Online for Authors Episode 12-12-24

​In the Trenches: Life as a COVID Frontline Nurse with Author Kim Sloan

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Kim Sloan, author of the book Memoirs from the Frontlines. Kim, BSN, RN, Travel ICU nurse has been a nurse since 2008. Her husband has been a nurse since 2001 working mostly in the intensive care units. They travel the country in their RV, living thirteen weeks at a time (the normal time frame for an assignment) as travel ICU nurses and have been doing so since 2017. In her spare time, Kim enjoys riding motorcycles, and she is an avid chronological scrapbooker. Not to mention, her most enjoyable passion is spending time with her beautiful three granddaughters.

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I had the privilege of interviewing Kim Sloan, an ICU nurse and author of the gripping new memoir Memoirs from the Frontlines. In our conversation, Kim shared powerful stories and insights from her experience working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the things that struck me most was how Kim and her fellow healthcare workers were living in a completely different reality than the rest of us during those early months. While many of us shifted to working from home and social distancing, ICU nurses like Kim were thrust into a nightmare scenario - an unending stream of critically ill patients and death after death, day after day.

As the pandemic raged on, Kim found herself facing not just the physical and emotional toll of caring for the sickest of the sick, but also the frustration of having her experiences minimized and dismissed by those outside her hospital's walls. Family, friends, even other medical professionals who weren't seeing the worst of COVID firsthand seemed unable to grasp the magnitude of what frontline workers were going through.

"If you're not in the ICU seeing these patients, what do you think you have an opinion to me? When they get to us, those medicines you can just throw at them, that's as much effect as they're doing."
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Despite the immense challenges, Kim and her husband, who is also an ICU nurse, found ways to keep living life safely during the pandemic - modeling to others that you can adapt while still going on. And now, by vulnerably sharing her story, Kim is hoping to give people a deeper understanding of what healthcare workers endured and how it's changed them.

This book is a must-read for anyone seeking insight into the pandemic's impact on those who bore the brunt of it. It's a piece of history, a tribute to the resilience of our healthcare heroes, and an urgent reminder of the work still needed to support them.

I'll leave you with this powerful quote from Kim:

"I hope that people take away that ICU nurses went through a mental health roller coaster and we're not the same people we were five years ago. There's a reason. COVID happened in different states, different ways, affected people different, and it wasn't just New York City. It was clear across the country."

Be sure to watch the full interview - her story and insights will stick with you. And get your chance to win a free digital copy by heading over to Novels N Latte Book Club on Facebook.

PLUS:
Inspired by her journey as a traveling nurse, Kim has created a series of children's books that teach about the 50 states through stories of adventure. Check out her Billy Adventures books and give the kids in your life the gift of curiosity about the amazing places in our country. (Purchase on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3Bnvr36)

Purchase a copy of Memoirs on the Frontlines on Amazon:
Paperback: https://amzn.to/4fDxSgO
Ebook: https://amzn.to/4fYGZZ9

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.