Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is the all one nurse podcast where we are bridging the gap between the stethoscope and the soul and getting back to the human side of healthcare.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Powered by Riverside.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Did you know that suicide is the leading cause of death in the US? According to the CDC. Welcome back to another impactful episode of all one Nurse, where I'm your host, Nurse Chanel, and I thank you. Whether you are tuning in for the first time, or rather you've been rocking with me since the trailer episode, thank you so much for being here. And today I have a wonderful guest speaker, Latoria Boylan. Welcome.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: So I'm doing good. How are you?
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Doing well, thank you.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Yes. So today we are going to dive into. Is it okay if I call you misses Tory?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Today we're going to dive into misses. Tory's professional journey, personal insights that includes her challenges and motivation, patient perspective, where we're going to act. I'm going to be asking her questions about her experience regarding psychiatric patients or patients with mental health conditions. And then as well as educational insights, what kind of training and education is required to become a psychiatric nurse? Because Doctor Tory is an advanced nurse practitioner who is a mental health advocate, public speaker and founder of Tori Talks LLC where she promotes mental health awareness and she's done events like community day of service holiday, blessings for the homeless, a winter necessities drive and back to school supply giveaway. So, doctor Tory, I just commend you for your service. Yes, for my listener, as always, I ask you to open up your heart to receive the impactful information that you're going to be receiving today from Misses Tory as we get into her again professional journey, which includes her background story, her personal insight, her educational insights and patient perspective. So getting right to it, misses Tory, tell us a little bit about you. What's your background story?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Thank you for the intro. I appreciate that. So, I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner. My educational journey started back in 2006. I received my bachelor's degree in psychology prior to going back to school. Well, let me say I graduated high school in 94. I was out of school ten years trying to figure it out. I had a son in high school, my 12th grade year about three months prior to graduating. So I could not take the typical route, if you will, going straight into college because I had a child to take care of. I was out of school for about ten years. Started working a job with Memphis police department as a police dispatcher and that was kind of my first intro as it relates to the prevalence of mental illness in the city of Memphis. I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician. No, wanted to be a doctor in some regard, but I didn't know that God would have other plans in terms of how that would end. And so at the time, the city of Memphis was offering an opportunity to go back to school or go to school, and they were off. Pretty nice discount and all of that. So I was like, okay, they're paying for it. Let me just go ahead and try this. So, decided to go to college, and four years later obtained my bachelor's degree in psychology, wanted to continue my education. I went back to school right after receiving my bachelor's and received my master's degree in mental health counseling. And while I was working at a hospital here locally, I was introduced to what's a psychiatric nurse? And so my initial track was, I was going to be a counselor, I was going to help people do all the things, and fell in love with psychiatric nursing. I was like, wow, you can still work in mental health. I can help people in a different way. And it just kind of jailed a little bit better with my personality. So with that, obtained my bachelor's degree in nursing and worked for a few years as a nurse, and then ultimately went back to school and obtained my doctoral degree still in psychiatry. So I have been graduated as a psychiatric nurse in 2017, and went back to school and graduated with my doctoral degree in 2022 for psychiatric nurse practitioner. So this kind of led me to where I am now.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Got you now. Where did you get your bachelor's of nursing degree? What school?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: So it's Lorenburg School of Nursing, which is the University of Memphis. And I will say, before I obtained my nursing degree, I worked for Lakeside Hospital, continued there, started out an intake, actually continued there, post receiving nursing degree, and work with the, what's called the east unit, which is they house the more acute patients. So if someone is coming in, they're suicidal, they're homicidal, they're lack of a better word, they're psychotic. So if they're hearing voice saying things, that would be considered an acute situation. So mental health at its finest, lakeside for about nine, a little bit over nine years. And then ultimately, once I obtained my DMP, which is a doctorate of nurse practitioner, I moved on to my current job, which is at Serenity Recovery center, which is a residential alcohol and drug facility. So patients that we serve there usually have, most of the time when you're dealing with a psychiatric patient. In my current position, they have co occurrence illnesses, which means they have a psychiatric illness as well as substance abuse issue. So we are recovering, but we also treat the mental illness portion as well.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. That's like a duo. Like, you have to. You have to address both. And so when you're dealing with those type of patients, do it seem like. Like, do you have both cases where the mental illness may have led to. Led to drug abuse or drug abuse can, in turn, cause mental conditions, or.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: So it could be either, because you can. So a lot of times, you have individuals who have had past trauma.
Trauma can lead to mental illness exacerbating or leads to the start of a mental illness. It can essentially be a trigger for mental illness, especially if one has not received treatment. So if you, for example, if you've suffered from abuse as a child and you mask that, you don't receive treatment even later on in adulthood, if you don't receive treatment, it can manifest by way of promiscuity, substance abuse, anger, other behaviors, risky behaviors. So it's very important that if you have suffered from mental illness, that you get the proper treatment. Also, there's a thing called substance induced mental illness, which means a particular drug can cause a mental illness. Have you ever heard people say, well, they spike my drink, and this happened, and it's a result of that substance? And I've had, for example, college students that have went off to college and tried marijuana for the first time. Sometimes it could be late, sometimes not so much, but it could be the trigger of a mental illness. Sometimes. Schizophrenia, for example, manifests around the age of 21, which is around the time that kids go to college, so they get to push through stress. And ultimately, it can be a trigger for that mental illness to manifest. So it's really a fine line in terms of what causes it, because sometimes it can be genetic. For example, bipolar disorder can be genetic most oftentimes, and not as genetic. Schizophrenia can be genetic. Depression can also be genetic, or it could be the result of a trauma. It could be the result of a stress, just kind of depending on the individual. So mental illness, there's no rhyme or reason, necessarily, because many things can contribute in or trigger it. Wow.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: You explained it. Thank you. Thank you for sharing it in a way that I can understand it and my listeners could understand that. Thank you. Tell me, typo, what are some of your biggest challenges that you face as a psychiatric nurse?
[00:09:05] Speaker B: So I would say, I guess one of the biggest things for me as a psychiatric nurse would be access to equal care and my baby. My absolute reason for getting up to do what I do is to serve mostly the serve. That's just been where my heart is, has been. And so just seeing in my line of work, I've served middle class, upper class, and those who are ultimately left over. So not having equal access to care is probably the biggest challenge, because I know that there's so many things available, and you can tell people what's available, but if I don't have transportation to get there, if I don't need to get what I need, if I can't afford my medication, you know what I mean? So those resources that are available aren't necessarily available for everyone, and just trying to be that voice. I believe that everybody has a voice, but oftentimes our voices aren't listening to, depending on the space that we're in. So making sure that everyone, no matter what you look like, no matter what your socio economic background is, making sure that everyone has equal access is probably the biggest challenge.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Would you also say that's one of your driving motivations for a lot of the community events that you have done?
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Number two reason I do what I do is to make available those resources. And even in my current line of work, again, I'm in a residential facility, and having those hard connections and knowing what's available allows me to do what I do a little bit more effectively, because I know not everything, not all the resources, because there are a lot of things that I haven't tapped into. Would love to planning to do that. But what I do know, I try to make those things available because a lot of people are going back into same environments and they need that information to help them thrive post discharge. So it's a blessing to be able to form those relationships and build community in community, so that everyone can have equal access.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: That's good.
Thank you for sharing that with you. Talking about access, do you feel like there's enough psychiatric mental health nurses out there, or professionals? Because I've also seen. Well, let me reword that. Let me reword that.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: You word in it beautifully.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, but with access. Because I have data here. With access.
Would you agree with this, that according to an informational report prepared by the American Psychiatric Nursing association in 2019, they stated that the field of mental health will be 250,000 professionals short of the demand of the demand projected for the year 2025 for mental health services, 3000%.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Availability of psychiatric nurses. And this is the thing, like, even up and coming nurses. I have a sister, two sisters, actually, who are currently in nursing school. And of course, mental health, they know that they with me, but just seeing people seemingly, and I'm only speaking from experiences. I'm not everybody in the box, specifically experience. I've seen and talked to people who are afraid of spike. And we think about it in every facet of nursing, and that's not a far stretch. In every facet of nursing, most of our jobs we work with someone who either suffers from mental illness and suffering does not mean that they're wearing emotions under sleeve. It just means they have a mental illness. A lot of people function just fine. They take their medication, things are supposed to do. But most of the time we either work with someone or know someone who suffers from mental illness in nursing, whether that's in OB, whether that's in peds, whether that's in the ER, whether that's in, you know, whatever area med surg want to deal with psychiatric patients. And again, that means that they're going to come in, in an acute situation, but we are going to deal with it at some point in our careers. And so it's kind of baffling when people don't want to deal with it when you deal with it in some way or another, most days.
And I think, I believe, and I'm just speaking from just my own thoughts, I believe that people are afraid of mental illness because most of the things we see and the media, it's someone who is having an acute situation. We show it collectively where we have teachers and doctors and nurses who have depression and anxiety and they're functioning just fine.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: But we are feel like it's going to be situations where if you talk about mental illness, they have to be unstable. Most of their. I can't tell you how many are treated and talked to who do well. They just do the things they're supposed to do. And I like to cancer, diabetes, and because we're talking about something that is, that's going to take medication a lot of times. Sometimes it takes therapy, sometimes it's. Most times, most often times it takes support. So there are things that are required, whether this diabetes, whether it's cancer, whether it's mental illness. Of course the medications are going to be different, but you have to have some type of medication. Of course the therapies are going to be different in some regard, but you have to have therapy. Sometimes the support be different, but ultimately you have some support. So we put a shade essentially on mental health. We don't want to deal with it when it's an illness. Cancer, diabetes is an illness. So why do we go away and have them have people to isolate because they're afraid to talk about their mental illness because they're not going to be accepted in most spaces. So.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: So I agree with the statement that we're going to be sure because people, and respectfully so people have their own opinion. They're titled to that, why they want don't, why they choose not to do a thing. But ultimately, the fear and mental illness can be minimized if we just have conversation about it. What stops you from wanting to get in this career field? Like, what are your personal experiences? We have to be respectful of that. But we, I think we should have more conversation about what shies people away from working with those who have mental illness. Because it doesn't have to be a negative conversation. It doesn't have to be a situation where, and you can choose in mental illness. Another beauty of it is you can choose the area you want to work in. Meaning like my choice was to work with acute patients. You don't have to do that. You can work residential, you can work outpatient. You can work inpatient. So there are a lot of different facets in psych based upon the individual, what you're with. And I think that it is, it is interesting to know that the numbers that you just discussed is interesting to know that it's, that the percentage, that percentages are that high because of various situations. But I think, again, conversation can definitely help. If we just talked about the whys, I think we would be in a different place.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Oh, that's good. And, you know, I just thank God for this platform because it allows individuals like yourself to get on here and actually start a discussion and a thought process of, okay, what can we do? What can we do? Like, you bring light to disparity.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Of mental health and the disparities regarding it. And this is your background, like, over 20 years of experience in nursing, and most of, and all of it has been psych. And so when I say, you even got me over here thinking like, what should I be doing? You know, what can I do? And even in my research, I even found that, bye, mental health America, they did, like, key findings for the 2024 year, and they even found that there are 340 individuals for one mental health professional, so 340 individuals to mental health. People needing mental health treatment to one mental health professional. There's no way to meet that demand.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Nami. It is the national alliance for Mental Illness, and they do a lot in the communities with promoting mental health advocacy. And I want to share some of their statistics with you. It actually says one in five adults experience mental illness each year. One in five. One in 20 adults experience a serious mental illness each year. One in six youth experience a mental illness each year. 50% all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14 and 75% by age 24. And it actually says suicide is the second leading cause of death. I know you mentioned one on the statistics at the time they were pulled. Suicide was second leading cause of death. And I think a lot of this is because we don't talk about it. One of the that I feel, and this is just a personal opinion, one of the positives I feel from COVID is that more people are seeking care because they fast. And what a level seventy's found was that we could do telehealth. So I can talk to you on screen, I can be in my own space, I can be comfortable, and I can talk about what I'm, what I've been dealing with. So it's no longer a situation where I have to deal or I have to suffer in silence. Essentially, I can talk about this thing. I can be hearing and authentic with it, and I can receive the help that I need, that I've been needing for a while. And then you pack Covid. On top of what I've already been dealing with, now I've got to adjust to Covid. I've got to adjust to the aftermath of COVID And what position does that put me in. So I think that from a clinical perspective, I think that Covid, of course, it caused a lot of, a lot of things negatively. We've lost a lot of people. But again, I believe in pulling a positive out of every situation.
One of the positives is that more people seeking help. Because if you think about it, mental illness can put you at a point of soothing if it's untreated. The beauty in that is people are freaking care, you know, so this is going to impact the suicide rates, because if I'm seeking care, I'm talking through this now. Again, we're not going to save everyone, you know, unfortunately, but we need to try to save as many people as we can, and we do that through proper and appropriate care. So that's one of the things I was looking at those statistics and I'm like, mandez, you know, we are trying to put a dent in this, but we need more psychiatric nurses. We need people to. And those that are in it already to advocate. You know, don't just go and, you know, you work your eight to 12 hours and you go home. It takes more work when you're dealing with people's lives. And you should definitely feel like go to work every day, given 1000% to make sure that you end your day feeling like I've given my best, I've given a little bit more every single day.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: So I made me want to rise to the occasion. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. But I can say I do have a step sister named Camille and she just recently got her nurse practitioner certification and she specialized in psych as well. So hey, she's up there with you. She's up there with you. And I just take my hat off to you all. She serves in the California. When I say, I know I'm not in that specialty, but I thank God for this platform because I feel like I'm a vessel and sometimes I feel like where we can't be everywhere, we can still, like you said, have, you know, utilize the resources like you are a resource on this platform to everyone listening. And so I just thank you for even being here to share this knowledge and information with us. I got with that.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: My goal is not because I think that we all have our specialties and I do believe you should operate and we're the space that makes you happy because if you go to work, what you do, then you're going to give your best anyway.
But for those who are interested and who are kind of on the fence about which way they want to go, I thank you for giving a voice to us to be able to say, to kind of help what you say, how that can impact someone. So again, I believe in working in your field of expertise, field of comfort in again, in which is going to bring you joy because who wants to go to work and they're not happy with what they do? I don't. Right.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: I'm telling you, I, I definitely, I definitely don't. And that's why I just love it. I think you've already touched on some of the questions that I had a coming up. What are some effective strategies for managing patients with severe mental health conditions, especially for non psychiatric nurses? Because like you said, we're going to encounter, just like with hospice death and dying. You don't have to be a hospice nurse to experience death and dying. Right. And so with mental health or patients with mental health conditions, what advice do you have for those new nurses or those nurses that been at the bedside in the hospital setting and they may view that patient with mental conditions negatively.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: So I like to say mental illness versus a mental condition because you think about it realistically, because I'm looking at an illness, ultimately, that can impact my thinking, it can impact my behavior. It can impact a lot of things. It can even impact medical conditions in terms of, I'm saying the two separately, because when you think about a medical condition, you're thinking about asthma, diabetes, cancer, medical conditions versus a mental illness. You're thinking about the psychiatric components. So they're two separate things. So if someone is non psych, I would recommend, in my opinion, to first do a thorough assessment, because you gotta. You gotta know what you're dealing with. You gotta know the depth of what you're dealing with. And then if you're non psych, you need to consult, consult, do not retreat. And in our world, we say, do not practice outside of your scope. It's okay to say, I don't know what I'm doing, or talk to somebody about this, or this is what I'm thinking. Am I on the right track? It doesn't necessarily mean because you're non psych that you don't know about a thing. So it's important, though, if you're non psych, to consult, to let someone know what you're thinking, to see if you're on the right track. But you have to be really careful about moving forward without consultation because you don't want to harm that particular patient. So it's critical that you consult. So that would be my recommendation for someone who's non stop.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. Just think it takes a lot of patience. I think a lot of times we have lost that component, the patients part of it, and you have, whether you're dealing with mental illness or just individuals in general. And my mission with this whole platform is to bridge the gap between the stethoscope and the soul and get back to the human side of healthcare. And that includes, again, mental health, physical health, being holistic. And it's like we have to think about spiritual health. We have to address these things. And sometimes it's just, like you said, doing a thorough assessment and try to tell new nurses, or just nurses in general, have a conversation. Just have a conversation. When you cross that threshold, like I've said in one episode before on here, once you cross that door frame, you're in there with that patient. Make that patient believe and be sincere about your presence in that patient's room, whether it's three minutes, whether it's 30 minutes, because it's not always what you assess with the stethoscope. It may be what they disclose to you once you build that trust with them by just being present, you know.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Just being present that because I will say, and this is to the viewers and new nurses, never be a two, three, four or five minute nurse. Give your patients the attention that they need and that they deserve. I'm saying that because it's so funny that you mentioned that because I've worked with a lot of providers and along the way I've kind of built my own perception of how I want to do things off of the fact that I don't want to go in with the patient because it's, in my opinion, it's almost impossible to get the information that you need in just a couple minutes.
It's close to impossible to do that. So why would you go in with the patient a couple minutes and feel like you are okay to go and prescribe after that and spend enough time? So what are you prescribing? Why are you prescribing it? Has anything changed? Have you really took the time to find out what that patient needs or are you let me get in and out and move to the next. I got 15 patients. I've got to just give them a couple minutes. No, you need to lighten your load or you need to pull somebody in to help you because in my opinion, you can't do a thorough job in a couple minutes.
The fact that you mentioned about basically just being personable, I feel like this is actually how I practice every day. I go into my job with the mindset of a team. I don't go in saying I'm Doctor Boyle and I'm here. Everybody else is here, here. Because you need a team to function in any. None of us do this work by ourselves. You have to have someone to help you. Show me one. They can do it by themselves because I would love to see how this. We need other people to do our jobs effectively. I'm the type of person, I'm probably not the average provider because I love all my people. I'm a hugger, I'm a good morning, how are you doing? And I'm going to listen to you. I'm not just going to say you're doing because it's the norm to do that. How you doing? And I'm going on, you know, I don't have time to stop. I hear your answer because I may not be doing well. We can't assume that people are doing well. Whether that's your co workers or your patients that you're serving. You should take the time to embrace people. You never know what a smile. It's not always medication. You never know what a smile would do. They can uplift somebody. You never know how simple I can uplift somebody. You never know how listening can uplift somebody. We're so quick to pack medications on everything. Forget that we're dealing with people. Well, you're serving the patient, but that's still a person. It could be your family member. So do you want somebody to give your family member a couple minutes? Do you want somebody to not listen to your family member? So you have to change your mindset. You have to leave everything at the door when you go in to serve and be ready to serve. Be ready to be personable. My sister shared a story with me, and I'll give you a synopsis of it. And basically, there was a patient who was defiant, and he only needed somebody to sit and listen to him. Wasn't a ruckus because nobody would listen to him. And to just listen to someone. We get so busy, and yes, yes, we're busy as nurses. A lot of times we dealt the time, but you have to not get so caught up in the norm of, let me just pass a medication. Let me just do this paperwork real quick. If you're serving a person. So that's why I do the community work that I do, because I love to touch on people. I love to talk to people. I love to hear people's stories. And in my professional world, it's so important. And again, it's very critical to find out if something has changed with that patient before you, before you even write a note, you need to know what has changed. That's good reading.
So, yes, I think it's very important to, that personable aspect can go a long way, not only with the patient, but also with their families. If you're in patient serving families as well, residential. We serve families because a lot of times families bring their family members into us. So you have to just be a people person. If you're in nursing, in my opinion, in any facet of nursing, you've got to be a people person. If not, you don't want to check what you're doing, right?
[00:30:24] Speaker A: And I know, and I know post Covid, you know, people were already taking travel assignments and all that, but then you know how just the pay just went up. And a lot of nurses, like every now and then I'll ask someone and I'm like, what do you want to do when you become a nurse? Oh, I want to be a travel nurse. And I'm like, no, backtrack. What kind of nurse do you want to be that, you know, traveling is something that you get to do. But what kind of nurse, what's going to be your foundation? Whether it's med surg, whether it's ICU, er, pediatrics, like, what's going to be your foundation? And it's like they haven't even thought about it. Oh, I just want to be a nurse so I can be a travel nurse, or they want to be a crna, and I'm like, but what's your why behind wanting to be a crna?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Depth of wanted figure.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Right, right. Like, you are dealing with patients controlling their vital signs. Like, that's important. You have to have to me, I want you to be about my business. If I'm about to have surgery, I don't want it to be just a.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Job for you because, again, you're serving people and tell people, like, find out, like you said, your wife, find out your interests, that you're going to be most affected. For example, when I got into this, I knew that I wasn't an ICU nurse with that because, you know why there are people who. That is their thing. I knew I didn't want to be an OB, because, you know what? There are people for that.
It's of interest. But you have to know, again, feel like you should go to work doing what you love. And for me, like, was it once I got further along in my, you know, academic journey and matriculated through the program, I'm just like, I don't have to think about it. You know, people were at the cusp of graduating. They were still thinking about it. And if you're still thinking about, at least you're thinking, you know what I mean? But for me, I just knew it was like, I started out in the ER. I love the ER. That's my second baby. Wow. The variation, there's always something different in psych and in ER. So though I could in either capacity, but again, I know my areas of interest, so I don't feel like a psych nurse. Need to be an ob if that's not what you're interested in, just for money, like, it needs to be what is, because ultimately, you have a person's life in your hands. If you give the wrong medication, if you don't respond to the right vital sign, if it's increased, you need to know if a blood pressure is extremely high, that there be negative outcomes for that. So what do you do? How do you respond? So I think that you need to be well versed and continue education in whatever area you're in. But you need to know what you're doing when you're taking care of someone. Yes. Consult, because we don't know everything. So you consult it for sure things. But again, please make it something that you're happy to with.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Yes. See, for me, I'm passionate about cardiovascular, and that was my background. Cvicu cardiovascular intensive care unit. And I love working with post op patients who underwent heart surgery. Like, I just look at them be like, you're a miracle. You're a walking miracle. And so. And I love to see those patients recover. And so that was just my specialty, ma'am.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: So you're talking to one. Yeah.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: Yes. When I say I love it, I loved it. And in that, I realized that I loved educating or teaching new nurses. And before COVID I ended up getting my masters in nursing education. And then the position that I'm in now as a staff development specialist became available, and that's why I'm solely in education now. I think God has a way of working things, orchestrating things, I must say.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yes, he does.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: He does. Now, with psychiatric nursing, what kind of training and education is required? Like, do y'all require certification as well with psych?
[00:34:21] Speaker B: So. So you don't have to have. Well, when you get to the level of DNP, it's more specific. But when you are, let's say, baccalaureate, you, bachelor's in nursing, you just basically go through the program. And as you matriculate, of course, we have rotations in different areas, like ob, peds, pulmonary. You just kind of get. Find out what your niche is. So for a psychiatric nurse, know there aren't any additional certifications. Who has the bachelor's level? Then you do have a little certification. Okay.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Okay. Awesome. Now, what advice would you give someone who is considering a career in psychiatric.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Nursing first, to just kind of assess who you are, because you're dealing with people, and I can't stress that enough because I'm, the core of me is service based. So search who you are, search your inner self to see if there is anything that could trigger you. Search yourself to see how you would deal with people who are unstable, who would do who if. To see if you know how to deal with people who have had past trauma and how that manifests. To see if you are able to deal with people who have been through so much and having difficulty functioning in that and whether or not that could be an issue for you to treat. I would say make sure it's a passion of yours for psych because you could, of course, you have the ability to determine which populations you want to serve, but also with the mindset that I could end up serving anyone and be that. Because psych is, as with any area of nursing, but specifically for psych, it takes a certain kind of individual to do it and do it effectively. Work with people who just come to work just to get a check. But it's so much bigger than that. There's a lot of work involved in it, but it's fun work because you're taking care of a patient who you have a part in, taking someone potentially from unstability to stability and see that works. And in some cases, being able to follow them thereafter is to make sure that they're okay. Being able to provide resources for them to make sure they're okay. There's a little bit of counseling component in there. You don't have to be. Have a background in counseling to talk to somebody, but just understanding that you may have to wear a couple hats in sight. You don't just go in every day. I'm just going to go in and do my paperwork and, you know, push this pin. You have to step outside of it sometimes and be okay with doing that.
You have to. Sometimes a person may need a hug. Are you okay with that? You know, you may have to talk to somebody just came off the streets. Are you okay with that? You may have to talk to somebody who's addicted to drugs. Are you okay with that? You may have to talk to someone that just literally just walked out of a domestic situation. They're beating and bloody. Are you okay with that? So you have to really do some soul searching to see if I can do this. If I want to do this, if I want to do this great work, if I want to make an end that can essentially change someone's life. So there's a lot of inner work that you have to do and acknowledging if there's some work, you know, there are certain populations that you may be biased to because you can't or you need to be aware of it so that you don't put yourself in those situations. Like, if you don't want to work with. And that's just being very transparent. If you have an issue with working with LGBTQ, you need to be aware of that because you may encounter. And if you're not able to embrace everyone as a patient that I have to take care of now that I have to do this on an individual, case by case basis, if you have an issue with the choice of a person, this may not be for you. You know what I mean virtue. You have an issue with certain culture. You know, you need to know how to respond, because what, you know, what's the norm in african american culture may not be the norm in another culture. So you have educated culturally to understand that a denial of medication may not be rude. It may just be that this is not what we do in our culture. We may want natural remedies. So do you know those? There's a lot of work that has to be done before you can step into it. It doesn't mean that it's going to be challenged every day and that you can't do the work, but you just have to be aware of various situations and just accept people for who they are, meet them where they are, because you have a job to do. So take your little judgmental hat off and work and do the best that you can do with each individual.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Thank you for that feedback and that advice. That was some good advice. So dealing with being in the mental health profession, how do you, because it seemed like it's very tedious, like not saying, not making it hard, but like you have to, it sounds like you have to be intentional. You have to have those psychosocial skills, effective communication skills, know your medicines. Because when we think about it, it's easy for me to know a lot of the norm. Like I don't want to say normal medicines, but the medications used to treat blood pressure, diabetes, like, I may see that more commonly, especially in the mid south area, right? Diabetes, hypertension, things like that, and heart failure. But when it comes to medications used for mental health, you have to be, well, it seems like you have to be well versed about those as well. Like you said, you just can't go in and prescribe something, but you have to get up, basically get up under the table. As one of my friends, which I call her, my counselor, like, she will say, we got it. Let's get up under the table. You just can't start prescribing stuff without really getting a full assessment or trying to understand what has happened in between. Like you said, treatment, right? So with that, how do you, as a mental health professional, how do you in provider, how do you manage any stressful moments or how do you decompress? Because you, because you help with this area of nursing.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Let me address the first part of what you just said, which I think is huge because I think in any facet of nursing that you work in the, you're not going to know everything. You're not going to know every medication because what you prescribe for one patient may or may not work for the other, and there's no way we can learn all of the medications, which is why educating yourself is important and consultation is important. I have a psychiatrist that I consult with as well as a medical doctor who are readily available in case I need to just say, hey, this is what I'm thinking. What do you think? So you want to have a team of people who you don't mind when you get to a point where you feel like you know everything, you need to step out of where you are so you be able to consult because things are ever changing. You could have two people who have, like you say you like to take care of people who have just come out of surgeries. You may have two people who have had similar surgeries. 1 may have had single bypass versus the triple bypass.
The medication that you prescribe is going to be a little different. So just understanding that there's no black and white like there prescribing and treating, or there should be variations prescribing and treating. In terms of how I decompress, I typically, I try not to take it home. And oftentimes that is difficult, depending on the situation. Like it sounds cute to say, oh, don't take it home. But if you listen, if you're a human being, oftentimes it's hard not to take it home. However, I try to be purposeful sometimes in what I take home because some things can be a little bit consuming and you literally have to snatch it off your shoulder, shelve it and say, let me come back to this tomorrow. But I become, because I am busy a lot. My way of decompressing is getting a bucket of popcorn, sitting, watching a movie, sleeping, and then when I can just try to plan, you know, quick little getaways, you know, just to set a little bit. I don't get to do that a lot. I do have some things on the horizon that is going to allow me to do that. But just being purposeful about self care when you can and as often as you can, realizing that you can't pour from an empty cup because we're in service. As a nurse, you're always giving to somebody else all the time, or should be, but also you understand the importance of filling your own cup because you want to be able to give 100%, but you also want to make sure that you're giving yourself 100%. Like, you have to find that balance with self care and serving. And so being self aware is key. Being self aware of the importance of self care is key. So I try to get me time in as much as I can. And sometimes I'll even when I get off work, if I've had a hard day, I'll cut the ready off and just ride in silence and, you know, meditate while I'm driving, you know, so things like that are important to me. Just decompressing and just. Just letting it all kind of flow off before I get home so I can focus on family once I get here. That's good.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing. Now, what are some of your final thoughts for our listeners, and what would you like for listeners to take away from today's episode?
[00:44:11] Speaker B: Just like them to take away the importance of mental health advocacy, the importance of normalizing mental illness, the importance of giving people grace, because oftentimes we walk around intentionally with the mask on. Not a physical mask, but one that hides our emotions, hides what we're thinking, because we're afraid of how we will or won't be accepted. So just the importance of giving people grace and understanding that mental illness is just that. It's an illness. Substance use is an illness.
There is a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes one to deal with mental illness and or substance abuse. So just giving people grace and understanding that it could be any of us, you know, we can work on silence and walk into a situation it could, you know, pose as traumatic for us, which could ultimately trigger a mental illness, trigger an addiction. Like, we never know how things impact us. So understanding that we're all individuals, you know, we don't want to be judged, so don't judge somebody else, because you don't know what that person is going through, what they have been through, and why they have ended up in the situations that they're in. So kind of stay in your own lane, you know, let me take my. My clinical head off and just say, stay in your own lane and just give people grace. Treat people as human, human beings because it's how we want to be treated. So the biggest takeaway is just the importance of normalized mental illness. It is so important, and I think that more people would admit that they're suffering if they weren't so worried about being judged for revealing that they're suffering.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Well said. Well said, misses Tory. Thank you. Now, is there anything that you would like to share that you have coming up as we're nearing the end of the 2024 year, especially with event.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: So go ahead.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Oh, go ahead. I'll about say, Ian, how. And also explain how my listeners can connect with you as well.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: So every year. So I serve in my community several times a year. The two events coming up will be we're doing a day of service for Thanksgiving and then we serve at a shelter for Christmas. So those are the two big events coming up. It's usually on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day every year. So those are the major two things I have coming up. Also, I am in planning phases. I don't know if I need to reel another big thing that I have on the horizon, possibly having their own clinic. So just be in prayer for me on that.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: In terms of social media, I'm not huge on social media. I do have a Facebook and it is my first and last name, Latoria. L a t o r I a. Boylan. B o y l a n D. That's my Facebook and I believe it's the same on Instagram. It's not. It'll be tor. I'm more active on Facebook than I am on Instagram, but you'll find me either way. If I can be of service to anyone, if I can connect you with anyone, you can message me on Facebook, you know, publicly or privately. It doesn't matter to me. Just, you know, reach out. I currently work at Serenity Recovery center in Memphis. It is 1094 Poplar Avenue. It's midtown Memphis. So that's another way that you can reach me if you need to. Probably the easiest way because I don't know who we're speaking to, so I don't want the easiest way would probably be through Facebook.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much. And thank you for being on this platform.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Thank you for having this platform. This is amazing.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. Well, as we wrap up, of course you can reach me, your host, nurse Chanelle on TikTok, at all one nurse on IG, all one nurse Chanel Shenell. And of course I'm on Facebook at Chanel Tompkins and I have an all one nurse page but y'all can just find me all one nurse just typing in. But thank you for being here, misses Tori. Thank you to my listeners. And don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe. Share it with your network. Share with your friends, friends, your family, those that are in nursing school, other nurses, so that we can all get back to the basics and be more aware of mental health awareness as misses Tory just took the time to explain to us. So I just really appreciate you. Until next time. Bye.
