The running community is made up of unique human beings who do incredible things on a daily basis. Some of those unique human beings include nurses, and there’s no better way to celebrate them during National Nurses Week than to share the stories of some of the amazing people who work hard to keep us healthy and safe.
Here are a couple stories of a few nurses who happen to be rockstars in the running community.
Heidi Bjork has been a nurse for seven years, and is currently a Placement coordinator, who recruits and develops nurses in Minnesota. During the pandemic, she served as a Nursing manager for her general care unit, which turned into a COVID cohort.
Her initial passion was teaching, not nursing. A distant cousin suggested that she look into the nursing program at the small private college that she attended. She then remembered that her mother went to school for nursing, and it led her to check it out for herself.
“It wasn’t something that I initially was drawn to,” she said. “I knew it was a competitive field. When I started, I started to see how nurses cared for one another and how they make an impact…I got to see how many avenues you can go within the field of nursing. I was really drawn to try it out, and I fell in love.”
“Being a nurse is probably the greatest career path that I could’ve chosen for myself.”
Bjork also has her master’s degree in nursing education, and has incorporated it in her career as a nurse.
Similarly to her journey as a nurse, Bjork found her love for running in college. She ran as a way to keep in shape, but continued to progress and found her love for it. So far, she’s run five half-marathons and one full marathon.
“It’s fun,” she said. “You feel good, you get out there and put the miles in and most of the time, it feels good. It’s a good mental break, something I can control, which I think is important to alot of us in the current state. The more we can control, we feel a little bit better – a little bit more grounded. Plus, it gets me outside in nature, and nature’s great.”
“It’s something that’s peaceful about it.”
To hear more about Bjork’s running and nursing journey, listen to her episode on Lactic Acid Podcast’s exclusive Nurse’s week series.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lactic-acid-with-dominique-smith/id1591874732?i=1000559347820
Kiersten Pfeifer is a Pediatric Infectious disease nurse in Maine. Pfeifer was always interested in health and wellness and she got her bachelor’s degree in medical anthropology.
It was when she took a job after college at an electronic medical company that she realized what she wanted to do for a career.
“I didn’t want to be behind a computer, I wanted to be out there working with patients,” she said.
She went back to school to receive her nursing degree through an accelerated nursing program, and the rest was history.
Pfeifer has been in the profession for the past eight years. Making a difference in the lives of others in difficult situations keeps her going.
“Knowing that you’re making a difference in people’s lives when they’re going through really, really hard times, but sometimes just having somebody there that’s a friendly face and is a little bit of humanity and recognizes the human in them makes such a difference,” she said.
“I work in pediatrics, and I love that because it’s fun. What other job do you get to wear costumes and play with toys and just be silly, and have that be an asset?”
Running helped Pfifer in many ways, and it’s something that she truly loves. How much does she love it? She’s run seven marathons….on seven different continents. Each marathon at each location was its own experience, including her race at the Tokyo Marathon that resembled Michael Jordan’s flu game in the 1997 NBA Finals.
To hear more about Pfifer’s marathon journey as well as her nursing journey, listen to her episode on Lactic Acid Podcast’s exclusive Nurse’s week series.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lactic-acid-with-dominique-smith/id1591874732?i=1000559529295
Lisa Sosa and Terri Russell are twin sisters as well as nurses. Lisa is a Oncology nurse practitioner in Central Florida, while Terri is a nurse practitioner in neurosurgery.
Both sisters have been nurses for 16 years, and it’s something that they’ve always wanted to do. For both Lisa and Terri, being able to make personal connections with the patients is one of the reasons that they love nursing.
“Something that I love is meeting new people and developing new relationships with my patients and their families,” Lisa said. “With oncology, they come in all the time. So you get to know them really well.”
Terri has a knack for getting patients to open up and share stories with her when caring for her, which is something that she enjoys.
“I love meeting people, I love hearing their stories,” she said. “I somehow have this special talent where people tell me things – crazy stories and secrets. I actually worked with a doctor before that said how did you get them to tell you that – how do they open up to you? So that’s really cool.”
Lisa and Terri are both avid runners in addition to nursing. Lisa says that Terri inspired her to run. She was in her last semester of graduate school and was training for a mini-triathlon. She saw that Terri enjoyed running her first half-marathon during that period of time, so she decided to give running a try.
“I signed up for my first half marathon – it was the Miami half-marathon back in 2013,” Lisa said. “Terri flew down and we ran it together. We never looked back after that.”
To hear more about the dynamic duo’s running and nursing adventures, listen to their episode on Lactic Acid Podcast’s exclusive Nurse’s week series.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lactic-acid-with-dominique-smith/id1591874732?i=1000559691666
