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- This is Chanel Bunker
with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast,
and I am recording live at the eighth annual Becker's
Health, it Digital health and RCM conference in Chicago.
Right now I'm sitting with Gina Curry.
Gina, thank you so much for joining me today.
Can you please take a moment and introduce yourself
and tell us a bit about your background?
- Yes, thank you. My name is Gina Curry.
I am a clinical registered nurse by my profession
and education.
Actually, it's very interesting that
I was born 10 miles away from Navy Pier.
That's where my healthcare journey started.
For some reason, I wanted to bring a difference to
what I was experiencing,
although I didn't realize this
until later on in my nursing career.
I lived in the Chicago area.
I was educated to become a nurse,
150 miles north
of Chicago at the UW Madison School of Nursing.
And I practiced
and live most of my adult life in Madison, Wisconsin.
There was something still within myself urging me to
bring an answer to that, which led forth for me
to pursue the clinical travel nursing
as a nurse case manager, which brought me
to seven different states in the United States
in many different healthcare systems, um,
comprising from hospitals to outpatient clinics,
to the public health arena, to the home health arena,
and to specialized nursing.
And I am very happy to have experience
and to say that I've practiced nursing to the tip
of my licensure.
I've taken it to the furthest.
So I've been practicing nursing for 41 years now,
which brings me back to Chicago to home now,
and how can I further help my family
and those who have come before me and those who will come
after me in terms of bringing a change in the healthcare
situation or the outcomes for them.
- Quite the challenge you've taken on, huh? ?
- Yes, it is. And I must admit too, that I am very
grateful for, to be born in Chicago to a large family of 10,
and I, uh, have
living family in Chicago area still.
- Got it. And we were kind of talking a little bit
before we started recording
that you're on a different trajectory right now,
but with that, what is your growth strategy
for the next year or two?
- My growth strategy for the next year
or two is deeply personal.
Deeply personal. Why? Because it's what from within?
So that I would be able to bring out the best that I can be
to serve others in my capacity as a clinician
and as a a, a place
or a person who brings healing to
affect the healthcare of others.
So it would be more personal in that I want to
bring out the gift and the best way possible
and to be able to inspire others to reduce
their suffering in whichever way I can, which takes me to
a lot of different practices
and many of those practices are within.
But extending outside more on the terms of
spiritual, spiritual connectedness to everyone,
and to feel into that, that to me is growth.
And I in two years, well, it doesn't, I can't say in terms
of money, but I could say that there would be a huge change
and a collaborative experience so
that people will feel that.
- I love it. Thank you so much and You're welcome. .
. Can you tell us about the most exciting
and impactful initiative
or project you're working on right now?
- Oh, the most impactful
and initiative I'm working on right now would be
to move into becoming, becoming
that nurse care, bringing that care to a way
that it affects a cure.
Because oftentimes we in healthcare, we want to,
we're about bringing a cure,
although we know we all are going to die one day,
we can't cure that.
But conditions, we try to think of ways
and be to be curative.
I like to think of healing and transformation.
So transformation currently
that I'm doing right undergoing right now is I've just
finished, completed a contract.
Um, and that contract role
taught me a lot about myself,
and it opened up many different experiences
that I hadn't connected such that the reason why
I became in healthcare, like I said, it was something
that pushed me, I don't wanna say called me, but urged me.
And I believe it came from through generations
and to bring an answer to that.
So now I'm back to, okay, what has been the effect
on this, my generations, my parents, and in my family
and my communities?
And as I look at that, I don't see, I, I don't find
the impact, and it's not that I should see that impact,
but I don't feel that that connection has been deeply made.
And so I'm reba back now revisiting that
and doing a lot of contemplative practices, taking it
to a higher spiritual level, going deep within
through practices, through meditative practices, through,
uh, physical training, um, in the body,
so as to open up those pathways
and to be able to use my voice, my voice of experience,
and my voice of compassion,
and to work with teams, to, to, to
allow the space for that so that others
as including myself, don't burn out,
but be able to bring our best gift
to the situations when people come for services
because they need healthcare. So
- Thank - You.
That makes sense. It's,
it's very long-winded, and it makes a lot of sense.
It's, it's, and it's, it's very heartfelt
and I find that I have to keep repeating it
and keep feeling it.
So those practices help me feel that, so
that it's not about who I am or what I do, but
but becoming, becoming that.
- Thank you so much. Yeah. I love it.
And Gina, before I let you go, I have one more question.
What is the most important thing healthcare executives
should do now to make sure
that their organiz organizations
are successful in the future
- Healthcare organizations?
And I've worked with many, I am very happy
for this opportunity to speak
and to encourage
the opening and the allowing by leaderships
who employ nurses,
other medical professionals to help
embody or create spaces where we are able to
experience or to, to, to lead
or to go within, to tap into our gifts that we are bringing
to this experience, to affect
the whole outcomes from the healthcare sustainability,
the hospitals, to the patient satisfaction,
safe care, eliminating many of the concerns
that I feel from my experience.
Uh, for example, my very first experience
with a young mom in labor still
is fresh in my memory.
I think about that young girl.
She was in such a state of being that
when I tried to apply the protocol to take care
of her, it didn't feel right.
It didn't fit, it didn't fit the circumstances,
and I tried my best,
but deep within my heart, there was something missing.
And now I come to understand towards the end
of completion of my journey, what it is, is that
the care provided wasn't based on who she was
as a human being.
It was about a program, a policy,
a data that didn't match her circumstances.
And I felt that, and I felt, I,
I felt I really didn't really meet her where she was
and give her the best care she needed.
So I, I, the healthcare settings could help us
by creating a situation where when we feel within our heart,
something different is needed, allow us to be able
to feel free to come and bring that gift
and express it in a way that it really touches the patient.
I mean, that's the simplest way I can say it,
because it's not that I'm asking for protocol changes,
is asking for that space for us to be able to
lead from within and to when we really feel that something
can be changed
or affected for the good of this patient experience,
have a pathway and where we can do that
and we don't burn out and we don't feel bad
and we don't think about that.
The, I mean, not think about,
but we have a connection
that we feel it was almost if we were taking care
of ourselves, lovingly, compassionately.
That's what I would say, how it can do that.
And, and it's not focused on the kind of insurance they have
or the lack of insurance,
but their need, their human need,
- Bringing a more humanistic approach
to healthcare rather than robotic Yes.
Numbers and data, and I love it.
- Yes. Yes. Thank you for that. That's, that's so true.
And how to, how to do that
because I believe if a robot can't, they,
they can't feel what I felt in that experience.
Mm-Hmm. , they, they cannot,
and I still feel for her and, and,
and I really felt that, oh my goodness,
if I had only known you
before you came here into this situation
and to understand what brought you here,
it would really connect me.
And I did connect with that,
but it was like, oh, well, things have to be processed.
This has to be done. And I'm sorry this has to be done.
That didn't feel right.
- Well, Gina, I wanna thank you
for joining me today and for your passion.
I can, I have the utmost faith
that you're gonna change the world.
I appreciate you so much, .
- Oh, I hope not to change
or just to change me so that in effect, if I'm changed,
then I could bring about that effect
and reduce the suffering of others.
- I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you.
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