Johnann V.'s TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS
Johnann V.'s TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS
33, Registered Nurse, New York
The perspectives and stories shared in this conversation reflect only those of the speakers and in no way represent the viewpoints of their employers or connected organizations.
Johnann is a 33-year-old registered nurse working in upstate New York. During this episode of TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS she shares about her journey to working as a nurse, what it was like navigating the Ebola crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, how she manages work-life balance, and what her guilty pleasure spending habit is.
Please note: Our conversation has been edited and condensed for this newsletter. Enjoy the full conversation with Johnann on the TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS podcast.
Who are you, what do you do for a living, and what are you passionate about right now?
Thank you so much for having me. I was super humbled and flattered that you chose me. My name is Johnann, I’m a 33-year-old female, a registered nurse of 12 years, and I currently work in clinical care management on a pretty busy and large hospital floor for adult medicine. It is a non-profit hospital in upstate New York and I’ve been there for eight of my twelve years. And my current passion, other than the healthcare sphere, is reading, self-care, because that goes hand-in-hand with taking care of others. With that, I like to bring in Zumba, something I’ve been focusing on is health and fitness with a little music and movement. And then staying informed. I think those are my big three.
You and I are on the same three with what we’re passionate about right now! Can you give us your 3-minute career story from when you first realized you wanted to go into nursing to where you are now in your current position.
I truly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to take care of people. I remember being four- or five-years-old saying that I wanted to help children and that I also wanted to help older adults too. I grew up living upstairs from my grandparents and it was such a loving and caring environment in an Italian, family-driven household. Twenty-two years later I became a registered nurse. I graduated in 2012 and have been doing it for 12 years. Right now to sum up my role, I would say that a big part of my day is looking up my patients for their history and their diagnoses, saying hello to new people on the floor, meeting with my team, which consists of amazing doctors, residents, bed-side nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, its’ a large multi-disciplinary floor, and figuring out who might be discharged today, what is holding someone back from being discharged and breaking down anything that we would need to escalate to a higher level of care. So, we cover a lot in the first few hours of my day.
Oh wow. Is that the majority of your day then? Continuing to triage and have those conversations about patients, or do you jump into other things too?
That’s perfectly summarized. The big word that we use is progression.
There’s a chunk of time between college and where you are currently with your current hospital, can you share a little about that time and what brought you through that?
Sure, right after college I had a really unique and rare opportunity for a new nurse to work with people of all ages. I had a day job where I worked in a school, I was the primary sole school nurse for an elementary grade level building of about 400 children, many of whom are refugees, in a very diverse city. Then in the evenings, I would go to a nursing facility and work with the geriatric population. So, I had the fortunate opportunity to see polar opposites of nursing. I did that for two years after college and decided I wanted to finally fulfill my dream of living in a big city. On a whim, I applied to graduate school to study public health and teaching and got into a dream school. I moved to New York City and went to Africa all within the same summer, to continue clinical care and tie up what I’d learned in nursing school with the public health teaching aspect I was going to go to graduate school for. I loved it there and would do it again in a heartbeat, but my time was cut short due to the Ebola crisis. After graduating with my Master’s, I moved back home and started the job I’m currently in right now. And actually today is my 8-year anniversary of having been hired.
Oh my gosh, Johnann, congratulations. That’s fabulous, I did not know that.
I didn’t either. Actually, the timing was pointed out to me by my boss today when he approached me in the hallway and congratulated me on eight years of service, and I was like, “this is a really full circle moment for me.”
Does it feel like it’s been eight years? Eight years is a long time to be at one place. Does it feel like that?
It feels like it has flown by. Other times during rocky moments like the pandemic, it felt like it was never-ending. I’ve learned so much and I have an open mind, I’m not adverse to learning more and I know there is more to learn and more to do. But it’s definitely the longest role I’ve had so far.
You’ve touched on the Ebola crisis and the [COVID-19] pandemic and I want to transition a little bit. It’s 2024, we are about four years since the start of the pandemic, when it arrived in the United States and our lives were upended. Can you talk about the impact that that has had on your experience as a nurse in your day-to-day, but also in the way you approach your career and long-term job planning?
I love that question. I’m definitely a different person at the age of thirty-three than I was at twenty-three when we first started hearing about Ebola, and then again six years later with coronavirus. I think what I’ve tried to take with me the most is that nobody is immune to affliction and hardship and that we need to talk about that more. We need to talk about mental health more. We need to ask colleagues, friends and family if they need more help, how they’re doing and not judge or stigmatize. I think that’s a universal life lesson. It unfortunately took this catastrophic turn of events in the world to make me grow up pretty quickly.
I’m sure, that’s a lot to manage as an individual thinking about how it impacts you and your daily life, and how it impacts your family. But also, you are literally seeing it right in front of you every single day. At that point in time, how did you handle that?
I had to learn quickly how to draw the line between selfishness and selflessness, and say “you gotta be a little more open-minded to flexibility.” Because at one point, I’d be on my usual floor and then on another day I would be asked to swab people coming into the main parking garage or be admitted, I’d have to go down to the morgue or go to New York City to help in the epicenter there. So, I had to develop an open mind quite fast and realize that so many people had it worse — people are losing jobs, losing lives, losing loved ones — and I’ve taken that with me as the biggest lesson. Realizing that someone out there always had it a little harder than you.
When you were going through that, did you ever once say “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be a nurse anymore,”?
A thought that came to me wasn’t so much that, but it was instead, “Am I prepared for this?” Nothing could have prepared us. I always thought that pandemics happened centuries ago, the Plague, the Black Death, even so far as to say more recent matters such as Polio for instance. I was shocked that our generation was facing something like this. I don’t think the greatest nursing or medical school in the world could have prepared us for this kind of devastations physically, in a labor sense, or emotionally. So, that ties right back to the readiness and willingness to always keep learning and staying informed.
Thinking about that, how do you pursue work-life balance. It’s a term we hear often as women navigating our career, and for you how do you pursue that? Is that even possible with that you do?
So going back to some of my passions that ties into my self-care. I recently got into reading, working out a little more, not letting the day-to-day hardships of working in healthcare inundate your whole life. It really is possible and I’m really fortunate to have a schedule that allows us to buy into maintaining our health. Our health insurance benefit gives us a break if we can show that we are staying consistent with working out or our diet, so that is really rewarding. I don’t find it all-consuming. I have a good chunk of every evening that I can dedicate an hour to fitness, listening to music, getting outside when it’s not dreary, or reading.
Has your approach to that changed? Does it look different from when you first started?
Yes, I definitely know that I appreciate it more. That when I was a kid, I was really free spirited, I never thought I’d have to tell myself “don’t allow it to become all-consuming, don’t form this black hole.” So, I appreciate it more now that I have grown up pretty fast in the last decade and I try to embrace even the smallest moments worth celebrating. Every month my floor celebrates a birthday or a big accomplishment, so I try to stay close to those moments.
That speaks to a good culture of where you are. We’re going to add some levity to the conversation now. If money were no object, what would you choose to do career-wise? Would you stay with nursing or try something different?
I think I would stay with healthcare, but I would bring it back to the core of public service. Maybe some community disparities that I’d like to address that I see throughout inner-city streets; homelessness; maybe visit sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and target the disparities that are going in other nations. I would take it back to the roots and the core of the Florence Nightingales of the time.
Oh, yeah! You lead with your heart and nursing is the perfect profession for you, it’s right on target with what I know about you. Do you have a guilty pleasure spending habit? Something that others may see as frivolous, but you enjoy spending money on?
A few things, actually. I love taking myself out, maybe once a month, on a solo girl date or a little day trip. With that, it sometimes ties into being a foodie. I think money spent on a delicious meal is money well-spent. There’s never a moment when I don’t have my nails painted a fun bright color because I wear the traditional blue scrubs every day, so that gets me really jazzed up and makes me feel a little happier. Embracing the little pleasure in life is key. And many more I probably shouldn’t indulge in.
You travel quite a bit though, don’t you?
I’m a big museum goer, I love Broadway. Those became my passions when I spent that small amount of time in New York City. I try to get down there once a month to see a new exhibit or show. I try to escape the cold, grey winters of upstate New York and go someplace more tropical with sunshine and green space. I love tennis and try to follow the tennis tour as much as possible, especially the women’s tour. Growing up as a ‘90’s girl, there was nobody I admired more than the Williams sisters.
What would 11-year-old you think about the life that you’ve created for yourself?
I think 11-year-old Johnann, being an only child, was very quiet, introverted, and shy, but at the same time wanted to be so well-liked and popular and make everyone laugh. I had a hard time marrying those two characteristics of myself. I think she’d be proud that I found my voice, that I learned to be just a little firm when I need to be, not afraid to share my opinions on how we can make our workplace and world a better place, while not sounding authoritarian but sounding authoritative, I would say. I think she would be most proud of that and, how I somehow manage to bring that into both my personal and professional life.
I love that!
RAPID FIRE
What is a piece of advice you received that has impacted the way you look at building and maintaining your career?
Growing up my grandfather, who was a very hard-working man, always used to say that you own two things that both begin with a B — a brain and a back — and if you don’t use one, you’re going to have to use the other. I had no idea what he meant at the time, and now I think what he meant was, work smarter not harder because sometimes it might just be you out there. My whole family used to teach me, nobody is smarter or better than you so don’t let anyone make you feel that way, but you’re no smarter or better than anyone else either. So, meet people where they are when you meet them, don’t judge.
What do you hope for yourself in 5 years?
In five years, I’ll be closer to 40 than 30, and so I hope for happiness. I would love to combat more disparities, be a little more involved in my community, be involved with the classroom, use a little more of my degree. Look to starting a family and really finding my forever home. That’s what I hope for pretty much everyone my age in five years.
You’re a reader, which we love around here. What are you currently reading or read recently that has stuck with you?
I think you were the one who recommended Lessons in Chemistry to me, which I just finished. Loved it! There was a quote toward the end that stood out to me and I jotted it down, “Whenever you start doubting yourself and feeling afraid. Remember, courage is the route of change and change is what we are chemically designed to do. So, no more holding yourself back ladies and subscribing to others’ opinions of what you can and cannot achieve, for then your talents will lie dormant and you will be pigeon-hold into useless categories such as gender and status.” And every winter I also read snippets from Little Women.
Favorite thing to get you jazzed up before a big day?
Because we wear the same uniform every day, I just love to put on a fun color pair of socks or something underneath my scrub top just to show who I am personality wise, that I’m not just the girl in the blues marching down the hallway.
What is your preferred way to use vacation time or PTO?
I love to travel and I’m not afraid to go by myself and just sit down in a cafe and read or go to an art museum. Even just taking a walk outside for an hour. It doesn’t have to be a five-star beach resort or in the heart of Manhattan, it could be in my neighborhood. Just forcing and encouraging myself to get outside the four walls that surround me.
What are you looking forward to?
I’m really looking forward to hitting that ten-year mark since I’m already at year eight with my current establishment and seeing what comes from that. Maybe there will be a new educational opportunity I could be part of or a project that needs a manager, clinically-speaking, with students since we’re a teaching hospital. I could really see myself shifting into that if the opportunity arises.
What is your Too Many Exclamation Points right now?
I love this, I can’t think of a woman who hasn’t felt that need to insert a certain amount of exclamation points or emojis in an email to assert that they are being friendly rather than firm. Right now, some of the passions and concerns that everyone is feeling in the healthcare field right now is where is our morale? Did we lose it from the pandemic, can we get it back? I think we’re in a good place, but I don’t think we’re out of the woods just yet. So, for me, morale means checking in with myself and checking in with others. I don’t think there will ever be a time where too much of that can be done.
Thank you so much to Johnann for joining us this week and sharing the story of her career journey. Our podcast together goes into even more detail, so I encourage you to take a listen.
Be sure to share in the comments something that Johnann said that resonated with you or sharing this episode with a friend to encourage them on their career journey.
As always, I’m grateful you’re here and wish you a week ahead with only the best exclamation points! — Skylar