would have been jumping up and down. I would have been flipping out if this had been in my lap.

If I had known, I would have been yelling it from the rooftops until someone did something about it and I wouldn't have stopped. We go along with the crowd. We go along, we toe the line. What is it in us that that is, you know, bad ass? There's something in us that just tows the line.

Cara Lunsford

I think it's what you. You said earlier. I think we live in a world probably for a very long time. We lived in a world where people are just barely hanging on. Most of the time they're barely surviving. They're in a state of fear, probably more than they're not in a state of fear.

Amy Loughren

Yeah, and fear of food, clothing, shelter. When those three things when surviving is on the line because most nurses are living paycheck to paycheck, even though we make a lot of money, a lot of us are not financially healthy. We tend to binge spend. And I'm generalizing, I know this, but many of us, because we feel that need also to have retail therapy because we work so hard that we end overspending, which puts us back in that horrible circle of then needing to work a lot more.

So yes, it's very much about food, clothing, shelter, and that's surviving. That's crisis mode.

Cara Lunsford

That's crisis mode.

Amy Loughren

Yeah.

Cara Lunsford

And it's almost impossible to get people to think rationally. Yeah. Do the right thing, see the world through a lens that is not colored by fear. Yes.

Amy Loughren

Yes.

Cara Lunsford

Because I would venture to say that until we can start to come and I will generalize and say as a society, get out of a place of fight or flight.

Amy Loughren

Yes.

Cara Lunsford

At Intel, we are able to lower those cortisol levels and address our adrenal fatigue that we not going to be able to do the right thing. We're not going to be able to make the right choices. We're not going to be able to look out for the greater good. Because when you are in survival mode, you only look out for yourself.

Then you can't see other people.

Amy Loughren

Yes.

Cara Lunsford

You can't see the effect that one person is having on tens, hundreds of people.

Amy Loughren

Yeah.

Cara Lunsford

So I think when I say, oh, you know, for now or maybe for the foreseeable future, maybe machines do have to take over. Maybe we do have to have like maybe they do have to like, do the heavy lifting when it comes to spitting out a decision like, hey, we pulled in all the data we did all the analytics and we're going to pop out a name and go, This person is a risk and a liability.

And you have to maybe you have to report them to the police or you have to fire them, but you have to do something.

Amy Loughren

They could be systems could help in that way. It could be.

Cara Lunsford

I mean, at least until we seem to figure it out. I'm going to say one last thing. I think you are an incredible human being.

Amy Loughren

Great to be here.

Cara Lunsford

And I'm sure when you come out and you put your face into the public, everybody in their brother's got some opinion. You know, you get the good, the bad, the ugly, you got the trolls, people who just want to say awful things because they can. And what I want to say to you is I see you and I hear you and I value you for what you have done.

And I really think that this is going to make a huge impact and a change in the way we operate within these systems. And it will never be allowed or forgivable because now we have seen just how bad it can be when you don't pay attention. Thank you so much, Amy Thank you.

Amy Loughren

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Cara Lunsford

Oh, if you are a nurse who enjoyed this episode and you have an idea for future episodes, you can connect with me by downloading the nurse dot com app. See you there.