Don't Eat Your Young: A Nursing Podcast

Emily Mazurak was an RN in a busy PICU at a Level I Trauma Center. She was ready for a change and took her talents on the road and because a traveling PICU nurse. Through that experience, and feeling like she didn’t fit in to some of the cliques within the units that she worked in, not having a sense of community, she felt that is where her burn out began. She loved taking care of her pediatric pa...

Mary Buffington had been a nurse for several years before feeling the effects of burnout. She was working in a chaotic oncology clinic, which was stressful enough, but then didn’t feel supported by her own leaders which added to the toxic environment. She finally chose to leave that job and almost gave up on nursing all together. She decided to take some time and find her self-purpose and self-lov...

Deanna Tikhonov is a Women’s Health NP, but it took her a couple years to decide that’s where her passion was and take the steps to get there. As a nursing student, she hated her med/surg rotation, but later attributed that to working with preceptors that were burnt out, overworked and didn’t like having students. After graduating as an RN, it took her several months, and over 30 applications, to...

Lois Hollis has been in nursing for over five decades and has moved our profession in the right direction. She has been a forward-thinking leader and took on new challenges in order to promote and push the scope of practice of nurses to a higher level. We all stand on the shoulders of nurses like Lois. Lois’ abuse in her younger years led her to help herself and others. The pain that she endured a...

Christina Dunbar started her nursing career in the pediatric ICU and worked in several other areas before going back to school for her FNP and finding her place in adult oncology. After some time in the clinical world, she saw an opportunity and took a management position leading a team in oncology. This was a challenging position and she found herself burning out. We discuss the need for more sup...

Casie Lamp has been a nurse for 20 years, serving in the Army, before working in the civilian world. Casie is seeing firsthand, the toll that our current healthcare crisis is taking on our nurses. After going through her own burnout 5 years ago, which was revealed while she was completing a CE article on burnout, she learned to heal herself. Casie realized that she wanted to help other nurses prev...

When Kim Klein was a nurse’s aide and decided to go back to school to be an RN, she didn’t realize how much different it would be. She quickly learned that being a new grad, moving straight into the OR, would prove very difficult. She left the OR after a year, only to find out that her LTC job did not give her the support that a new nurse needed. There was a question that she asked herself - am I...

Lisa Dunlap is a Geriatric NP that practices holistic and integrative medicine. A little over a year ago, while dealing with burnout from her job, she was having health issues that were finally diagnosed just as the COVID pandemic was ramping up. Finding out that she had an ovarian mass, and without the option for surgery at the time, she turned to her mindfulness practices, awareness, and self-ca...

Jeri Cates went from being a homeless, single mom on welfare to being a nurse practitioner and entrepreneur. She defines herself as a crusader for self-love. Jeri became interested in nursing when she was told that nurses are teachers, among others. The BON sanctioned Jeri for marijuana use and a complaint from a patient. That patient bullied Jeri when she refused to order him medications that he...

Welcome to Don’t Eat Your Young — the podcast that brings you stories from the trenches of the incredible, wonderful, exhausting, terrifying, joyous world of nursing. Host Beth Quaas been in the world of nursing for nearly decades and has worked in hospitals large and small. She's worn the hats of the floor nurse, ICU, ER, and anesthesia. She's been a manager, an educator, and a co-worker. On Don'...