Episode 13: Kristen Taylor

Kristen Taylor was the Student Nurses' Association president and graduated from RACC’s Associate Degree Nursing Program in May of 2020. She is now with Tower Health in the Cardiac Intermediate Care Unit. Prior to nursing school, she obtained her associate degree in health information management, and worked at St. Joseph in medical records. Who better to discuss what it takes to achieve a great career in the health professions, than Kristen? Download and listen to her amazing story.

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Transcript

Sonia Rieger  0:10  
Hey, and welcome back to the rack podcast. Don't forget to check out our last episode where we spoke with our President Dr. Looney about many exciting programs happening here at RACC in the quickly approaching fall semester. Today we are continuing our quest to share our graduate successes by welcoming a new grad from the nursing program here at RACC. She has worked as a chiropractic assistant, and also a personal trainer. Please welcome Kristin Taylor. Hello. Hi, thanks for being with us today. Thank you for having me. Tell me a little bit about yourself, Kristen.

Kristen Taylor  0:39  
I am a mother of two. I have a 16 year old daughter and a 14 year old son that takes up a lot of my time. Sure I graduated the nursing program in May. So it seems like forever, but it's been such a short time. Since then, I've taken my NCLEX I've passed and I started my job in the cardiac IMU at tower health. In my free time. I enjoy reading, writing. I'm very much an outdoors person. So I like to be outdoors, paddleboarding, just hiking, things like that. So it's often things we do as a family, and I love the beach. So Oh, very cool, man.

Sonia Rieger  1:13  
Since you graduated in May Tell me what initially brought you to RACC.

Kristen Taylor  1:17  
What initially brought me to RACC is I started my pursuit of my nursing degree. When I was a year out of high school, I got accepted into a program. And I also found out I was pregnant. So it was kind of threw a curveball, and I had a very difficult pregnancy. So I decided to put that on hold and pursued another degree while I was pregnant and raising my daughter when I looked at the rack, and I realized that was doable to go back to school and actually finish that degree. I decided to give it a try.

Sonia Rieger  1:46  
Okay, so I know that you had the health care management degree first. Yeah,

Kristen Taylor  1:50  
that correct? Yeah, I have associates and health information management,

Sonia Rieger  1:52  
what really made you want to change that course? Was it that initial work in nursing classes that you took that made you want to make that shift? Well,

Kristen Taylor  2:00  
I always knew I wanted to be a nurse. And that was something I thought, I'll put it on hold. But I love pursuing education. So I'm like, I need to do something, I can't just sit here and be a stay at home, mom do nothing. I went back to school, I got my associates, I started working in medical records. And it's great, I worked with great people. But for me sitting behind a desk and working in an office just wasn't for me. And that's when I decided to cross over into fitness. And I became a personal trainer. And I worked with a chiropractor's office, which helped me use the personal training skills that I had as well to work with patients. So I had more patient interaction. And I realized that that was really my passion. So I should look at going back to school and finishing my nursing degree. How did

Sonia Rieger  2:39  
your education here at RACC in the nursing program prepare you for your work in the field,

Kristen Taylor   2:44  
the education you receive at RACC, it's very good, you have two years in the program, which is a shorter program than some others, which is okay, because it really, it really makes you focus, you really have to critically think all the way through as something in nursing schools, they tell you, they're gonna make you a critical thinker. So with the tests with the clinical work, it really does force you to find a way to find those critical thinking skills, so you can apply them and use them with your patients or on the test. And now that I'm in the field, I realized it wasn't just something they were saying that critical thinking is key. And when you're working with the patient, and their condition is changing, and you really have to figure out what's going on with that patient. So it really sharpened my critical thinking skills made me a better nurse in that respect.

Sonia Rieger  3:30  
So once you graduated from RACC, how were you received as a graduate out in the workforce and

Kristen Taylor  3:34  
the actual workforce? I don't feel like I'm treated any different. When you're going into a hospital that has its own nursing program, you think, Oh, I'm gonna be the outcast or, you know, I feel like I got the same consideration as everyone else. And I'm treated the same. They have the same respect for me as they would for any other person coming from the nursing program.

Sonia Rieger  3:52  
Okay, great. So you said you're working in the cardiac IMU. So can you tell us what that means? And also what kind of work that you do there?

Kristen Taylor  4:00  
Absolutely. cardiac ICU stands for cardiac intermediate unit. So it is part of the critical care division at tower health. So you have your ICU, which is your very critical patients when they aren't quite as critical, but they're not ready to go through to a med surg floor, or they're coming into the hospital and they don't need that level of care. It's kind of like somewhere in between, that's when they come to us. So we not only work with cardiac patients, we also work with anyone who has thoracic surgeries. So you might have someone who comes from a lung surgery, chest surgery, and has chest tubes, you could have a cardiac patient that is on a drip. And what that means is it's an IV drip that needs to be adjusted based on their vital signs. It's something you have to watch very closely that they don't generally do on a med surg floor. So it's just a little bit higher acuity and a more specialized population. The great thing is you get to see people come out of cardiothoracic surgeries, open heart surgery who are really sick and you get to see them actually start to get better. So that's one of the great things about being on my floor. Oh, very cool.

Sonia Rieger  5:00  
So did you always know that that was the field that you were going to go into that cardiac was where you were going to end up?

Kristen Taylor 5:06  
I did not. I started my nursing journey thinking I wanted to be a psych nurse, okay. And through the program, I think you go in there with an idea of what you what you want to do. Some people do it. And some people are like, that's not for me. As I started to go through the program, I was drawn towards critical care. And I realized that I really liked every aspect of it. And so that's what I went for right at the school, I didn't think I'd end up in cardiac. In fact, if you would have asked me two years ago, I would have said I would be nowhere near cardiac. Oh, I think I think as you kind of find the place you're meant to be, because as I was doing well in school, and I realized that cardiac was something I excelled at, and then I was getting really interested when we're on a cardiac floor. I was like, Well, okay, maybe that's where maybe that's where I should consider going. And I actually do love it.

Sonia Rieger  5:53  
That's an interesting story. So how has your work changed since the pandemic

Kristen Taylor  5:58  
I was in school during the start of that, actually, we came back from spring break, and we were told there's no classes for a couple weeks. And that turned in for the rest of the semester, I was working as an aide at the time, I worked as a need. And then I did an externship, and then I worked as an aide again that summer after the pandemic started. For me it as an aide, it didn't change much, because my floor wasn't very impacted by it. However, as a nursing student, going from having live lectures, being in the lab, being in clinicals, to being just online, it really forced you to kind of adapt. And now in the nursing profession, I realized that that is something you have to do all the time. talking to other nurses that worked through it, they really did have to go from cardiac nurses to respiratory nurses, they had to learn very fast to be able to care for their patients. One of the the shifts I've seen in nursing, since I started nursing school to now is just the demand to be that adaptable and being able to make those changes when you needed to make those changes to care for your patients.

Sonia Rieger  6:59  
Do you have any future career plans or educational plans yet? I know you're fresh out of school, but

Kristen Taylor  7:05  
a lot of people think say they don't want to think about it. I'm not that type of person. You know, I I got back to school. I have a goal. I start my bachelor's degree program in September. Awesome. Congratulations. Yeah. And so I will be pursuing that. And there is a consideration of going to school to be a nurse anesthetist, I can never say it correctly. I always just stuttered. But it is a future goal. It is something that I have to acquire experience in critical care first. And if I would not go that route, I would definitely be an acute care nurse practitioner, which is working in critical care with critical care patients.

Sonia Rieger  7:40  
Okay, so since you're starting your bachelor's in September, were you able to take advantage of any of the agreements that we have where your associates and Rn transfers right into the bachelors program,

Kristen Taylor   7:51  
I looked into some of those, I ended up going with different university that I can complete it quicker, okay, I'm the type of person that likes to work at my own pace. So I found a program that just basically, you get six months to take as many classes as you want. And you can finish them as quickly or as slowly as you want. And that's, wow, that's what I want with but they do through rack, you have a lot of opportunities and a lot of avenues that you can take, which was really awesome, because I got to consider many choices.

Sonia Rieger  8:19  
Oh, for sure. So as you may know, this year is our 50th anniversary, what message would you like to pass on to our president, Dr. Looney and the rap community on our historic occasion?

Kristen Taylor   8:29  
Well, I'll start by saying that if it wasn't for RACC, I probably never would have finished my nursing degree. And that's because I looked into so many programs and the cost and the time as a mother of two and working two to three jobs, it didn't seem doable. So I guess the message I would want to give Dr. Looney and rock as a whole is just thank you for being that open door when I thought that door was close to me. Because you go through and you tell yourself, I'll never be able to do that I'll never be able to do this. And then I looked into rocks program. And that was the first time I said, You know what, I can do this. This is something I can do and is achievable. That's a great story.

Sonia Rieger  9:09  
Tell me about what the career outlook is for our students and listeners in the healthcare field?

Kristen Taylor  9:15  
Well, healthcare is as we all know, a growing field and there's a growing need. So not only for nurses, but physical therapists, occupational therapists aren't lpns everything that you can think of anything that's in a hospital or doctor's office, there's a growing need there. There's job opportunities there, you're not going to graduate and not have a job, you're definitely going to have a job and they're going to compete for you. And from there. When you go into any hospital organization you work for, there's opportunity for growth. So you may start in one, one area, but there's so much opportunity to grow. And then as you change and say you want to change locations or you know your spouse or someone has to move, there's always going to be job opportunities for you so you're not routed to one place. A lot of careers you can go travel nursing, you can go hospital, you can go doctors offices, because there's always a need. Would you say that your employer and maybe healthcare employers in general, are supportive of employees continuing their education and going further, absolutely every single place that I applied, offer some type of educational assistance, wow. And does encourage you and offer certification courses and continuing education courses through their program. And I don't know if you know, but a lot of healthcare degrees, you need to take continuing education credits, right to maintain tenure license. So they do they offer right there in the hospital, at no cost to you the opportunity to get those credits. So you can renew your license,

Sonia Rieger  10:42  
that's awesome, on top of already receiving an affordable associate degree at RACC in a couple of years, then you have the opportunity to go even further, once you secure that job in the healthcare field.

Kristen Taylor  10:53  
That's the great thing about coming to RACC is you don't have all those student loans falling, you write a lot less a lot more affordable, and you can take advantage of the benefits and all those opportunities to grow. And it's practically all paid for. So it's great.

Sonia Rieger  11:06  
Yeah, for sure. The What advice would you give to our listeners, and maybe some future nursing students about their education

Kristen Taylor  11:12  
that is never too late to start. I'm 38. And I just finished a nursing degree program. So if you're telling yourself you're too old, like I was, it's not true. And I don't care if you're older than me, it's never too late to start for nursing students or potential nursing students. I think when you stand at the start line, all you see is it's going to be hard. And what if I fail, and I've seen a lot of people not even pursue it because of that, like, I'm not even going to try. And I guess what I have to say is if you're passionate about it, it's gonna be hard. And you might fail. Sometimes even I failed sometimes. But if you are truly passionate about it, it's worth it. And it has to be hard because on the other side of that, you're going to be taking care of people, you're going to be the one that can keep them alive, or the one that's going to make them better. So it has to be hard. And that's okay, because at the end of it, you're going to be like it was so worth it.

Sonia Rieger  12:03  
That's great advice. Thank you for sharing with us today. Kristen, thank you for having me. If you're interested in becoming a healthcare hero, we can help you get there. The RACC nursing Associate of Applied Science offers state of the art classroom and lab technologies and gives you a variety of experience in hospitals and clinics throughout our region. Upon graduation as you've heard, you'll be well prepared to take the licensure exam and begin an in demand rewarding career. The need for nurses is high in settings like research administration, doctors, offices, hospitals, education and more. To learn more and get started today, visit racc.edu/HP to learn more, come back and listen to us each week as we share more stories of our successful graduates. I am saying you're eager on the Reading Area Community College podcast and I can't wait to see you next time. Bye