Nursing Meets Business

Sam Butler: Welcome back to BroncoTales, season two. I’m here at the college–the School of Nursing. Thank you, guys, for joining us. Do you wanna introduce yourselves? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I’m Aja. We’re both 7th-semester nursing students, so we graduate in December.  

Erin Miller: And I’m Erin Miller.

Sam Butler: Awesome, and you graduate in December. Are you guys excited? 

Aja Wilson: Yes, praise the Lord. 

Sam Butler: Counting down the classes? 

Erin Miller: Yes. Oh my gosh. 100 percent. 

Sam Butler: Do you know what’s after? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I actually just accepted a position at St. Luke’s downtown in Boise. 

Sam Butler: Congratulations.

Aja Wilson: Thank you. On the third telemetry floor, so cardiac. 

Erin Miller: Yeah, I am hoping to join the perioperative program for OR nursing at St. Luke’s. Those don’t open for interviews until December or January. So kind of waiting, but that’s my goal. 

Sam Butler: And does the nursing program help at all in kind of job placement? 

Aja Wilson: They facilitate interviews. So, St. Luke’s held their interviews here at like the Norco building. And, then they have hospitals from around both Idaho and other states. So there’s, you know, Montana, California, things like that. So they hold things where we can meet the employers, but St. Luke’s is the only one so far that’s held interviews here. 

Sam Butler: And what does the program–I think the new cohort just got accepted like yesterday, right? So what does that look like as a whole for your kind of four-year degree? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, like what is the whole program? 

Sam Butler: Yeah. 

Aja Wilson: Yeah. So we start with prerequisites. So it’s about two to two and a half years of prereqs, depending on how many classes you take at a time. And then once you’re accepted into the program, it’s a two and a half year program. So you just go straight through the first semester, you don’t have any clinicals. And the last semester is basically just clinical rotations. 

Sam Butler: Have you guys enjoyed it so far? 

Erin Miller: Yeah, it’s been great. I think it’s set up really nicely. It’s kind of built for everyone to be able to succeed. People who haven’t had healthcare backgrounds can come in. And that first nursing school semester, you don’t have clinical rotations until the last few weeks, you’re just in kind of an assisted living facility. And so you’re not necessarily doing nursing skills or interventions, but you’re practicing that like patient care time in a very low-stakes environment, just talking with patients, and it builds your confidence throughout the program. I think they do a really good job of that to where–like next semester, we are doing our preceptorship and basically functioning as a nurse under another nurse’s license. Yeah, I think it just has a great–it helps you get there. 

Sam Butler: Do you guys have any actual classes next semester? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah. So we’ll have a skills lab for–so it’s going to be seven weeks of preceptorship, which is just in the hospital, and then seven weeks of skills lab. And then we have three classes on Wednesdays. So that’s like our nursing leadership, our capstone, and NCLEX prep, things like that. 

Sam Butler: Okay. And why did you both choose nursing? How’d you end up here? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I chose nursing–I originally wanted to be an OBGYN, but I realized that they don’t really have a lot of patient interactions. They’re kind of in and out of the room in 15 minutes. So they’re not making as big a difference as nurses do. Everyone I talked to said it was the nurses who made their whole hospital experience. So I really wanted to be able to take care of people, but in a way that was going to be lasting.

Erin Miller: Yeah, I decided to come back to school for nursing after having many different jobs. And I was attracted to it because of the flexibility, the options, and the ability to care for patients. And also be mentally stimulated and engaged in my job, and not feel like I was just doing a task all the time, but I was actually critically thinking and engaged in that way in my work. 

Sam Butler: And what did you do before, if you don’t mind me asking?  

Erin Miller: I worked a lot in the service industry, mainly in coffee–like as a coffee bar manager, and then I traveled and did some odd jobs overseas. 

Sam Butler: Do you think that kind of service idea of helping people, transferred into nursing? 

Erin Miller: Absolutely, and it’s so valuable coming in with that experience because that’s a lot of what you do in the hospital as a nurse, even. So already knowing how to care for people in that way and having that service background is so helpful, very, very helpful. 

Sam Butler: And what have you guys liked about Boise State’s program specifically? 

Aja Wilson: I think Boise State does such a good job of their clinical rotations, but not just putting us into places. I think we have a wide variety of hospitals that we partner with. But also just the clinical instructors that we have, they’re very encouraging. Even when we’ve had some not-so-great clinical experiences–I would say that 100% Boise State has always supported us. There hasn’t been anything where I’ve ever questioned their commitment to us as students, and then also make that our commitment to them because of it.

Erin Miller: Yeah, I would agree with that and really harp on the experiences we’ve had in clinicals. I’ve talked to other students at other nursing schools, and it’s quite limited in what they had as far as floors they got to be on versus us. And it’s just so valuable when you’re trying to think of, where do I want to go? Do I want to start a med surge? Or have I fallen in love with a specialty? If you don’t have that exposure, it’s either in your head or you don’t even know that it exists. So it’s been really helpful. 

Sam Butler: And do you guys have a favorite memory, whether that’s through learning or just with the friends you’ve made through nursing? 

Aja Wilson: I feel like there are so many of them. Do you have a specific one?

Erin Miller: I have like a favorite memory from a clinical rotation. Where I was in IR, interventional radiology, and the technician saw that I was like extremely interested, and he let me dermabond someone’s chest back together after I clotted it with my fingers. 

Sam Butler: Which is what? 

Erin Miller: It’s like a–it’s a glue that’s safe for skin, so after you clot the artery, you just kind of approximate the skin so that it looks nice. And then you break and shake this glue and put it over someone’s skin, and then it dries pretty quickly. But just to have that hands-on experience was really fun.

Aja Wilson: I don’t think I have a favorite memory–like one specific memory, but I will say it’s so fun to get to clinicals at 6:30 in the morning or get off at 10 p.m. or at 9 p.m. or 3 in the morning. And everyone is going through it together. We’ve all like bonded so much as a cohort because of that, and I would say that some of the best memories I have are just like we’re all exhausted together and just the talks before going into clinicals and after.

Sam Butler: So what do those look like? Where are they in–or in the area, and kind of like the timeframe?  

Aja Wilson: Like the clinicals that we have? 

Sam Butler: Yeah. 

Aja Wilson: So, for the first couple of semesters, most of the clinicals you either start at 7 a.m. and get off at 2 p.m., or you start at 3 p.m. and get off at 10. For the semester that we are in currently, it’s either a day shift or a night shift. So if you’re night, you start at 5 p.m. and go till 3 a.m. And it’s at any of the hospitals in the Valley. So I don’t believe anybody has been at the one out in Caldwell, but all of the St. Al’s and all the St. Luke’s within the Valley.

Sam Butler: Can we talk about the new class that you guys were kind of paving the way for, the healthcare innovation course kind of what does that look like as a general overview? 

Erin Miller: Yeah, so that course–the whole goal is to have students create some kind of health care innovation, whether they’re going to carry it out or not, and walk through the process of that. So we learned how to patent. We learned how to create our ideas and talk to people about them. We had to do–I don’t know, maybe like eight interviews, I guess, with our fellow classmates, just telling them about our idea, getting their feedback. And then, taking that, we had to listen to podcasts. We had to read journal articles, anything that would help us with innovation within the healthcare setting. And then also, if we decide outside of that, if we want to continue. 

Sam Butler: And you two were together on this, your project, right? 

Aja Wilson: Yes.

Sam Butler: Do you want to talk a little bit about that? 

Erin Miller: Sure, yeah. It started off just as a project for class. Basically, the idea for it was a way to streamline the transportation process within hospital systems. It was an issue that I saw firsthand, the personal experience I had. And then in clinicals, I was seeing it all the time. Patients are unsure of when they’re getting picked up, and nurses are constantly asked by patients. They’re stopping what they’re doing to answer the call light, and they’re asking when transport’s coming, and they don’t know. 

Sam Butler: You mean, sorry to interrupt, but to transfer to like a different sector of the hospital, right? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, so transportation has to take them if they have, like, a CT scan. If they’re going anywhere else, they can’t walk, even if they could walk. They’re not supposed to be. So they’re waiting on transportation to come get them. And, this occurs with discharge as well, and it’s actually a huge thing with discharge because so much has to happen to get them ready to go, and sometimes they’re waiting 45 minutes for the transport. So now there’s a room that can’t be cleaned that can’t be occupied, you have a patient in the ED, you can’t come up. 

Erin Miller: So it has a big impact. So that was our–we have a solution, something we think would help you kind of give patients more information and control, be a part of their care in a different way. 

Sam Butler: And what did the planning and kind of how far have you gotten into this just through the course, and then I’ll ask about it after. 

Erin Miller: Yeah, I think it kind of goes hand-in-hand, so I can just speak on both. Within the course itself, we did a lot of background research, so we tried to figure out what other products are out there that are similar to our idea that we’re trying to create. Is there anything similar? What systems would need to be in place for us to be able to implement this in hospital settings? And then also just like what the patent process looks like. So with that, at the end of the semester, they do a pitch. So the Venture College comes, and they have a cash prize. And we just gave our pitch to a couple of people from the Venture College, as well as people from the Boise State School of Nursing.

So, when we won that, the head of the Venture College actually said that her husband worked for Epic, which goes hand-in-hand with kind of what we needed. So, we decided to keep pushing it further. We started the Venture College, and with that, found that the patent that we needed was not the one that we had found in the actual class itself. So it kind of set us up for everything we needed to do afterwards. But we really had to get the ball rolling a lot more once we actually finished that class and finished that pitch competition. 

Sam Butler: And where are you at with this now? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, we actually have our patent in place. We have a business, we have an LLC. We completed the Idaho Entrepreneurship Challenge, and we made it to the semi-finals. And then we just met with a coder and plan to meet with HealthTech Idaho in a couple of weeks here. 

Sam Butler: Okay. To develop a website or?

Aja Wilson: It’s more of an application that, in theory, we were thinking originally that we might try to sell to Epic, which is a large EHR system. They have basically their own app store that hospitals can opt to pay for these additional applications. So that’s kind of where we were thinking, but we are planning to meet with a technologist at St. Luke’s and kind of see where they’re at and see what’s out there. 

Sam Butler: So it’s a software? 

Aja Wilson and Erin Miller: Yes. 

Sam Butler: To ease the transportation in–you don’t have to get too much information. 

Erin Miller: Yes, I know. It seems a little obscure when we talk about it like beating around the bush. But yeah, it basically is for transport workers within the hospital. So it’ll be on there. They have what’s called a volt phone. So it’s basically just like a smartphone. So it’ll be an application on their phone that they can use to help with the transport process. 

Sam Butler: And with this course, do you know what any of your classmates were working on–or, you know, was it beneficial for everyone? Did you guys kind of…were you the only people to succeed? Kind of what–how did that go for everyone else?  

Erin Miller: Yeah. I think it was a pretty mixed bag. I know that there were two other, I believe, people from–two other groups from our class that also went on to do the Venture College. So, I know that there was some interest in that way, but I would say that the majority of people did not pursue it outside of class. I think it’s so different from the rest of our nursing classes that, you know, I was just kind of telling people, if you’re interested in this and you want to keep doing it, go for it. But it is so different that unless you have a history in the business realm, it’s really uncharted territory for us and can be really overwhelming. 

Aja Wilson: And I would say too, like those that didn’t have a partner did not make it as far because it is a lot of work. So, I think the only reason that we did make it as far as we did is that when I was overwhelmed with school and all that sort of stuff, Erin kind of picked up, and vice versa. So, I think a lot of the students who wanted to keep it going but didn’t necessarily have the time just couldn’t. 

Sam Butler: And is this a required class?  

Erin Miller: Yes, so this is all part of the curriculum. So every student in each cohort takes the same classes. It’s just assigned for us. Everyone has the same thing. So it’s all sixth-semester students who will take the innovation class. 

Sam Butler: And did you guys help design it afterward, now, since you guys were the first to kind of do it–was it like a rough outline of the class kind of–what does it look like for the next group of students?

Erin Miller: Yeah, I’m not sure if they’ve made any changes, but they did take feedback and, you know, course evaluations. They definitely wanted our feedback, being that it was the first time, but I’m not aware of any significant changes. 

Aja Wilson: The only one I know of is that they changed from it being like a 10-week course to a 15, but that’s about it. 

Sam Butler: And how else has Boise State as a school helped you guys in this process? 

Erin Miller: I would say Boise State has been the major driving factor in getting us connections. Not just the School of Nursing, but also through the Venture College. Holly, who works for the Venture College, has sat down with us every time we needed to go over our pitch, given us really good recommendations as to what to change, and kind of made those connections for us to get to the Idaho Entrepreneurship Challenge, which has given us the connections for St. Luke’s and HealthTech Idaho and all these things. 

Sam Butler: Do you guys see yourself possibly changing from being a nurse to going into this realm, or is it kind of just a side project at this point? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I wouldn’t–I mean, it’s hard to say it’s a side project because it doesn’t feel like one, but I definitely think we’re both going to pursue nursing. I think, you know, there’s the uniqueness of the scheduling with nursing. We do have at times, you know, four days off, so it does feel like we can still kind of maintain that. So we’re definitely pursuing it now. And I think it would take a lot for us to stop. 

Erin Miller: Yeah. I would say that we’re not making anything right now. Like at this point in time, like we’ve given money and time and effort, but we haven’t really received a lot back. So it would be really hard to drop everything else and leave it there. We definitely–I think both for like personal reasons and then also just financially, you know, want to keep being a nurse. 

Sam Butler: What did you enjoy about kind of the difference that–you know, is it like do you feel like it’s a break from your regular classes, or is it kind of still the same like nursing?

Erin Miller: Yeah, I want you to speak. 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I feel like you just engage with the material in a different way, because it…demands so much creativity. Not that nursing doesn’t, but this demanded it in a different way. And it was just a free-for-all of ideas. For the majority of the class, that’s how it would go. We would propose issues we’ve seen in the hospital. And then you would get in groups, and you would have time to brainstorm all the different ways that you could solve that, and then talk about it as a class. So that was very unique and different. Definitely felt like a break for me from other courses. 

Sam Butler: Sounds like this wasn’t your first idea. Did you have any others that you eliminated and stuck with this one? 

Erin Miller: I think there were definitely some that we threw out at the beginning, but I think, kind of from the get-go, this was our main point.

Sam Butler: Interesting, what about for all of the people–we really like to talk about, especially with Career Services, if you don’t get into nursing–did both of you get in your first application? 

Aja Wilson and Erin Miller: Yes.

Sam Butler: Did you have a second plan, or what was it? 

Aja Wilson: I did, I knew I wanted to be a nurse. I am actually ahead of the curve, I would say, like I’m–I think the second youngest in the program. And, I knew from the beginning like a freshman in high school. I wanted to be a nurse, and I also knew how competitive Boise State’s program was. And so as much as I was really hoping to come here, I knew I needed to have a backup. So there are a couple others around the country that have very similar programs that are a little bit faster paced, so those were my backup. Thankful I didn’t have to get to it. I really love Boise State. I’m really thankful to be here, but I definitely had backups just in case. 

Sam Butler: No, nothing?

Erin Miller: I was just like I’m gonna get in, it’ll be great. It’ll be fine. Just–yeah blind confidence.

Sam Butler: Are any of your friends–did you know anyone that didn’t get accepted? And what have they done? 

Aja Wilson: I only knew one who got accepted, and everyone else has just gone into health studies, more biology majors. 

Erin Miller: I–you know, socialize a little bit with people in my prereqs, but I didn’t have any, like, very close friends, so I know there were people who didn’t get in, but what did they do? I don’t know. So, hopefully, something that they enjoy. 

Sam Butler: Probably. I think health studies are a big…end up. 

Erin Miller: Yeah, I think that a lot of the classes are similar for their prereqs, so I think a lot of people tend to go that way. I think you can apply three times to the program, though, I believe, don’t quote me on that. And so I know a couple of people who just reapplied and got in a couple of semesters later. 

Sam Butler: And I heard someone yesterday on the phone with someone. It sounded like a parent. She had been accepted to. 

Aja Wilson: Oh, that’s awesome.

Sam Butler: Just got accepted to nursing, but she had been accepted to either radiology or respiratory care. 

Erin Miller: Oh, okay. 

Sam Butler: And she was debating. 

Aja Wilson: Oh, goodness. 

Sam Butler: On the phone. 

Erin Miller: Yeah. 

Sam Butler: And it sounded like a very…

Aja Wilson: Yeah. Interesting. 

Erin Miller: Big decision. Yeah. Big decision. 

Sam Butler: She sounded very emotional about it. 

Erin Miller: Yes. I definitely cried when I found out. 

Aja Wilson: Oh, really? 

Erin Miller: Yeah. 100%. I think that those other two programs, I believe they are way smaller as far of how many students. 

Aja Wilson: Yeah. So that’s really awesome for her to get into both. 

Erin Miller: Yeah. It’s definitely a lot. I love nursing with the variety that you can have. Respiratory therapy is so needed, and I’m so thankful for respiratory therapists, but I don’t know if I could be in the same job for the rest of my life. I don’t know if I could do that. So it definitely needs to be taken into account. 

Aja Wilson: Yeah. 

Sam Butler: That kind of brings me to my last question. You already have a position lined up now, but where do you both see yourselves in the next 5-10 years? 

Aja Wilson: Do you want to go? 

Erin Miller: Sure, that’s such a tough question. 

Sam Butler: Like a career goal? 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I want to be a SANE nurse, so like a sexual abuse nurse. I would really love to do that in the ED, so the emergency department. Hopefully, that’s my goal. I have to work for two years before I can even go through the program to be a SANE nurse. From there, I have no idea. I’ll probably still be in the Valley, hopefully, as long as I can get a job. And yeah, I’d love to get into some kind of teaching position. I’m a learning assistant here, and I love it. I love interacting with the students. So hopefully, something like that. 

Erin Miller: My long-term goal–or five-year goal, I guess would be to be an RNFA. So a registered nurse first assist in surgery, which I would have to work as a perioperative nurse for a few years and go through a course. 

Sam Butler: So, more schooling? 

Erin Miller: Just a little bit, not much. 

Aja Wilson: Yeah, I don’t think that BSN is it for either of us. 

Erin Miller: Most likely not. 

Sam Butler: And neither of those is offered here, right? 

Aja Wilson: No, I don’t believe either. 

Sam Butler: So, you’ll have to go through it all one more time. 

Erin Miller: So yeah, it’ll be good. I think getting into a BSN program is the hardest. I think from there, everything else is easier. 

Sam Butler: And if you have a job already as a nurse, you have something to fall back on. 

Aja Wilson: Exactly. There are so many opportunities, and who knows, I think that both of us might get to five years down the road and think something completely different. 

Erin Miller: Yeah, absolutely. 

Sam Butler: Well, thanks for joining me. 

Aja Wilson and Erin Miller: Yeah, thanks so much.