Nursepreneurs

Susan Lunning is an RN, Reiki Practitioner, Certified Brain Injury Specialist, and owner of the Whole Health Way. A long way from her beginnings as a medical secretary, Susan exercises her passion for helping people through transformative health and wellness coaching. In 2011 Susan embarked on her own personal journey to understanding herself and finding her true calling. Through working with her family doctor, functional medicine, energy medicine, and more, Susan began to express herself through acting and exploring alternative healing outlets to aid her own healing and the healing of others. After working closely with brain injury patients, Susan discovered her true authentic self and became a Life Master Consultant. Susan is passionate about helping others live in their purpose and reach optimal wellness through holistic healing and health practices. Whole Health Way helps patients achieve their goals through energetic blueprints and ongoing professional support. Whole Health Way incorporates a range

Erica Donovan, RN and director of The Paediatric Nurse, accounts her experiences working in clinical nursing in New Zealand and her journey of getting The Paediatric Nurse off the ground. Erica connected with her work partner Brooke Batchelor as a freelancer on her blog The Nurse Path and now maintains the positions of director, social media manager & educator of The Paediatric Nurse. Evolving from an educational blog to an online community of nurses, The Paediatric Nurse offers interactive education & hosted webinars to fulfill CPE & CE by addressing a range of topics such as: Nurse Self Care Childlife Play Therapy Acute Rheumaic Fever Refugee Health Gender Diversity Grief, and more! Erica also discusses the importance of providing pediatric nurses with universal and relevant content, rather than irrelevant filler courses provided by healthcare institutions. By finding qualified professionals to share their knowledge, The Paediatric Nurse aims to provide relevant education that’s applicable in the p

Jenny Johnson is a mother, BSN, RN, and the co-founder of Heart Of Gold Nursing. With nearly two decades of experience working in healthcare, Jenny has experienced the ups and downs of nursing firsthand. From Intensive Care, Trauma ICU, Hospice, Homecare, and more, Jenny became disenchanted with the politics of healthcare and the poor quality of care that traditional Critical Care units provide. Experiencing a major life change that allowed her to reevaluate her career, Jenny decided to pave her own path by starting Heart Of Gold Nursing with her husband. Now pouring her passion for quality care into her concierge nursing business, Jenny and her husband Thomas continue to impact lives through professional concierge nursing that includes: Post Operative Care Home Procedures Wound Care Injections, and more! Discussing the challenges of starting a business during the Coronavirus pandemic, Jenny understands the difficulties of putting yourself out there, and highlights the importance of networking and co

Melinda Toussaint is a FNP, RN, and the owner & CEO of MariCare Wellness. Using her extensive experience working as a Nurse Practitioner, Melinda launched MariCare Wellness alongside her sister in 2017 to help patients explore the alternative treatment options of CBD and other forms of medical cannabis. Attributing a huge part of her success to her father, Melinda is passionate about helping others and is walking in her calling by providing her patients with the education and guidance needed to properly use medicinal cannabis. Melinda assists her clients by developing care plans that address individualized health objectives. With the hope of supplementing prescription medications with a natural and effective alternative, MariCare Wellness was built on the foundation of holistic health and the goal of improving overall wellness to live a more satisfying life. MariCare Wellness offers: TeleHealth Consultations CBD Products Cannabis Education Weekly Zoom at Noon Good Night Honey, and more! To learn m

Valerie Therrien is a nurse from French Canada. When the opportunity arose for she and her family to move to the Mexican Riveria, they jumped on it. That was 7 years ago. Valerie, her husband and her two girls moved without knowing the language. When Valerie's girls quickly became fluent she realized they were staying put, she decided to put some effort into learning the language. Being able to communicate in Spanish opened up an opportunity for Valerie who missed working as a nurse. She went through the daunting task of getting a nursing license in Mexico, which took her almost 2 years, multiple trips to Mexico City and an astounding amount of paperwork. While she was waiting for the license to come through, Valerie wasted no time in getting to know her network - other doctors, nurses and allied health. She realized there was an opportunity to work as a freelance nurse in this area. She spent the time waiting handing out business cards and keeping her audience informed of her progress. By the time

Vanessa Peck has worked as a nurse for more than 12 years. One day during a regular ED shift, a mom and her 17 year old son came in. The son had behavioral issues and was quite agitated. The ED attending ordered medications to calm him down, but the mother asked to give her son his cannabis treatment. Vanessa didn't think much of it till she came back and the boy who has severely agitated 20 minutes prior was watching TV in bed and laughing with his mother. This incredible transformation led Vanessa on a search for what cannabis and CBD could do. Vanessa got trained as a cannabis consultant and began exploring how cannabis can help kids with autism, behavior issues, fears, PANDAS, treatment resistant epilepsy, ADHD, anxieties and depression. Her research has uncovered astounding findings that she now uses to help parents make informed decisions about incorporating cannabis into a child's treatment regimen. Vanessa launched her business Elevated Healing to help parents to explore alternative options an

Sheryl Sinico is the Relations Advisor at the InsideOut Institute. Sheryl is the most important part of when a new client gets started with IOI. She walks them through the program, helps answer questions, gets the new person plugged into the system, encourages them and does a complimentary healing session if wanted! After working with many people using the Emotion Code and Body Code that Sheryl discovered through the InsideOut Institute, Sheryl isn’t looking back. Sheryl uses this system to help clear trapped emotions and negative energies that she says directly impact health and well being. Sheryl has many stories of change that she shares during this episode. As a Certified Emotion Code Practitioner, Sheryl can help clients through emails, zoom sessions and in-person. To find out more you can check out Sheryl at theInsideOutInstitute.com Don’t Miss Moments: → How Sheryl works with clients to help them → Why Sheryl started with the InsideOut Institute → How Sheryl began using energy to heal

Rhonda Crowe, MBA, BSN, RN is a corporate nurse leader who worked as a bedside nurse and worked her way through the executive ranks. She began working with a wound care company in the role of recruiting physicians to work in the wound care clinics. Through her extensive conversations with physicians, she found that the majority of physicians who applied to work for the clinic were burnt out and looking for something else. Rhonda realized there was a major disconnect that physicians were encountering. In the midst of corporation restructuring, the management team of this corporation, including Rhonda, were let go. When she sat back to think about how she could leverage her skill set and experience, the idea of helping the physicians was a top priority for her. She had spent the previous years doing a deep dive into the core issue. Rhonda reached out to her network to help who helped her to build the business she has today which is MD Coaches. MD Coaches seeks to coach physicians to satisfying careers,

Dr. Candy Campbell started her career as an actor and flight attendant. Then during one truly harrowing flight, she discovered her call for nursing. Like many nurses she worked in various specialties finally settling into the neonatal ICU. While working there she discovered a problem that she wanted someone to focus on. That someone became herself. Candy wanted to document the life of micro preemies. When she couldn't get anyone else to film her dream, she returned to film school to learn how to put together a documenatry. Her documentary ended up winning awards and was highly acclaimed. This path led her to write books, and her books led to speaking engagements. Then she rediscovered acting in the form of stand up comedy and improv. Candy realized the potential for improv to improve communication in healthcare. She began doing improv workshops for corporations and hospitals. At the same time she became intrigued and obsessed with the writings of Florence Nightengale. She now does solo acts dress

Brad Ferris, RN worked at the bedside for many years. One of the things that frustrated Brad was the focus on the rhetoric of patient centric care, but working in a provider centric environment. Brad noticed that the way we speak to our patients is very transactional. Our interactions tend to lack warmth and empathy mostly due to the time constraints we've been placed under. Brad worked extensively in clinical research trials and came across artificial intelligence. He worked with artificial intelligence with the patients and saw some interesting results. He began to explore how artificial intelligence in text messaging could create a patient centric environment. Brad began writing scripts for the messaging that could interact with patients and help to create the beginning of a relationship. Not only that, by using AI, the messenger could answer an unlimited number of phone calls at the same time, negating the need to have a lot of staff putting patients on hold. Brad's overall big idea was to take t

Heather Manus, RN is the founding member and CEO of the Cannabis Nurses Network. It is a network of hundreds of nurses globally who are committed to educating themselves and the public on cannabis use for a variety of health conditions and for overall health and wellness. The purpose of the network is promote and provide quality education, opportunity to connect with like minded individuals, recognition for nurses’ efforts and advocacy for cannabis patients. Heather is one of the first cannabis nurses in the US. She has been working in this field for over 11 years and helped to establish programs in New Mexico, Arizona and California where she has taught cultivation techniques, distribution and selling of cannabis products. Heather’s depth and breadth of knowledge of cannabis is fascinating and her passion for helping nurses radiates from her podcast episode. If you are interested in learning more about how to get involved with cannabis, don’t miss this episode of the NursePreneur Podcast at catieharris

Ananya Datta is a pediatric nurse practitioner who discovered a love of processes. After being asked to sit on several task forces, she knew she had found her passion for putting all the puzzle pieces together. While she knew she could help Emergency Departments with process flow, she didn’t know exactly how to set up her own business. She joined a program to learn the ins and outs of nurse consultanting, which is in its infancy. Ananya quickly learned to tap into her own network and people she knew first and foremost. Then she discovered how LinkedIn could put her in touch with the high level executives she needed to get in front of. Several challenges Ananya encountered along the way were getting her pricing right, getting in front of the right people and building her team to work together. Ananya is now working full time as a clinical nurse consultant in less than one year. To listen to how she did it, tune into this week’s episode of the NursePreneur Podcast at catieharris.com/podcast. To lear

Mercedes Thomas is an advanced practice nurse practitioner. She is experienced as a pediatric NP, doula and certified lactation counselor. So it came to a huge surprise to her when she struggled with so many challenges with her own baby when she became a mother. She son had tongue tie and food intolerance, which required her to remove dairy and soy from her own diet. Mercedes had to figure out these challenges on her own. As a pediatric NP, she felt like she should have known more. But then thought, if she didn’t know how to navigate these challenges what were other moms doing? Mercedes posed this question in a Facebook group and got a huge response. The Facebook owner asked her to spin off her own group to deal with those issues. Since then, Mercedes has leveraged the information she received from her own group to write her book “What In The Baby”, create an infant educational series and start building tools and resources for her audience. This is a classic example of knowing Mercedes wanted to

Sara Fung started the Gritty Nurse podcast with her partner Amie after several frustrations within the nursing profession. They felt like they needed an outlet and soon found out other nurses needed it too. Sara’s has background as obstetrics nurse who also worked in the neonatal unit. She worked bedside for over 8 years and then transferred into nursing leadership. She wanted to be able to share her experiences and found that new nurses, student nurses and experienced nurses alike enjoyed hearing them as well. Getting set up in a podcast was relatively easy because she didn’t depend on expensive equipment, but being consistent and persistent was the hardest part. The podcast has released almost 30 episodes to date which Sara and Amie either do together or they invite guests to participate in their discussions. Sara has found the podcast has opened incredible opportunities to connect with people she would not have otherwise come into contact with including a politician, nurses in business and leaders

Jamesha Ross is a nurse and certified health coach who works in occupational health. She found that many of her corporate clients were really “stuck” in their lives and didn’t know how to make the change they needed. She began working with them to achieve their best version of themselves and found out she was really good at it! Through word of mouth, Jamesha’s coaching program began to grow. Her clients started referring more clients to her. Jamesha saw the opportunity to create a course and a book around transformation. Her book is due out in the fall, and her course is ongoing restarting every other month. Jamesha works with nurses and other healthcare providers to help them achieve change and to get unstuck in their lives. To learn more about Jamesha, check out JameshaRossRN.com Don’t Miss Moments → How Jamesha got named the Transformational Coach → How Jamesha came up with the idea for transformational coaching → What being your best self actually means → How Jamesha was able to market her

Renee Davis, MSN, RN, NPD-BC has worked extensively in education in both academia and professional development for over 10 year. Her passion in instructional design and Design Thinking framework, is the core of how she believes education should be structured in nursing. Rene believes that if nurses are engaged in their education and professional development we will see decreases in error and increases in patient satisfaction. Renee is proficient in the use of a wide range of educational technology tools and software and is fluent in 3 learning management system platforms. She is an adjunct online lecturer and faculty in academia as well as a published author and national public speaker. To find out more about Renee and what she does, check out her website at: www.prodevogroup.com Don’t Miss Moments: → What Renee sees as the major issues in nursing education → How Renee got the idea to start her consulting business → How Renee incorporates gamification and edutainment into her teaching → Who Renee mar

Mary Turner is a veteran of the Air Force who started her own business in the Medical Staffing Agency business in Houston, TX. She quickly grew to be the third largest agency in her area and was the envy of other small businesses. Except for the fact that her instant success and uncontrolled growth came with a heavy price tag. Unable to sustain the growth, Mary went back to nursing as a recruiter. She was hired to recruit nurses into the hospital system and out recruited seasoned HR recruiters 9 to 1. She then became the Director of Healthcare Recruitment, but she had the "itch" to do her own business. Despite her experience with her first business, Mary went full steam ahead with starting a CPR business. She leverage her experience in the Staffing Agency business to move slowly, cautiously and purposefully. Within 2 years, she had put together a business providing CPR services across the country. Realizing that she had a special gift for helping others to start their business as well, Mary became a

Deanna Gillingham transitioned to case management as a nurse after an injury that prevented her from doing any heavy lifting. Like most nurses she wanted to be good at her job and wanted to take the certification exam to prove it. The problem was, she only had the blueprint or the exam, but nothing to actually study from. There weren’t any good books out there that could help her to pass the exam. Deanna took extensive notes over the course of a year on all the research she did to study for the exam. As she said, “No one should ever have to do that!”. Ultimately and inadvertently, Deanna wrote the exam guide for case managers. Turns out lots of other case manager nurses needed this book too, so sales skyrocketed almost immediately. Her accidental foray into entrepreneurialism grew into online courses, training programs, and a Facebook group of over 14,000 nurses. Ultimately, the entire business allowed Deanna to pursue her dream of living on the Mexican Riveria on the Caribbean coast. Talk about s

Starshema is a registered nurse who found her passion in helping others after the loss of her child. She wanted to share her knowledge and expertise with other women by helping them to start profitable 6 figure businesses based off her own experience of running a successful event planning business. Starshema successfully runs Indelible Milestones, an event planning business. After hearing about statistics that less than 20% of women who start businesses are able to scale it above 6 figures, Starshema found her purpose. She started her next business Female CEO, where she coaches women 1:1 to meet their goals. Starshema says business has been a journey and one that she absolutely loves. Her signature program is designed to help women to step out from behind their brand, overcome mindset obstacles and learn from each other to build successful 6-figure businesses. To learn more about how you can work with Starshema, follow her on Instagram @IamStarshema Facebook @IamStarshema Don’t Miss Moments: → How

John Modica is a Registered Nurse who was working as a travel nurse in Alaska when he got frustrated with trying to keep all his documents with 5 different staffing agencies in order. When he lost a dream travel position due to not having his documents in order, he began lamenting to his friend Dave. Dave just so happened to be an entrepreneur and healthcare data migration expert. When he listened to what John was saying he found it hard to believe that healthcare workers didn’t have some sort of digital wallet. So as luck and a great problem would have it, John and Dave came up with the idea of digital wallet for healthcare professionals. What is unique about this platform is that the software tracks your licenses, certifications, compliance information, work history, recommendations and more. Originally the idea was to help nurses who worked for multiple staffing agencies, but as the software started to evolve, it became increasingly clear that the application was going to be quite broad. The platfor