108: Patient Advocacy with Kate Hoskin
Patient Advocacy
Kate is an experienced emergency nurse and patient advocate with a passion for helping patients navigate the healthcare system.
With over 15 years of experience in both public and private acute care settings, she has developed a keen awareness and understanding of how our health system operates and how to help patients find their way on their healthcare journey. She empowers patients to recognize inferior care and ask for better, as well as helps people understand where bias and other agendas might be impacting the advice they receive from the healthcare providers and hopefully inspire other healthcare professionals to return their focus to patient centred care.
In this episode, Kate also talks about the importance of being human in nursing and patient advocacy and how this human connection can improve the patient experience. Additionally, Kate shares her experience of starting a business while returning to bedside nursing and the lessons she learned along the way.
Overall, this episode is a great listen for anyone in the healthcare industry or anyone considering a career in nursing. Kate's story provides insight into the challenges and opportunities that come with navigating different roles and organizations in nursing, and the importance of patient advocacy and human connection in providing quality care.
Key takeaways:
02:32 - Learn about Kate’s career story
12:01 - Finding Contentment and Purpose
14:13 - Navigating Thoughts and Feelings When Leaving a Job
19:40 - What was it like starting in a private graduate program as a grad?
22:01 - What is the secret to sustaining and building a career in ED?
25:00 - Importance of being human in nursing and patient advocacy.
32:24 - The Importance of Human Connection in Patient Care: Why Knowing Your Patient Matters
36:52 - Bringing Business to Life
42:45 - Advice for Starting a Business While Returning to Bedside Nursing
Thanks for listening!
Loved the episode? Leave us a review!
5 Ways we can support you in your nursing career ✅
Join our Nurse Career Academy and work with us to help guarantee your next nursing role!
Book a free Career Clarity Call with Liam to discuss your career situation!
Join our private FB community to surround yourself with like minded nurses!
Check out our Youtube Channel for more nurse career support!
Looking for awesome comfy Scrubs? ❤️
We are so grateful to BizCare for sponsoring the High Performance Nursing Podcast!
Click here to snag some scrubs!
PS: this is NOT an affiliate link, meaning I do not make money if you use this link and the upside? You get AWESOME scrubs!
-
**This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.**
People often said, particularly when it came to the postgraduate level of study, oh, but you're trained in the private system. You're not a real ED nurse. Like you wouldn't survive in the public system. Well, the skills are transferable and then if you are passionate and you work hard, You can take those skills anywhere.
You've just gotta be brave enough to do what I reckon. And I love that step outta your comfort zone. And you know, I've picked it up quite easily, but I've always worked hard and tried my best to be the best that I can. So you get out what you're putting in. Hello and welcome back to the High Performance Starting Podcast. I'm so excited that you are all here today. Today we are having a, I'm gonna call it a career chat. I'm gonna, we're diving into an amazing clinician's career and exploring where they started and where they are now, and what amazing tips, wisdom, experiences that they have to share with us today.
So today we have the amazing Kate Hoskin. Welcome to the podcast, Kate. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh, I cannot wait to dive in. Everybody that's listening, you're gonna wanna stick around for this episode cuz there's gonna be so much goodness in here. I'm gonna kick off with just letting you know a little bit about Kate, who she is, what she's been up to, although we're gonna dive into our career story.
So Kate is an experienced emergency nurse and patient advocate with a passion for helping patients navigate the healthcare system. With over 15 years experience in both public and private acute care settings, she's developed a keen awareness and understanding of how our health system operates and how to help patients find their way on their healthcare journey.
She empowers patients to recognize inferior care and ask for better, as well as helping people understand where bias and other agendas might be impacting the advice they receive from healthcare providers, and hopefully inspire other healthcare professionals to return their focus to patient-centered care.
I just got chills. I love that so much and I love that whole like recognize inferior care and ask for better. Oh my God. Yeah. Boom. That hit me right there. Yeah. We're gonna dive into all of that, but I want to kickstart this conversation with you telling us a little bit more about where you started your career and kind of tell us a synopsis of your career up until this point.
So basically I've been spent most of my career in the private system in Melbourne. I had fell in love with the hospital that I did my graduate year at, and found the leadership there to be very supportive. And I finished up my graduate year in the ED and that's where I stayed. I love it. I found my place.
And so I was very fortunate to have really supportive leaders throughout my career, both in my direct unit manager and the director of nursing and educators as well were really supportive of me. So every opportunity I could've wanted to professionally develop was handed to me on a silver pla. So, I quickly progressed through postgraduate studies, the advanced practice program or the transition to specialty, depending on what your organization calls it and became a clinical nurse specialist.
And then after that, just had a keen interest in education. So I did the certificate four training and assessment so that I could start. Playing in that field and started taking on education in services and supporting my educator wherever I can in the CNS role to sort of, you know, get that experience under my belt.
I worked for five minutes after my postgraduate in educating at tafe, teaching diploma of nursing, and doing some clinical placements, some tutorials, all that sort of stuff. So I started to grow that experience as an educator, which was really enjoyable and really beneficial. And then after that I got a secondment in my hospital to a clinical nurse educator role.
Mm-hmm. On the wards, which was a really great opportunity again, where my director of nursing really believed in me and gave me an opportunity. So that was my first taste of the clinical educator role. Which was so eye-opening for me, like it really blew my mind up until then. Like throughout your career, you just, you know, you're focused on yourself, you're doing your own thing.
You're just the nurse and everybody in the leadership is your enemy kind of thing. Like you're fighting against them. Just, you know, for that really opened my eyes to behind the doors and how hospitals run and leadership and all that sort of stuff. So that was brilliant. And after that finished, I stepped into an a nu role.
And I did that for a few years around becoming a mother. So I came back and forth to that role and had two babies in a couple of years. And then when I came back to work after my experiences in childbirth I stepped into my old clinical educator's role. She finally moved on and that was perfect timing for me to step up into her role.
So yeah, I jumped in probably a little bit before I was ready to, cause I was right off the back of maternity leave. I'd had 12 months off and. All that sort of stuff. And I didn't quite feel ready, but again, my people higher up than me, believed in me, took a chance and supported me to step into that role.
And yeah, again, I think I was a little bit naive stepping into that role as well. But I'd had a lot of learnt experience as a patient in my journey in motherhood to come back to work with. And then, yeah, I don't know why I'd never seen it before, but for some reason when I sat in that office and sort of contemplated what this role of the clinical nurse educator was and the environment that I was doing it in, I was just like, All of a sudden had this huge awareness of how major this job was and that the organization I was working in had no governance.
There was no protocols. There was no policies. There was no. How to manage D K A. There was no how to recognize and manage sepsis cause it was private and all the consultants were just doing what they did because that's how they knew to do it. And no one was telling them to do it differently. And because I'd been raised in this organization, so to speak, I didn't know any better.
I was just happy to do what my doctors had always told me to do. And I guess my experience in childbirth and maternal obstetric healthcare, which I was completely ignorant name about as well, really opened my eyes to that your doctors don't always have your best interests in mind. There are agendas outside of your experience and outcomes at play.
I've got so much work to do and in that moment I sort of just determined that I was gonna set about. To change the system. No, no small feet. I sort of was like, wow, I dunno, this is huge. Like I've got so many policies to write, so many guidelines to teach, cuz it was my role to teach the baby nurses what best practice standards were.
But how do I do that without anything to reference. Mm-hmm. So I just, you know, for the next few years, Said about writing policies and teaching them and thought this would be fine. I'll just write the guidelines. I'll teach them and everybody will pick up and we'll make things better and patient experiences will be better and it will be more smooth for the nurses to all be doing the same thing rather than doing it how that doctor wanted it and different for that doctor and that kind of thing.
And that, I guess is where I ran into trouble because. Doctors and systems don't like to change. And that for me was really, really challenging. Like, I just couldn't understand, here's the , best practice guideline. It's evidence-based. It's what all the other hospitals are doing in the public system.
Why don't you follow it? Mm-hmm. And they just didn't like I really. Could not understand why that was happening. And I guess over time and with perseverance and trying to implement change and meeting a lot of resistance and a lot of challenge in that I sort of. Realized that I can't change the system like it was breaking me and ended up having some really terrible experiences which required, you know, disciplinary meetings and all this sort of stuff.
And it became really, really challenging work environment cause I was so passionate about making them do better. And the resistant that was met with just really shattered me and I was becoming a miserable person. I was bringing it home with me and it got to the point where my whole life was falling down around me.
Mm-hmm. And so I had to take some time off, so I, by this time, I'd accrued my long service leave, so I just took four months off. And again, I had a very supportive director of nursing who could see where I was going, and she was like, yep, just take the time. Do what you need. We'll be here when you're ready to come back, sort of thing.
And then it was in that time off where I had time to decompress and reflect and what I wanted to do, and recognizing that I couldn't achieve it in the role that I was in. That I came up with the idea of patient advocacy, plus I thought, you know, I did that. What do people come to me for? What am I good at?
And I had so many friends and family who'd be like, my kid's sick. What do I do? Where do I go? Or that kind of thing. I'm like, oh, I could do this. Like I could make a business out of this. And so the idea was born. And stayed in the idea stage for a solid 12 months. Yeah, so I just, you know, can I do this?
How do I do this? I dunno if I can do this. And then of course, the long service ran out and I went to resign, but my education manager convinced me to stay after that time off and sort of settling and regrounding and redirecting only lasted. I think maybe three months back in that role, before I was just, no, I just can't.
I just can't be here. I can't do it. I physically felt like I was being squished into a box, lack of performance and behavior management, and towing the line and you know, not challenging the status quo. And I'm like, this just isn't me. I just can't bid anymore. And so I resigned from the role that I've worked my whole career towards.
Which, oh, letting go of that mate. Oh my God. That took a lot. That took, it was a huge, and this is like what you talk about too. Mm-hmm. Where I let what I do become who I was, and so that felt like a real letting go of a part of me. So, mm-hmm. That was really, really hard. And of course that was in the beginning of Covid, so I think I was still in the educator role for the first few months of covid and doing all the policy and retraining and all that sort of stuff.
And then, yeah, I just was like, no, I can't, just can't and say, yeah, took a step back, a massive step back and joined a different organization in the public system and just went back to being an emergency nurse and on the side. Putting energy into my business and patient advocacy and figuring out how I could change the system from the outside rather than killing myself, trying to change it from the inside.
So yeah, my business was born and here I am flooding along. It's been probably two and a half years now of patient advocacy plus and figuring out as I go what I wanna do and how I can make a difference and change the system by empowering patients. And that's, My absolute passion out just lights me up.
So yeah, I love there's mash. Oh my goodness. There is so much to unpack. So much. I just love your career story. You know, I think what I love about doing this podcast and talking to other people, selfishly, what I hear other people go through the same thing that I went through and it reminds my brain like, Oh yes.
You're not alone. And lots of people go through this process. And two, for other people to hear, how the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows of our career. Mm-hmm. Really do shape who we become. And it's when we really step into and listen to that intuitive part of ourselves, whether that's your brain, your gut, like whatever that is for you.
And you really question. You go, hold on a minute. This used to light me up. It no longer does what's going on. Let me create some space. I'm hearing that that space was the gift that you needed to give yourself. Yeah. And go, hold on, I've got a couple of paths here. You gathered all the facts and you went, okay, my heart wants me to stay, but my mind is telling me something different, like, this is not good for you.
Yeah. And I think that, You like, you know, obviously you've made the shift, but like I'm proud of you and I hope you're proud of you. Cause that is a huge shift. And like you say, it's hard. It's very, very hard. Yeah. I talk to people every day that want to make a similar shift and they do not give themselves permission.
And really that's what it comes down to, right? if you remove the heart and the 10 years of working there and the connection and the collaboration and the people, it comes down to making a decision and liking your reason why you made that decision. And I'm sensing based on this smile on your face and like the way you were talking about patient advocacy.
Yeah. You like your reason for doing that. Yeah, I really do. And it's so interesting cause like you said, the smile on my face. It's not only just my career that I feel more content with, like I've lost that desire or that compulsion to. Continue to progress. Cause I feel like that's a real culture in healthcare is there's a lot of pressure for young nurses to progress, progress, progress, achieve, climb higher, do more.
And I've let go of that and I'm just so content being at the bedside with my patients. Doing a good job bringing my 15 years of experience to the bedside. I leave work smiling rather than stressing. I don't bring it home. And then I've got energy for my husband, for my kids, for my friends.
Like, you know, I'm drinking less wine, all that kind stuff. But yeah, it just makes such a big difference to, I don't know if you can step outta that. I wanna call it a cage that the health system can put you in and go, okay, like why am I doing this? What do I love about it? And you know, I don't have to define myself by my role.
Like I don't have to have a job title or an employer or something to be able. To bring my skills to the world to help people. So, totally. And I think that what you touched on there is what most people and we both have gone through, is this idea of like, you almost grieve the loss of a part of you. Mm-hmm.
You grieve the history of your life, the past, but you also grieve the future, like what could have been, and your brain takes you to both ends of the spectrum. And I think that that's, Probably leaving the job is easy cuz we just have to resign, right? Like you look through sets of email and you say, Hey, I'm done.
But what is hard is navigating the thoughts and the feelings that come up when you hit that send button or in the lead up to it and the perception of what people are gonna think. How did you manage all of that? Because I'm sure there'll be people like you're doing Ward, you're going from educator back to bedside set up an advocacy business.
Like what are you thinking, Kate? I know I think the advocacy part of it has always been a part of who I am, but it's a part of me that had been squashed through, childhood and all those messages that you get growing up and you know, coming into healthcare and that good girl kind of mindset and really subdued that part of me.
So I think that part of it's always been there and stepping outta it has given me permission to reclaim that, and I've reclaimed that more and more. The more of this work I do. But I think, yeah, the letting go of who I was and what I would have been, oh gosh, that just took time and I just gave myself space to grieve it, like allowed myself a minute to adjust and through like yourself, I've done a lot of.
Personal development work. And that has really helped me to not get attached to outcomes and try and just go with the flow. and allowed myself to be content with who I am, not who I should be, kind of thing. But yeah, it was really hard and I knew I did go back to a clinical educator role.
It's probably close to two years now. The opportunity came up in the public system and I was like, okay, I'll try it there. And it was too easy to get that job, like an organization that usually only hires from within. And I didn't have the qualifications that all the other applicants had. I'd been out of the game for over 12 months, but I got this job so easily and it was strange to me.
But then again, I was lucky if I lasted three months back in that office. Before the wheels of life started to fall off again. And so I was like, no, this isn't where I'm meant to be. It was just that little affirmation that I needed to be like, okay, you're on the right path. You don't have to keep reminding yourself that you're supposed to be here.
And that really helped me to be solid. Where I'm going, not where I was sort of thing. Yeah. Makes sense. I love, yeah, no, totally. I love that. And I think that there is something in this when you unsee yourself in a role that you mm-hmm. Like if you keep trying to go back to that role, I did this as well.
Yeah. Life is gonna just keep teaching you the same lesson. Yeah. And that's why my big believer in that when we change our circumstances and we change the job, that unless we really look internally and do the thought work and the feeling work, We're just changing the external world. We're taking the new job, but we're taking the same brain, right, with the same thoughts and the same programming and the same condition beliefs.
And whilst I think some environments definitely leave them, you know, if, if they're not serving you that. If we just look at it and think, when I change the circumstance, it's gonna make it better. I think that that's where we're a little, like I was delusional for 12 years thinking job will be different and better, and I loved that.
That's been your experience as well. I do believe that when we've been in something and we leave it or we apply for something and we don't get it and somebody else does, we can't unsee part of ourself in that role or unsee the fact that we've had grown it. As well. Yeah. You know, it's like if you visit the family and you're like, you're looking around and you're like, what's happened here?
No one's changed. Everything's the same. Yes. And you're, and you're like, do I belong here? What's happening? Yeah. I really struggled. I'm that towing the line and delivering an agenda, you know, for the good of the hospital rather than for the good of the people that were supposed to be teaching and mentoring.
I was like, oh Yeah. I love that. I think everybody are listening to take away from that there what Kate was saying, like just because you can doesn't mean you should. Yes. Like that line and like, I can do this job. Am I doing it because I can or because I really want to be here. And yeah, that was a huge deciding factor for me.
Yeah. Yeah. And remember that everybody probably told Kate, Kate, by the way, you're amazing at this. You can do this, you should stay. You've got a great career ahead of you. And Kate was like, no. I know me and I know what I want. And you still had all the drama, right? You still had all of those thoughts and you still had the confusion, but you just bet on yourself and I think that's what's beautiful about your story.
I love that so much. There's so many things I wanna ask, but I want to spend a lot of time with patient advocacy cause I know it's so important. I wanna ask based on, we've got a lot of grads that listen, a lot of nurses that want to get into ed nursing. Number one, I wanna ask. What was it like starting in a private graduate program as a grad?
Because there's a lot of public versus private and people say, oh, you know, you can't do the private, so what would be your one line run that? My advice, and I've given it to graduate and postgraduate students before, is that you get out what you put in. Ooh, you can cause in education, support is inferior across healthcare regardless of whether your public or private, right?
So you have to make the most of your opportunities. And if you've got one organization offering you your. Dreams, your opportunities, your goals on a silver platter, but it's private and you are returning it down for that, then I don't know. I feel like that's a wasted opportunity. And in the private system, my experience was that it wasn't as competitive.
There weren't. The dozens and dozens of people applying for the same programs. And so you had a better opportunity of progressing more rapidly, which for me, like I went from graduate nurse to clinical nurse educator within 10 years. Like that's, you know, and I had two babies in that time, so, I think, yeah, and people often said, particularly when it came to the postgraduate level of study, oh, but you're trained in the private system. You're not a real ED nurse. Like you wouldn't survive in the public system. Well, mm-hmm. You know, the skills are transferable and then if you are passionate and you work hard, You can take those skills anywhere.
You've just gotta be brave enough to do what I reckon. And I love that step outta your comfort zone. And you know, I've picked it up quite easily, but I've always worked hard and tried my best to be the best that I can. So you get out what you're putting in. Oh, I love that so much. That's such a good piece of advice.
And I also just need to acknowledge your use of the word inferior. I love that. Cause I always talk about LA a lot. It's just a beautiful word. I'm just but the fact that like, it's true. There is inferior education, there is inferior Yeah. Leadership. So then what do we wanna do about it?
Right? what can we do about it that's within our power. I love that so much. I wanted to ask you based on your, over a decade of experience in Ed. What is the secret to sustaining and building a career in ed? Because it's, it's hard in ed, right? to stay there long term. There's a lot of things happening.
And there's a lot of high and lows. I mean there is everywhere, but Ed, in particular I C U, critical care. What do you think the secret to success is? If you were to give somebody a little bit of information and insight. You know, they used to teach you at nursing school. I'll never forget like philosophy of nursing, my first day of uni to leave yourself at the door detach.
Don't feel, don't connect. Your patients need you to be professional and that kind of thing. And that's how I worked for a number of years until I became a mother and I was no longer capable of that approach. But I've really found like, Just be human like, you know, if you need to feel your patient's experiences, feel it because that's better than suppressing it and going home and drinking.
You know? Or that's better than becoming resentful of the patients that you are here to care for. Remember why you became a nurse. Like I became a nurse. To help people, like most people. I love the science of it. I loved understanding how we could figure out what was wrong with people and how to put them back together.
And for me, that has always been a privilege. So just reminding myself constantly of that and that Every patient who comes to the ED is very easy to become jaded because you see people in such horrible situations every day that the sore toe does really grind your gears. But just remind yourself that nobody comes to an emergency because they don't think they need to be there like they come cause they feel like they have an emergency and it's our job to take care of them.
So, I don't know. I find I just, cause of course I have my moments where I've reached my limits. Might take a day off. But so I think, yeah, that balance of humility and remembering that people are people and it's your job to help them, as well as recognizing when you've lost the capacity to view people and treat people as people and taking a minute off.
Yeah, I think that's something that we really don't value in healthcare, particularly at the moment over time, extra shift, show up, support your team, and I'm like, no, no. Support yourself. If you are, you know, taking care of yourself, you can take on anything. So yeah, I think it's just that balance really.
Yeah. I love that. I love reminding people like, there's no healthcare without self care, right? Like, yes, it's a good little slogan. It's a bit cheesy. It's amazing story, everybody, but it just reminds me that like, you've gotta put yourself first, right? You've gotta fill that cup up first. And I just love that you mentioned.
Like the humanizing the role and the job. Mm-hmm. Because you're right. And I remember being taught that as well. I remember put on the facade and show up. Yeah. And like I think that that's probably what's compounded our burnout, right? Yes. It's like we have literally been taught to not get in touch with our emotions.
To not cry when the family are crying cause somebody just passed away. We're negating the human experience. And I think that is just like, as a patient advocate, I'm sure you have a lot to say about that, because then as a patient, How did they receive that information? How do they, what are they thinking when we're still called in star and we're like, well, it is what it is.
You know, get exercising and move on. Coffee staff today, like. Our patients don't need to hear all of that. Right. We can express it and be human and have a bit of fun with that, but I think that's such an important, I keep thinking I need to rename the podcast. I'm not gonna put it out there, but I keep coming back to, cause every person I talk to talks about.
The importance of being human, the importance of being human and seeing the human behind the nurse, you know? So I think that Watch this space. Yeah, and I think too, like most of the clients who I've engaged with who have had positive SP experiences, it is from the nurses who did cry with them when their baby was born, or who did, hold their hand or, you know, One of the most affirming moments I had for me that I was on the right path was the five minutes I went back to clinical education and had a very sick man.
All the machines and all the people and all the chaos, and I just. Held his hand and he was like, just don't let go. Like, you know, really, like of all the things that we were doing for him, what he focused on was me holding his hand. And so that's where I stayed. And I feel like that was more beneficial for him than all the drugs, all the devices, all the, everything that someone was there with him,
so, and particularly, With the C word life, it's so hard for patients to have support of their own at the moment and still like, so that's our job. Yeah. I think that the message there is like, What I love talking about, which is being basic makes you advanced. Yes. Like doing the basics makes you super advanced because there are not many people actually commit to doing the basics.
Well, you know, and we kind of like have created this culture in the industry where the more you get, the better, more advanced you become. And we seem to forget that our first job is to. Deliver basic nursing care. And I know it's like Yn, Liam, you know, and I used to think that working on the floor, cuz the Dawns, the educators, the NUMs, they'd be like, we're gonna do an education today on, you know, getting back to the basics.
And we'd all roll our eyes , are you for real? I've been a nurse man, I'm above basic. I'm so much better than basic. But the reality was you look at the risk man data, the incident report, the quality and safety data, the patient advocacy work that you are doing. And I'd be curious to know, is a lot of it complex things that you're helping people with or is it like real fundamental basics, what does that look like?
A lot of it is just being seen and heard and not being dismissed, and yeah, a lot of it is that. Inferior care, like, you know, not communication is a huge one. I dunno what's going on with my husband, my mom, I don't, nobody's telling me anything and you know, they don't know to ask certain things, so. Mm-hmm.
A lot of it's communication. And then, yeah, just being treated like a person and that's something I've really learned through the work that I've done is it's not. The things that were or were not done to the way people were treated, that is harmful? Mm Yeah. Tell us more about that. Do you mean like in sense that.
So that their experience, their lived experience in their bodies Yes. Is what's creating like trauma for them and that experience. Yeah. So I've done a fair bit of work with postpartum mothers, so in birth trauma and wanting answers about why the birth. Played out the way it did. And a lot of the sentiment is no one listened to me.
I was dismissed. I was treated like I didn't have a voice. And you know when patients step into the hospital, and I've experienced this myself, you are so vulnerable, even with medical training and a bit of know-how, like you just. The second you become a patient, you are so vulnerable and it's really hard to advocate for yourself.
And we have this real belief that our doctor is right. We must do what the doctor says, our nurses as well. No one ever taught the doctors to ask the patients what they want. Mm-hmm. And particularly in the system where it's so policy and protocol driven. And so risk averse and avoid litigation, tick your boxes, we're forgetting that that's a human in the bed and that they might have ideas that are different to ours and are different to what our policy and safety protocols suggest are the best things for people, people to experience.
But, At the end of the day, it's when no one listened to me, I wasn't allowed to do what I wanted to do, and they did this anyway. Is what hurts people. It's what they can't sleep at night over. It's what the complaint letters are about was that no one listened to me and I had didn't have a say.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I can't talk too much on this at the moment, but I'm reading a book, it's called The Body Keeps Score, and it's about love. Oh, is it? Yeah. My mind is being blown by this every page that I read. And for those listening, it's worth reading as a clinician, an amazing book.
Right. And it's all about trauma and how our body tells the story of the traumas that we've experienced. Sounds a bit. Sad. But it's very insightful, very evidence-based. And you know, he's done a lot of incredible work, the author. And that's what comes up there. I know anytime I've been in the hospital, I've been in a few times for like minor operations.
You're right. As soon as you walk through that door, you are like stripped. It's almost like you get cleansed of everything and it doesn't matter. And you're even like edging your way in. And we do this weird thing where we're like, Do I tell them a nurse, do I not tell them I'm a nurse? And you're like, you know, and then you see somebody you know washing their heads and you're like so I'm a nurse.
Would you mind just washing your hands? And it becomes awkward right. There's so many things that go on for us as patients when we go into the system that can really impact our outcomes. Right. And I think that. Nine times outta 10 as an educator, as a num, the problems that came through my door were issues are based around the things that you would help people with.
That asking for better care. Why was my mom's teeth not cleaned for the last three days? Yeah, Now, like, or no one's told us what's happening or every, MDT person that comes in tells us a different story. And a lot of people that is particularly with the mothers that I've worked with, is having to retell their story to each new shift that comes on.
I don't know, me personally that was brutalizing cause it was reliving trauma every eight hours, you know? Cause they gave it just a brief handover and you'd say, okay, it's time to breastfeed. And it's like, well actually I'm really struggling with that. And said that was hard to have to retell every eight hours.
And it's like, are you even listening to me? Do you even know me at all? Like and having to just, yeah. Go through it over and over again. Every change of shift it's really defeating. You just feel like, you know, what's the point of being here? No one's listening to me. No one cares. And do you find that people, that also loses a lot of trust in the patients, with their, providers? Because I know from me, when I'm in there, I'm like, hell to the nerve. Like, if you've already within seconds of meeting me, you've like stuffed up my name and like human things like we're humans.
But you know, if that continues to happen through the day, and I can ask the same question 50 times, my trust factor is like dropping significantly. And I think that we forget to marry the two together and we're like, we deserve to be treated better. And I agree, we do. But when we're chipping away at the trust, Yeah.
we're literally asking for it, I think. what's your take on that? Yeah, no, we are, and I used to teach students to go and learn one thing about your patient and not what their blood test results are, and not who their doctor is, but what's their cat's name, you know, how many grandkids do they have?
Go and tell me one thing about your patient that's not. To do with the reason they're in hospital and then you can see that patient as a person and remember their name for God sake. Like not just bed 23 or you know your appendicitis. Yes. And I know we're so guilty of that in emergency cause we do have such a high turnover and you're lucky if you've got your patience for four hours but you know, it doesn't take much to have a quick chat.
With a person to get to know them even a little bit, and that, I don't know, for me, that makes that person a person in my head and I can remember better their clinical story as well as. When I'm attaching it to the person who's in the bed in front of me. So yeah, all I'm thinking of patient care, like, the quicker that you can deliver a quick win to a patient, and really connect with them, the easier days, can it be nine times outta 10?
Of course there are humans that are just gonna make your life they exist, but you know, they're far and few between. But I, I believe that the quicker that you deliver something, or even just connect the simplest of things, clean their glasses, like tidy their table, you know, like make sure the room's presentable, make sure their hair is combed whilst the, the cleaner's coming in to do their breakfast, like the floor, not the breakfast.
Those little things really can, right. So what would be, from your patient advocacy perspective, what would be a couple of things that nurses could do today, tomorrow, in their clinical care to really improve the patient experience? I think something that every nurse could easily do on a daily basis is communicate with family.
Mm-hmm. We've got this real negative approach to the family, the visitors, and so many people are like, yes, no visitors in Covid. How much easier is life without visitors and the nagging and the questions and the demanding and stuff, but, Like you said, it's so easy to deliver. Just a quick, how's it going?
I'm the nurse today. Do you have any questions? What are your concerns? Is there anything you need me to help you with or achieve for you? That's it. Like you said, your day's easy from there cuz number one, they trust you. They believe that you care. And if you can deliver an answer for them, oh hey, that's amazing.
They feel connected, they know what's going on, and they feel like their person is in good hands. So just. Embrace the visitor, embrace the loved one. And cause I know when I was taught particularly triage, you know, you wanna hear the story from the horse's mouth, don't let the wife speak for the husband, don't let the mother speak for the child.
You need the story from the patient. And I've always just been like, why your patients in crisis, your patients sick? They can't, you know, and quite often people do get nervous and can't. Think what is necessary or important to say where their mother might, or their wife might, or something like that. So you know, they've brought their person with them.
Allow that person to be part of their experience. Cause yeah, it's so important, right? Because, yeah, I love that. I think that what's coming to mind is like it's preventative, deescalation. That's what it's like. You're just preventing any form of escalation happening. And you know, maybe once that will actually happen.
But if you just, like you said, deliver a quick one, they're stable. Doctor's been round like it takes 30 seconds. There's no reason why we can't. So, yeah, I love that so much. I want you to dive in and explore as, so we kind of wrap up the amazing interview. Like there's so much I could ask you, but I value your time.
You mentioned earlier that you created space, you let this idea percolate. You had 12 months of like, you know, just letting your creative dresses flow. And then your brain is like offering you all these questions about like, how do I do it? Like what does it look like? All of these things. Talk to us about like bringing it the business to life.
So I know there's a lot of people that listen that are in a similar place. Right. And I think a lot of us think that we need to know the how before we do. So I'm curious what your experience was. The best life lesson I ever learned was leap before you know where you're going to land. And I had deliberately surrounded myself with women who were doing different things in their own field, in their own niche, and being entrepreneurial.
And so the people I wanna be when I grow up kind of thing. So I had. Them in my awareness that I could idolize and go, well, if they can do it, I can do it. And it just took that, you know, why can't I do it? If they can do it, they're no different to me. And I knew that I had these people's support regardless of what I chose to do.
So, yeah, I had a mentor who I actually signed up to a network marketing business. Mm. And I educate a clinical brain. I was like, I'll learn all the products and then I'll, and she was like, no, no, just do it. You just do it. And I'm like, what do you mean do just put your face on camera and you just.
Do it and you figure it out as you go. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like I can't do that. But she didn't give a choice. It's like, yep, here's a meeting. We'll set it up. We'll invite the people and we're going live in two hours, kind thing. And so I did it. It was okay. Yeah. And so it's just that, I guess.
Letting yourself know that it'll be okay and getting comfortable with that and that nervous system regulation. Just take a little bite. Mm-hmm. And hold your breath. And it's okay. I can take the next bite. And then, so yeah, I decided to invest in myself and I paid for a business coach. It was like a six week mum's in business course online.
And that teacher taught me, Basics, like how to do a PayPal account or how to, here is someone who you can pay to build a website for you. Or here is basic accounting, or which I still suck at. You know, just the fundamentals cause I've got no clue about business. So I invested in myself and my dream and got someone to teach me how to do those things.
And then it was just about courage and having, cause, you know, speaking out. Technically against healthcare system and sharing insider secrets and teaching people that the healthcare system is not all it's cracked up to be. Mm-hmm. It's a very taboo subject, and that's very scary, and I was very worried about the recourse from that.
But over time, with the exposure and no one's come breathing down my neck, so far I've learned that it's okay. To say what I have to say and that that if that helps someone along the way. So I don't know. I think it was just an easing in and trusting the journey and following it wherever it took me rather than where I took it kind of thing.
Yeah. I love that. I think that I. Entrepreneurship is just like a whole different world, right? You have to be willing to do all of the things, not know the outcome. You have to be willing to fail and put yourself out there. You have to be willing to go back on yourself and also have your own back, and to potentially create things that don't exist, right?
Like I think that's what's so exciting about it, right? Like your potential is uncapped. And I think that through that journey, I've learned that. Liam, two years ago, two and a half years ago when I started this business, was like so worried about what everybody would think and now like yourself.
Now I'm just like, you know what? Like I actively tell people to unfollow me. I'm like, if you don't like what I have to say, just leave. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. There are people that need that. Right, and you're patients obviously need that too. And. I love that growth. Johnny, sorry, I interjected. What? What were you gonna say?
Yeah. I have had a beautiful mentor who says that you'll have in life equal parts support and challenge. Choose the support because they are balanced always and. If you have challenge, that's where you know you've made it. If there are people out there going, you are wrong, you can't say this, you are, whatever, then you're like, that's a win.
Because if someone's got an opinion against what I'm doing, then I'm getting attention and. Taken as a positive. So that's really helped with me and my outspokenness. Mm-hmm. To know that, you know, I'm not actively out there trying to offend people and I very conscious of the words I use and the way I use them.
But if I get a little bit of heckling, I'm like, oh well. That's, you know, a feather in my cap because that means I'm getting a greater reach and I am challenging people's beliefs and perspectives, which is what I wanna do. So, yeah, I think it's so important. I'm thinking about adding professional button pusher to my resume.
I think that's what we do. But even like, give an educator level. If you're an educator, you're a. C n s, you're a numb, you're a professional button pusher. We resist the resistance, but we have to let it in. We have to experience it. I used to think it shouldn't be like this, and I was arguing with reality instead of just being like, Hey, no, like, it's great that the team are rebelling because it means that we've triggered something.
Let's explore this now. We've opened it up and we've triggered that little point. Let's try and make this work. So I think that's so, so important. Incredible. that you're doing that and I love what you said, I can do it. And if there's, I like telling people that if there's evidence in the world of it, it means that you can do it too.
Yes. Yes. I think that's a beautiful sentiment. So if you were to give your past version of you, any advice like, you know, Kate, that was like leaving the public sector, see an e role and you're moving back to working at the bedside and you're starting your business, if you could give them one piece of advice.
what would you tell that version of you that you know, Nick? Give yourself a minute to adjust because changes change. You can't avoid it and it uncomfortable, so just breathe into it and give yourself a minute. And trust the process. Don't be afraid to take the next step because you know, whatever you can imagine as your next step being, you're capable of taking it.
You can't imagine it if you can't do it kinda thing. So yeah, I love that. Yeah. So good. So good. So tell us more about patient advocacy plus how people can get in touch with you, what services you provide. Take the next couple of minutes, tell us all the things because there are gonna be people that are gonna want to use this, and I want everybody listening to tell people about it and share it.
Tell us how people can work with you. Thank you. So people typically contact me through my social media accounts. I'm at patient advocacy plus on Facebook and Instagram. You can also search me up on my website, which is patient advocacy plus.com au. And the services, mostly I provide health system navigation advice is my bread and butter.
So when people are in crisis or anticipating an engagement with the healthcare system, they dunno what to do. They dunno who to trust or where to take the next steps. That's when people call me and say, You know, I'm planning a pregnancy. What's the best way of going about achieving this goal? Or my doctor's telling me this, I feel uncomfortable with that advice.
What are my alternative options? Or, you know, my, my dad's sick in hospital and he is receiving inferior care. How do I ask for better? That kind of thing. So then I'll give. People a plan of next steps to take alternative pathways that their provider may not have offered them and language to use in communicating with their bedside providers so that they get heard and using language at the healthcare provider can understand and take seriously rather than, I'm really worried about dad.
I don't know why, but then I can say, you know, use this language, say these words and you'll get a response. That kinda thing. So the other service I do is an appointment buddy, which I love. I feel like that's where I really shine, is I come along to patients appointments with them. So that I can communicate for them.
For patients who don't feel like they have the confidence or have medical trauma as a past experience from their past experiences I can go in and sit beside them and do the speaking for them or just be. You know, that solid energy beside them so that they can speak with confidence and know they're supported and help translate the jargon.
And of course, as a professional, you would understand, you get an appreciation for whether this is a good doctor or not. And just taking that. Information or awareness to the appointments with my clients to say, okay, we don't really love this doctor. Let's try a different one. Or, that doctor was great.
They were really empathetic, they were patient, they listened. You've got a good one here, you can trust them. So just to help people, number one, understand what their doctors are telling them and making sure that they're not being provided with biased information as well. So that's, yeah, mostly that's my bread and butter.
That's what I do. And then, you know, if people have a healthcare concern or they're not really sure what's going on or what they need, then just call me and we can have a chat and see what I could do to support you. So I'm flexible and what I offer, but mostly empowered communication, teaching you how to communicate, recognize bias and inferior care, and ask for better.
I love that all so much. What an inspiration. Seriously. I think that there's gonna be so many people listening that are inspired by your journey. I know a lot of us don't like talking to each other like this, but I feel compelled to just say that. I think the work that you do is so, so important. I think that the future.
Will look very different for healthcare with people like yourself doing this work. And I think that is my dream. I think that there will be a rising of patient advocates, you know, because like, to be honest, like I hadn't really heard of it, but now I've heard of it. I'm like, holy shit. Yeah. Why do we not of these, right?
Yeah. So if you are somebody that's listening and you agree with myself and Kate and you're like curious about what it takes to become a patient advocate, connect reach out. I'm sure Kate would be willing to talk you through what that looks like. Cuz I think that this like. Coaching in healthcare is the future.
You know, trauma coaching, coaching mindset work for our patients and for our clinicians. I think We're pushing those professional buttons. We're doing all the things. Yes. And thank you, thank you so much for doing this incredible work. Thank you. This has been a pleasure.
I'm sure this will not be the last time that we have you on the podcast. Everybody go and check out Kate's Instagram and all of the links that we've talked about today. Or in the show notes, let us know what you thought of this episode. Let us know if you're inspired to deliver better care. And I think that Kate needs to get some merchandise that says Ask for better.
Yes, that is your slogan, and I just absolutely love it. I think that itself will transform, patient's perspective and experiences and the way that patients think about the care that we deliver. So thank you so much. Until next time, everybody stay safe, safe, ever curious, and we'll be dropping another career chat next month.
We'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, Kate. Thank you.
