Mindfully Meghan: Balancing Leadership and Self-Care as a Nurse
Meghan Boop graduated from the ECU Honors College and EC Scholars Program in 2016 with a B.S. in Nursing. She offers her perspective on nursing as a profession and major, the ways leadership manifests in the hospital, and how to find balance when your calling is caring for others. Follow her self-care Instagram mindfully_meghan for tips on taking care of yourself so that you can take care of others.
- Where do you work and how long have you been with your employer?
Right after graduation, I worked at Duke Children’s Hospital for one year before finding my way back to Greenville. I now work at James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital and have been here for almost a year.
- Many students go into nursing because they want to improve the lives of other people. Could you recount a time you felt like you touched the life of one of your patients?
Nursing is filled with so many important moments in lives, both yours and your patients. As a bedside nurse, you are the one that is there at a very vulnerable time in people’s lives. You help guide them through their medical journey, whether it’s just an acute issue or something more prolonged. Your demeanor as a healthcare professional can really make or break someone’s hospital experience, and I always try to keep this in mind when taking care of all my wonderful kiddos. One of my most memorable experiences was when I was involved in the care of a teenage girl and it was her first visit to the hospital. She had a major surgery and was recovering from it, and you could tell by her mannerisms that she was definitely nervous and stressed. I noticed she had a Harry Potter pin on the backpack she brought with her, so I started to ask her about the series, since it’s one of my favorites, too. For the next three shifts that I worked (since I was working three in a row that week), this patient and I would talk about Harry Potter, which then turned into life conversations in general. She told me her hopes and fears for her upcoming school year, the name of her favorite pet at home, her best friend’s name and what they liked to do together… the list could go on and on. By engaging her in a conversation about something familiar (i.e. Harry Potter), I was able to break down the anxious and stress-filled wall she had built regarding her hospitalization. By the end of my third shift that week, I discharged that patient home with a big hug and a wave goodbye. Later that month, my nursing manager pulled me into her office with a big smile. On her desk was a thank you letter from this girl and her mother and it was one of the absolute sweetest, most sincere notes I had ever read. And, of course, it was complete with an illustration of Hermoine Granger (a character both me and my patient loved). My nurse manager pulled out a gold star pin and handed it to me. This gold star pin symbolizes excellence in patient care and is given out to nursing staff that exemplify this behavior. What I learned from this interaction is that even the smallest thing (like talking about Harry Potter) can have the most profound effect on those we take care of so make sure to remember that the little things DO matter.
- What are the pros and cons of choosing nursing as a major/profession?
As a major, some of the pros of nursing are that its an undergraduate program, so you get to graduate with your bachelor’s degree and already get to work in the hospital doing what you love whereas many other medical professions are graduate programs. Also, as a nursing student, you get to spend time with patients and in the hospital at clinicals as an undergraduate, which helps solidify your reasoning for this career path. Some of the cons of this major are that it is an extremely demanding and stressful degree program. You have multiple clinical days each semester, you are on a 7-point grading scale, and you are strictly on the Health Sciences campus, so you may feel secluded from non-nursing friends. However, our mantra for nursing school is: if you can make it through nursing school, you can make it through anything!
As a profession, one of most-liked things about nursing is the 3 12-hour shifts a week. Working 3 days a week makes it very easy for travel. I have traveled a lot in my first two years of being a nurse without having to take off much time at work to do so. However, the schedule can also be a con. I alternate between night and day shifts, which can take a toll on the body and lead to weird and unhealthy sleep patterns. I have to work weekends and holidays, which makes me miss out on a lot of social events and family gatherings. My workweek changes from week to week, so even though it is not as monotonous as a 9-5 desk job, it does get frustrating not having a routine you can get comfortable with.
However, as a nurse, you get to touch the lives of so many patients, just as they have touched yours. It truly is a blessing to get to be that person who helps others through a trying time and help them cope with what is to come.
- As a nurse with an irregular schedule, why do you think it’s important to create balance in your life? What steps have you taken to create that balance?
As a nurse, my schedule is definitely all over the place. I work nights, days, weekends and holidays, which can lead to a toll on your body, mental health and social life. I think it’s so important to find a balance between your work and personal life to help curb the burnout that many nurses face from the stress of our jobs. Lately, I’ve been taking a lot of strides in my own self-care and mental health to help find this balance. I have focused on meal prepping before strings of shifts in a row to make sure I’m nourishing my body with what it needs, and not what it wants when it’s stressed at work.
I’ve focused on staying physically active, usually just on my days off and not before or after a 12 hour shift. On top of the usual physical activities I like to do like soccer and weight lifting, I’ve taken up yoga as a way to connect with my body and myself in a different way than I’m used to. I make sure to take time to myself everyday to do something stress relieving; for me, a lot of times this is reading a book or sketching an image on my iPad. I’m still learning on how to balance my hectic schedule with the other aspects and people in my life, and it’s definitely been a learning curve since I graduated. All I can really suggest to others looking for that balance is to not neglect yourself and your self-care. You can’t take care of others if you’re not taking care of yourself, so finding that balance is very important in the medical field.
- Explain something that surprised you about life after graduation, whether it’s related to nursing or just being an adult out of college in general.
I guess something that surprised me about life after graduation is that you don’t have to feel like you have it all together. I feel like many of us have this preconceived notion that we will have our lives “together” right after we graduate and that doesn’t have to be the case. Your 20’s are meant for figuring yourself and your career and your life out
, and you don’t need to compare yourself to those around you in an effort to feel like you’re where you are supposed to be.
- As an EC Scholar and Honors student, and by simply being the person that you are, you have always stood out as a leader—someone who wasn’t afraid to be themselves and use their voice. How do you think you exemplify leadership as a nurse?
One of the most important parts of nursing is being a patient advocate, especially when that patient isn’t able to advocate for him or herself. I think the confidence I’ve gained in myself as a leader from formerly being an EC Scholar and Honors student helps me better serve as an advocate for my patients. I’m not afraid to stand up and have my voice be heard if I think it’s in the best interest of those I’m taking care of. I also work a lot with the new graduates nurses and nursing students, and help serve as a preceptor for them as part of a leadership role at the hospital. These individuals get paired with me and I show them all aspects of nursing – how to perform a basic assessment, how to perform certain skills, how to document our interventions, etc. I am always looking for new ways to get involved on my unit, and I think I owe a lot of that initiative to the Honors College and its focus on leadership and service.
- Is there anything you are still thankful for as a result of being part of the EC Scholar program?
Being an EC Scholar has blessed me with some of the best people in my life. I still keep in touch with the director of the program, and many of the others I have met through it. I even met some of my absolute best friends through EC Scholars. The EC Scholars has helped shape me into the person I am today through the important lessons it taught me about leadership, service, academics, friendships and life. This program is more than just a scholarship – it’s a family, and I am so thankful to have been blessed with such a great second family.
- Could you explain your decision to go back to school? What are you going back to study, and why?
I have always loved education, whether it was being in school myself or helping to teach others to understand a concept. I have always considered becoming a nurse educator, and when I found a yearlong masters program that I really liked, I decided it was a good time to go back to school so I can help teach others how to become the best nurse possible. I am going back to school to get my Masters in Nurse Education, and hope to find a job as a clinical nurse educator. In this role, I would work in a hospital and implem
ent all new graduate education and orientations, and also be in charge of the continuing education for hospital employees. With new research and technology always helping advance the medical field, nursing skills and hospital policies are always changing to match the new innovations. I would get to be at the forefront of making sure employees are educated on these new skills, equipment and policies. Both my mom and my sister are teachers, so I guess I just had to follow their lead eventually but in my own way. J
- Any other advice for prospective and current nursing students?
One last thing I would like to add to all those current and prospective nursing students is do NOT forget to take care of yourself in nursing school. Nursing school is a very hard academic program, but you do not need to spend every second of your school year studying. Take time for yourself, hang out with your friends, go to that football game. If you spend the entirety of your collegiate years in the library, you will miss out on so many important things and your mental health will deteriorate. Don’t snack on just junk food or miss out on meals because you’re stressed out. Fuel your body with nourishment, go out and be active, and take some time to do whatever it is that makes you happy. Your mind and body will thank you for it later.