Following Jesus in Nursing

Lara: 00:03

Welcome to Following Jesus in Nursing, a podcast for nurses and students produced by InterVarsity's Nurses Christian Fellowship. I'm your host, Lara K. Kiser, and together, we'll be inspired by our guest stories, tackle big questions with experts in the field, and walk together in following Jesus at the intersection of faith and nursing.

Josh: 00:28

I think as a nurse, it's especially important to have your actions back up your words because it's so easy as a Christian in our society to wanna say the right things and, you know, give people these encouragements and platitudes and things like that. But in the nursing world, it's, like, just raw.

Lara: 01:03

Hey, y'all. Thanks a bunch to those who've listened to the first few episodes and shared your thoughts and feedback. Please keep it coming. And if you've enjoyed the show so far, please leave a rating, review, and share it with a friend. Also, we have a gift for you.

Lara: 01:17

You can get $10 off of our NCF professional or student membership, which includes the award winning Journal of Christian Nursing, continuing education credits, and connection with other students and nurses. Join NCF using the code following and save $10. You can find us at ncf-jcn.org. This link and coupon code will also be in the episode notes. So what does unzipping couch cushions have to do with becoming a nurse?

Lara: 01:49

My friend, Joshm is about to tell you. Here's part 1 of his story of following Jesus in nursing. Welcome, Josh. Thank you for joining me.

Josh: 01:58

Thanks for having me.

Lara: 01:59

Yeah. How long have we known each other now? It's been, oh my gosh.

Josh: 02:03

Oh, man. Since 2013. So almost 10 years.

Lara: 02:08

Has it really been that long?

Josh: 02:10

Yeah.

Lara: 02:10

That's wild. Yeah. So you were a student at Oakland and then Macomb and then Oakland. Is that right?

Josh: 02:17

Yes. I was all over the place. I was a student at Macomb first, then transferred to Oakland when I thought I was gonna go to med school, stayed there for 1 semester, then transferred back to Macomb.

Lara: 02:30

Nice. And that's Oakland University and Macomb Community College for those not from the Metro Detroit area.

Josh: 02:37

Yes. Michigan.

Lara: 02:38

Yeah. Well, could you just introduce yourself for everyone else who hasn't known you for the last 10 years?

Josh: 02:47

Sure. Yes. My name is Josh. I am originally from Detroit, Michigan, and lived there for most of my life. I wear many hats. I do everything from photography. I actually photographed Lara's wedding. Fun fact.

Lara: 03:04

Very well, by the way. We love those pictures.

Josh: 03:08

Yeah. It's a good time. I even I DJed for a while. I've been married for 5 years to my amazing wife, Kelly. We actually met because of InterVarsity, so another plug for InterVarsity there. Yeah. And in my spare time, I like to work out, ride my bike. I went for a 10 mile bike ride yesterday.

Lara: 03:32

Wow.

Josh: 03:33

And, yeah, I'm just like being outside too. So I like going for hikes. Kelly and I, we do a lot of outdoor nature type stuff.

Lara: 03:44

Awesome. And what is your current role in nursing?

Josh: 03:50

So, yes, I've been a nurse for 5 years and went straight to the operating room out of nursing school Mostly because I had a background in sterile processing. So for those that don't know, sterile processing is the department that cleans and sterilizes all the instruments for the operating room. And without sterile processing, the operating room pretty much cannot function. So for for me, that was a natural next step to go from sterile processing to the operating room, and I am currently working in Los Angeles at a Kaiser facility in the OR as a circulating nurse, and it's pretty fun.

Lara: 04:35

That's awesome. But you live in Vegas?

Josh: 04:37

But I live in Vegas. So, yeah, I'm traveling. I'm a travel nurse.

Lara: 04:41

Just a short commute.

Josh: 04:43

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a few hours away, but I have a rent in both places.

Lara: 04:50

So what were the key moments in your life that led you up to this point of being a nurse who follows Jesus?

Josh: 04:58

So when I was 2 years old, I was in a house fire, and that was a traumatic experience even though I don't remember the actual event. But what I do remember are all the trips to the hospital subsequently for different doctor's appointments, checkups, surgeries, whether it's skin grafts or reconstructions, different things like that that I would have to go to pretty much all the way up until the age of 18. I was having a surgery almost once a year for various things. And that time in the hospital allowed me to get more familiar with the hospital environment and really comfortable there because the hospital is kind of like its own world. Like, people almost live there.

Josh: 05:54

Like, the people that work there spend so much time there. Some people spend 16 hours a day Wow. At work. And it's just this machine that goes 24/7. There's a you know, you have a cafeteria.

Josh: 06:08

You have gift shop. You have all this stuff. So, it's just a really interesting place, and that always intrigued me from a young age, just walking into this big facility where all this stuff is going on. All these people are there. And I remember specifically, every time I would have surgery, I didn't like the mask that they would use when they would put me to sleep with anesthesia.

Josh: 06:33

So one of the things that the nurse would do was, like, cup her hands over my mouth and then just, like, put the tube there so then I wouldn't have to have, like, that plastic weird smelling thing over my face. And, like, that was one of the things that stuck with me. Just that empathy and compassion, and it just showed me that they cared and, like, cared about my experience there at the hospital. And I wanted to be that for someone else.

Josh: 07:03

So I knew that from a young age, but as I got older, I explored different options and switched my major quite a few times and ultimately found my way back to nursing. And also through that process, being raised in a Christian household, I went to church a lot and would sit there and just listen to these messages. And, eventually, after I would say I was about 12 years old. So after being in church for so long, I started to reflect on myself and think about, okay. What does this really mean for me?

Josh: 07:46

And, like, why am I here on earth? And who is this guy? Who is this Jesus, and who is God? And I remember this one Sunday, the pastor was preaching out of, I think it was Matthew 7, where he talked about a good tree won't bear bad fruit, and a bad tree won't bear good fruit. I just thought about, like, what type of fruit am I bearing and and what type of impact am I having on the people around me?

Josh: 08:15

And I made a conscious decision to want to be more like Jesus in my daily life and in my interactions with other people. So that began my spiritual journey. And so at that crossroads between becoming a nurse and also being a Christian, that did help me in the sense that I relied on Jesus to help me through nursing school,

Josh: 08:53

Because nursing school can be a struggle at times.

Lara: 08:56

It can be a struggle at times. I herard it's the hardest thing some people ever do.

Josh: 09:03

Yeah. It definitely was the hardest thing. So, yeah, just relying on his peace and remembering that, even accepting the fact that even if I don't make it through this nursing school, that everything is gonna be okay. Like, being a nurse isn't the only thing in the world. Yeah.

Josh: 09:24

And that may not be the most popular thing to hear, but I think, I truly believe that if God wasn't gonna allow me to be a nurse, then he was gonna provide something else for me. And that gave me peace.

Josh: 09:44

You know? Thankfully, he did. It was a process. I didn't pass my NCLEX on the first try or the second try, which is another story.

Lara: 09:58

Perseverance. I like it.

Josh: 10:00

Yeah. Perseverance because, continuing to push through and having faith that I would get there. Patience is a huge one. God granting me patience. So all those things.

Lara: 10:18

Okay. Hold on. I have to ask a follow-up question about this. So you failed the NCLEX twice and then took it again. But at the same time, you also had this approach of, you know, if God has something else for me, I'm open to that. What made you decide to keep taking it?

Josh: 10:37

I'm the type of person, and I think that I might get this partially from my dad. I'm just a very determined individual. So, like, when I put my mind to something, I'm like, I'm gonna do this no matter what. Like, even if it's what were we doing the other day. So my wife, she washed the couch cushions, and she washed them inside out and she zipped it before she washed them, and she couldn't get the zipper out.

Josh: 11:08

And she's like, can you do this? And it was extremely difficult. And I know this is a silly example. It was an extremely difficult task, but I'm like, I'm gonna do this. I don't know how I'm gonna do this.

Josh: 11:20

And I was really frustrated, but I'm like, I'm gonna get this open. I don't know how, but I'm gonna get this open. So that translates into all areas of my life. So, like, I failed for the second time, and it was really, it was a huge blow because I'm like, oh, man. I invested so much time into this, and I, like, don't know what to do now and a huge blow to my self esteem and all of this.

Josh: 11:50

And we had recently gotten married too, so finances were really tight at the same time. So, like, navigating first year of marriage, finances are tough and, trying to start my career, all these factors happening at the same time. And, also moving away from family for the first time in my 28 years of life.

Lara: 12:20

That's a lot.

Josh: 12:22

Yeah. It was a lot, but I just continued working and still processing and focused on being married and focused on our community that we had at the time and just kinda taking a step back, taking a breather, reflecting, being grateful for what I did have instead of focusing on what I didn't have. So not focusing on not having my nursing license yet, but focusing on the things that I did have, you know, a decent job. We had a nice, small, cozy apartment. We lived in a cool city, Pittsburgh, at the time. And we could still afford all of our necessities, and we weren't too far from our family. We were 6 hours away. So I think that's a huge factor too, focusing on all the things that God did give me at the time. And after a few months, I started to slowly study again and even got a really cool, this is a really cool opportunity. I got a chance to be tutored by a retired nurse, and we would meet up once a month, and we would go through this huge study book. And she would just, like, go through questions with me and just talk through scenarios, and that was an integral part. Yeah. That was an integral part of my success. And God, really, and she was a Christian too.

Josh: 14:03

God really blessed me with her and just focused on test taking strategies. And my tutoring time, her name was Shirley. My tutoring time was Shirley and practice questions, and I just just did it. You know?

Lara: 14:26

That's awesome. Yeah. I'm proud proud of you, Josh.

Josh: 14:29

Yeah. Thank you. It it also took lots of prayer too.

Lara: 14:34

Always. Yeah. Well, I interrupted you. So anything more that you're gonna say about your moments that led up to becoming a nurse who follows Jesus?

Josh: 14:46

I was gonna talk about the intersection between following Jesus and being a nurse. And I just think it's not much different than just being a human following Jesus in our world. I think as a nurse, it it's especially important to have your actions back up your words because it's so easy as a Christian in our society to wanna say the right things and, you know, give people these encouragements and, platitudes and things like that. But in the nursing world, it's like, it's just raw, I think, for lack of a better word Mhmm.

Josh: 15:35

Where people are real. Like, your patients are sometimes at the lowest points of their lives, and your coworkers can be extremely stressed out and may not have healthy coping mechanisms. And maybe burnt out. And a lot of people don't have time for, you know, empty words or things that are disingenuous.

Lara: 16:06

Yeah. Platitudes just aren't gonna cut it.

Josh: 16:09

It's not gonna cut it. They wanna see what are you really gonna gonna do. So, like, if you're saying you know, if you're walking through there and saying, I'm blessed and God is so good and all these things, which may be true, how are you living that out? Like, so when your your coworker says, I need help positioning in my room, are you just gonna sit there at the desk and play on your phone or pretend like you didn't hear them or whatever? Or are you gonna go in there and actually get dirty and actually help them out? Because they're gonna see that more than what you're saying in the morning when you're walking in with your coffee. You know?

Lara: 16:50

Yeah. Wow. Well, what have been some moments of joy for you in following Jesus in nursing? What stories do you have?

Josh: 17:01

Yeah. Lots of cool stories. If I had to choose a couple, I would say a lot of what I do in the operating room is mainly making sure that easing the patient's anxiety.

Josh: 17:20

And making sure they're comfortable and they understand the process for going into surgery. So a lot of times, I'll get my room ready, the operating room, and make sure that my scrub tech is cool. So the scrub tech is the person that will be assisting the surgeon during the procedure, handing them instruments and stuff like that. Nurses can also scrub in the operating room, which I did at one point, but I mainly circulate. So the circulating nurse is responsible for, like I said, getting the room ready, making sure the patient signed the consent, and the consent is correct.

Josh: 18:01

So if we're working on the left elbow, the consent says left elbow and not right elbow. Important. Important. Making sure I have all the the supplies that we'll need in the room, things like that. And then I'll go to preop. I'll talk to the patient, check their information, name, birth date, look at the consent. If there's a laterality to the procedure, usually, the surgeon will mark that side. So I look for the surgeon's marking on that side. Then I'll ask them if they have any questions. And usually, by that time, they'll ask about if it's their first surgery, they'll ask about the anesthesia or they'll ask, like, little things about the operating room, and I can answer those questions.

Josh: 18:52

Any questions related to the procedure, I'll usually divert back to the surgeon and ask the surgeon to come back to ask to answer those questions. And I remember I had this one patient that she actually had a miscarriage, and we were doing a procedure to make sure that there wasn't any, like, residual thing that could cause infection. So, she was coming in for that procedure, and she was understandably very emotional.

Lara: 19:31

Yeah.

Josh: 19:32

So I was able to kind of, like, give her a sense of peace and, just talk to her and and more importantly, listen. Listening is a is a huge part portion of nursing, especially in the OR. And I was actually able to pray with her also. And I remember after I prayed with her, I could tell that she really appreciated it and, like, she started crying and stuff. Just like a really, beautiful moment where I felt like like, this is why I became a nurse, you know, to do this, to to be this person for other people.

Josh: 20:21

And yeah, yeah, so that was a really cool moment. There was another moment with this guy who, it was kind of a sad situation, where he had used this lotion, and it was a, like, a prescription lotion that had some sort of medication. It was a medicated ointment, and he used it all over his body, and he, like, broke out in these rashes all over his body from head to toe. Okay. And they were really, yeah, really painful for him.

Josh: 20:59

So he had to come in for a procedure to kinda, like, debride, all the different rashes, which would be a really painful procedure because you can't really inject medication everywhere. You can only, like, give a topical anesthetic. So needless to say, he was in a lot of pain even in the preop area, and this guy came back multiple times for, like, a couple months. And he remembered me, and he just had really kind words to say about me because he remembered that I was really nice to him the first time he came back, and I did everything that I could to make him comfortable.

Josh: 21:47

And he just was really grateful that I was his nurse every time he saw me. And that was just, like, a really cool moment too. It made me feel good that, not only did I had an impact on him, but he remembered me from from previous times. And even though he was in this really painful, miserable situation, me being there helped diffuse a little bit of that that pain and discomfort.

Lara: 22:20

Yeah. I would guess or imagine that you'd have some extra empathy being able to draw on similar experiences from your childhood too.

Josh: 22:33

Yeah. Yeah. Which is actually kinda cool too because the specialty that deals with that sort of thing is like the burn unit. So it was kinda cool. It's like full circle where, like, I started off in the burn unit myself.

Josh: 22:51

And then as a nurse, I'm working in the operating room helping treat burn patients. I was working in that room for about 3 months straight in the burn room. So that was pretty cool.

Lara: 23:07

Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing those. And those were joy stories of joy, but they still made me cry a little bit.

Lara: 23:27

As I reflect on Josh's story, I picture him as a young boy going back to the hospital yet again for yet another surgery. His nurse couldn't take away his pain or go back in time to prevent the damage that had been done in the house fire, but she could communicate compassion to him and make his journey of healing just a little less uncomfortable. I imagine her gently cupping her hands over little Josh's mouth so he didn't have to use the plastic anesthesia mask. And I see the presence and empathy of Jesus on her face looking at Josh. And then I imagine that same compassion and empathy reflected back on Josh's face years later as he prayed for his patient who was devastated after a miscarriage or as he comforted his patient in pain with rashes all over his body.

Lara: 24:17

Josh couldn't change why those patients ended up in the hospital, but he could take action to show them the compassion and kindness of Jesus. As you care for your patients this week, what would it look like for you to take compassionate action to make your patients feel just a little more comfortable, a little more seen and loved? I am so proud of Josh for persevering through nursing school and through the NCLEX to become the kind of nurse that communicates Jesus' compassion for patients through his actions. And I am so proud of all of you who are persevering through nursing school, exams, the NCLEX, and hard shifts. On behalf of all of your patients, thank you.

Lara: 24:57

You are making a difference. If you enjoyed hearing from Josh today, stay tuned for our next episode, which will be part 2 of our conversation, where he shares some great ways to stay grounded in the face of really difficult patient losses. Hey. Thanks for joining us for another inspiring episode of Following Jesus in Nursing. We hope you've been encouraged and equipped in integrating your faith with your nursing practice.

Lara: 25:33

Be sure to check out our show notes for info about connecting with Nurses Christian Fellowship as well as links and resources mentioned in today's episode. And remember, as you go about your work as a nurse, you are not alone. Jesus is right there with you, guiding your steps and using you to bring healing to those in need. Thanks for listening to Following Jesus in Nursing, and may your faith continue to be a light in the world of health care.