Hi there. My name is dr.
Presenta, and I'm the host of the doctor nurse podcast.
I'm an advanced nurse practitioner and I want to be
your guide into the world of nursing professions.
This podcast is a platform for nurses to share their Journeys
as they made their way in the diverse field of nursing as
either entrepreneurs, Academia private, practice or even the
corporate world. I think we should celebrate just
how diverse the field of nursing is through mentoring one.
Another, with the stories of our career.
Our Journeys, nothing is too mundane because each journey is
unique. This podcast will showcase
career options to encourage nurses to view their degrees
with a business mindset. After all we work in the
healthcare business and ultimately I hope I might
inspire you to make a change. If you're looking for something
different, I am motivated to see you live, your best, nursing
life and that looks different for everyone.
Thanks for joining me on today's podcast.
And let's get started with today's guests.
Hi Beth, welcome to the doctor nurse podcast.
So happy to have you on today. Oh Sandra, thank you so much for
having me. It's such an honor.
I so admire what you're doing with this podcast?
So thank you for our listeners. Elizabeth is a BS n RN and who
has built a six-figure writing business in her spare time and
she became a nurse at midlife. And you primarily worked in the
perioperative nursing setting for your whole career, and
you've decided to go ahead and pivot again, and now your coach
Coaching nurses to become freelance writers, which is
blown my mind. Also, the host of there are n to
writer show, which I have been just absolutely Benja listening
to. It is so interesting for our
listeners, guys check her out. She is on the mission to have
nurses, take over the health writing space.
So I really, really, really liked what she said there and
I'm so happy to interview you. Welcome, welcome, welcome and
let's Dive Right In. Thank you so much.
Let's do it. All right.
So Scribe to our listeners. What use your current role?
What's your job title? What do you do for a living
every day, Beth? So, my job title is fluid.
I call myself the CEO of this company, but there's only two of
us. And so what I do is I offer
courses and coaching to other nurses, who want to learn, how
to become freelance writers. And every day I come into the
office enthused and energized to do, whatever it takes to help
these nurses get started and And I'm happy to say that recently.
We've had a lot of success stories from nurses in the
program telling about their first successes, so that is very
gratifying, that's awesome. So, tell me what a nurse writer
does, what is that? That job that you're teaching
other nurses to do, right? It's a very unknown career
option for nurses. But the truth is that the
journalism and Or marketing Industries have always relied on
freelance writers to produce articles for magazines or write
web pages or, you know, all of us.
You sign up for something and you get a sequence of emails to
either explain what you bought or try to get you to buy more
stuff. Chances are freelance writers,
wrote that. And today, there's a great
demand for nurses to do a lot of that rating.
Because when companies polish information on their website
under the byline of a nurse and RN + L PN + NP actually, any
clinician mdp a social worker when they publish that content,
some search engines view that as more authoritative so that
boosts Pages rank in the search index.
So there's been a massive uptick in companies looking for nurses
to do this kind of writing and that's how I made my career and
That's now what I teach other nurses to do is to tap into
that. Wow, that's awesome.
What have you found in the industry that they're looking?
Are they looking for RNs? Do you have to have this
incredible writing history? Or can you just be any kind of
nurse? How do you, how do you think
that you might be qualified to even start down that road?
That's an excellent question. I think one thing that shocks
nurses coming into this is as my friend Jennifer LW Fink, who Oh
I had on my podcast recently said the barrier to entry in the
writing industry is exceptionally low.
It does not require any particular degree.
It does not require experience as a professional writer at
first, I mean, your career will unfold in different ways as you
get experience. But to come into this, you
absolutely do not need previous writing experience, you do not
have to be an RN, you do not have to have 20 years of
experience as a nurse. The truth is that the vast
majority of Health writers who produce these articles and
content have no clinical background at all and most of
them don't even have a journalism degree.
They're just people with average writing skill and that's what I
tell nurses. If you ever got to see on a
nursing paper, you're writing chops are good enough to think
about pursuing a writing career, because you're not expected as a
professional writer to be an ultimate Authority on Graham.
Were and punctuation and all of that, the clients and the
editors are going to provide you with a style guide, for example,
which is just a document that tells you how to punctuate and
tells you what kind of sources to use.
They're going to tell you all that and you're going to also
have an editor. So the only thing clients are
looking for is a good solid draft.
And so back to my point, if you ever wrote a paper that earned a
c then congratulations, you can be a freelance writer.
So we're boils down to, that's really cool.
And that's pretty simple. It seems pretty easy.
So tell us about your journey from being a midlife nurse to
stepping into freelance writing. What was your journey there?
Sure. Well, I think it's important to
note and I'm always very transparent about this, that I
was a writer before, I was a nurse.
So way, back in the dark ages of my career, I started out in
public relations and marketing and I wrote tons of press
releases, Has and marketing materials.
And then I went into a series of like middle management office
type jobs. Then I had the opportunity to
become a nurse which was my dream as an adolescent, but like
a lot of people and Adolescence I lack the confidence to pursue
that. So I went back to school and
became a nurse and within a few years of nursing I realized it
was not a good fit for me. I'm very introverted and it took
a lot of my energy to do high quality nursing and work.
People all the time. And so I came home one day from
my shift and I was honestly complaining to my husband about
how I love doing patient education, which is true for a
lot of nurses. I know.
And I was being squeezed into reducing the amount of patient
education I got to do and it made me wonder.
I was wondering out loud to him if I could really continue as a
nurse and he said to me you need to really think now about going
full-time freelance. Because if you combine your
nursing NG with your writing, you can impact literally
millions of patients all at once.
You can educate thousands of people all at once, instead of
five a day at the bedside and I was, like, Ping, the lightbulb
went off. You know what an awesome
husband. Yes.
Yes, he he always he was he's deceased now but he was always
my biggest champion all through those years when I was
struggling to figure out freelancing and wasn't quite
making it. He was always like just keep
plugging and he was correct. Oh my gosh.
How sweet. That's how that came to pass.
Gotcha tummy throughout your journey.
What was something that you kind of identified as a really big
success in your career? Something that you look back and
you say this was this was the high this was a true career high
for me as a writer. Yeah you know one of those
happened right out of the gate when I I had been freelancing
part-time on the side while I was working full time as a nurse
and I was saving up the meager amount of money.
I was making at that time as a writer.
Her. And I invested that in going to
a conference, the association of Health Care journalists
conference. And at that conference, there
was an opportunity to meet with editors to pitch, an article to
them. And I made an appointment to
meet with two editors from WebMD.
And I write like that would be a home run run.
Yeah. It's like medical.
Google right right, right. And I was 20, I was dreaming big
there because I did not have the writing experience that they
would normally look for but I With them, and they were
unimpressed with my article idea, but they were fascinated
by the fact. I was a nurse like this was kind
of new to them to that. Here's a person who could write
and could prove that she could write, but she was also nurse
and they started like brainstorming.
How they make right in front of you?
Yeah. Like, how could that work?
And anyway, within weeks of attending that conference, I
came away with a contract, a 12-month contract to write for
them. Not articles, though, they used
to have like a core Type thing that was for medicine called
WebMD answers and I was their resident expert.
So I would go on there and answer people's questions about
health, but that was what launched me.
That allowed me to quit my nursing job because then I had a
foundation of money, you know? Like I could almost my nursing
and so yeah. So that was a big win right
there. Wow, from the jump and just
having the again. You just had the courage to just
go for it and look like, it's it upbeat.
Thing to get you out of a job that you were like, this is
terrible. I'm not happy here anymore.
You know, the thing that I tell my listeners all the time is
that you let fear hold you back from possibly, you know, the
fear of change, right? The fear of something, unknown
holds you back from possibly, what could be your dream?
So like just don't be afraid and wherever fear is go into it.
You know, I think you hit the nail on the head, Sandra like
that is the key to fear holds us back.
It keeps us locked in, and I think that it's important for
your audience to think about the fact that our decisions are not
irrevocable like you can, there are many alternative nursing
careers like writing that you can pursue on the side and if
they don't work out that's fine then go try something else.
Like it's not like you have to think in terms of draft how can
I quit my job and give up all those money and benefits and
blah blah blah and it's such a risk.
It's like no keep that and then try out other stuff on the To
till you find something that suits you and then pursue it.
Absolutely absolutely. When you think about it too even
from a different angle. What was something that you had
to overcome and your career that you look back and you think I
could have let that hold me back but I didn't like you know what
was something that you did have to overcome?
What was a fear maybe? Well let me tell you I spent 20
years trying freelancing on the side with very little success.
So there were a lot of things to overcome partly.
I think one key fear that I had to overcome was imposter
syndrome like feeling what does that impostor syndrome is when
you are certain? You were going to be found out
for not being who you are or being good enough.
At what you do. I think a lot of nurses, I know
I had impostor syndrome terribly.
When I was a new graduate nurse, you know, it's like I was
certain at any moment, the charge was going to walk up to
me and go your no nurse you May have the degree, but you're not
really doing this. And that happens with writers to
you just lack confidence in your ability, your certain that every
time you turn something into a client that it's going to come
back, horrible red ink. And they're going to say we're
never working with you again because clearly you suck and you
should not be a writer. And that is a huge fear for
people. You know, it's not it has never
happened to me. How have you overcome impostor
syndrome? How do you overcome it?
That's an interesting question. And there are tone Homes their
literal books on that, but to me, I think small successes, I
think accumulating small successes sending your first
piece out. It gets rejected but it has
lovely comments. Back from the editor, sending
your next piece out, it gets accepted and you're like basking
in the glow of that and then eventually you pitch your dream,
publication whatever that is. And maybe it's WebMD and they
accept your pitch, and then at a certain point, really that
imposter syndrome gets Because then you're like, okay, yeah, I
can do this. You know, I am good at this.
I'm getting validated, I guess that's the key.
The validation sometimes, it's got to be self-validation.
Sometimes, when I've posted a real on Instagram, I go and look
at it in my other private Instagram account.
And I'll like it, too, like, encourage myself.
Absolutely. I constantly tell nurses in my
orange, a writer programs that self-validation is the important
thing. I'm kind of shocked at how many
people dismiss Miss their accomplishments.
Like they'll say, you know, will convene in a group coaching
session and I'll ask, you know, who has success is to share.
And somebody will say something like, well, I didn't really get
anything accomplished this week. I only finished my website and
wrote a letter of introduction and sent three pitches.
I'm like, that's not nothing. You have to give yourself credit
for that stuff and validate you are doing this.
Yeah, moving. That's good bath.
So, tell me. Was there anybody that men?
Heard you along the way. Did anybody introduce you to
this? I mean it sounds like your
husband was super inspirational. I just kind of putting the two
pieces together. But did you find anybody along
the way? That's been a big help to your
career, the short answer to that is no.
And that is why I do what I do today is because I want to be
that person for other nurses. I like I say took almost 20
years trying to figure out freelance writing even before I
was a nurse. And now, after I went full time
As a nurse writer, I did connect with two other nurse writers who
were, I think slightly before me and we spoke regularly as our
own little support group and sort of figured things out
together. But in terms of, did I have a
person or even a group to sort of guide me along?
I can't think of one figured it out.
It was all trial and error, but it doesn't sound like there was
much of a community is what you're describing.
Are there a lot of nurse right? This comment, so interesting
question, I'm not positive because until until our enter
writer, I'm not aware of any specific communities for nurses.
Now, the medical writers association a moi, there are a
lot of nurses who do science writing Pharma writing, what I
call High scientific writing, but I don't do that myself.
That's not my strength and so I was never acquainted with any of
them. So there have been I've been
nurse writers. I think that there are quite a
few of us. But as a percentage of like the
entire population of Health writers, probably very, very
small. Yeah.
And do you think that there will always be a need for nurse
writers? Oh, absolutely.
What do you and Mark is expanding or I mean, which is
everything going digital right now.
We all work from home, everything is just home-based
computer-based. What do you think?
The markets going to look like? We are in the information age
and that is not going to end in my lifetime.
There are currently 400 million active websites in the world.
And if only a small fraction of those are Health websites.
That still a massive amount of information that needs to be
produced. And so I actually get this
question. A lot of people say well are you
not saturating the market with nurse writers or you know,
that's a scarcity mindset, the world.
Yeah, the world content production is not a pizza that
there's a limited number of slices the world of content.
Production is there's pizzas being made every single day,
love it. So if you think about a site,
like let's, let's pick the Cleveland Clinic, because they
have a very robust in in-house content marketing, team,
Cleveland clinic alone might put out.
This is hypothetical, I don't have any Insider information.
They may put out 20 to 50 individual pieces of content a
day, just them. Now, think about all the other
and they're just a provider. Now, think about all the other
Riders who are publishing and now think about all the health
care manufacturers. They're publishing and all the
technology at. So like this the sheer volume of
content that has to be produced every single day and that's not
even counting the journalism side, all the reporting it's
just going to keep growing exponentially.
So there's never going to not be a need for nurses who write.
And that's not only my opinion, by the way, experts in the
industry, have validated this as well.
So yes, and that actually was what I listened and I heard the
reason why I asked the question was because I learned that on
your podcast that it is a growing business.
You had someone from a writing group that you used to work
with, you had her on your podcast and you were had her
describing kind of where she thinks the understory is going.
And I think the way you said about the pizzas coming out of
the oven, we don't need to ask for a slice.
You got a whole pizza, there's enough room.
And there's going to be space. And so if you're interested in
this, check it out as a side hustle.
Like you said, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
But at least you gave it a shot and it might be something that
fits your lifestyle. It might be something that like
you said you were working on the floor and you're like this isn't
for me like this isn't my personality and thank goodness.
We're not all made the same way and that we are all meant for
something different. So it's really, really well
said. Thank you.
But yeah, it's a wonderful way to use your nursing knowledge
and really expand your impact as a nurse writing.
That's really great. So Al our last question is what
advice Ice. Do you have for a nurse who's
starting off on her career? Maybe she's like you, she's been
on the floor and she's like this blows and she's like something
new. Or she's like I have no idea
like what Beth is even talking about like where can I where can
I even get started? What advice do you have for a
new nurse starting off? Yes.
First is be patient with yourself because when you start
to explore freelance writing or any alternative career, you're
talking about need To learn in an entire industry like writing
and content production and journalism our Industries and
you're a nurse. So it is going to there is going
to be a learning curve involved. Persistence is key be
systematic. As you start exploring this, I
will say that, our inter writer offers lots of free resources to
people. We have, I do a Blog every week.
We have a newsletter that has external links to tips.
To help understand this industry and get started.
We have the our enter writer show on YouTube and of course,
Spotify and apple podcast. And yes, we also sell courses
and coaching that. So, I've had people who got
started and found success only using our free resources, the
purpose of doing courses in coaching, is to shorten that
learning curve to get quicker success.
It's not about, you can only succeed.
If you buy my courses and coaching, I That I believe you
mentioned the mission of our inter writer earlier which is,
and we are mission driven like I had to start with courses and
coaching because my goal is for possibly Healthcare
Communications to even become a nursing specialty.
Like, I want nurses to set the standard for content in
journalism content marketing, internal Communications PR and
health care. But I can't do that if there's
not nurse writers. So we had to start by teaching
people how to be writers. Or so that we can basically
invade this and take it over. So, that's what I would say is
learn about the industry, use our resources, if that's helpful
and be persistent because slow and steady.
Is what will get you to your success.
Yeah, that's really good the consistency over time, everyone.
Just, I hear that constantly in, and the Book of James Clear
Atomic habits. He talks about the consistency,
right? And he's like, just do it
everyday repeatedly, even if it's a minute, even if it's five
pages, it's like just be Consistent.
And when you get into that mindset, it really does begin to
change the environment around you and things.
Start to show up how I'm just being in minimally consistent
and this stuff's kind of coming to me.
It's kind of crazy How the Universe works this way.
It's like a secret hack for the universe.
It's just stay consistent. So that's really good.
Advice that. Can you tell people how to find
you where can I know you're on? Like you said, you're on
Spotify. You're on YouTube.
You are on Apple podcast again. Subscribe to her show.
It's just so great, and she's just to the point there.
The Saudis are just jam-packed of just knowledge and
information. And how can they find you on
your website? Thank you.
So we're all renter writer.com. It's a numeral to its rn2
writer. I do want to emphasize that all
clinicians are welcome. When I launched that website in
2014, it was a Blog about me. I'm the RN going to writer.
I just kept that name but it confuses some people because
they're like oh it excludes me? No, no, we don't.
Flute, anyone. If you're a clinician, by all
means join us. I wanted to put in a little plug
to for the success society, which is the only online Forum
Community for nurses. And other clinicians who, right?
I did not want to go on Facebook because of privacy concerns.
So we have a private community on the website, but you can find
us there are into writer and that links out to all our other
resources. Very cool.
So for the last part of the interview is the rapid fire
questions. I'm ready?
Are you ready? So, our first question is,
what's your favorite drink coffee?
Or tea? Coffee coffee?
Yep. Yep.
Who is your inspiration and why? Gosh, my inspiration.
That should be an easy one. Shouldn't it?
You know, the first thing that comes to my mind is my mother.
I take care of my mother. She has dementia now, but she
has overcome a lot of obstacles in her life and that's been very
inspiring to me. Wow, that's incredible.
And are you a summer winter fall?
Spring, what's your favorite season?
I am a spring person. I really, I love the.
I love Point. Everything is coming out.
It's like, filled, with promise the spring.
I just love that. It's like we're leading into
summer and I love the summer and I love the fall.
But spring is what inspires me. I love that.
I'm such an Autumn person. Like I guess.
Maybe I'm like opposite. I'm like everything's going.
It's just got, like this. Like different vibe of like new
things are coming. Maybe it's like a reverse.
Verse reverse of what you're saying at, but I like the fall.
It's just something about pumpkin spice lattes that I love
anyway. Thank you for coming on to the
podcast. Thank you for your time today.
It was so great chatting. Thank you so much for having me.
Truly, it's an honor to be on and I really appreciate all
you're doing for nurses. I appreciate you.
Letting me get the message out to nurses about this fabulous,
career alternative, and maybe we can chat again on my podcast.
I would love that. I'd be honored to be on.
Thank you. Thanks guys for listening.
We are at the end of our time together.
I really enjoyed the chat, please be sure to subscribe to
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in this podcast is for educational purposes only and
the information should not be used in substitute for
Professional Care by medical provider.
The information. This podcast is not represent
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