In The Field: Nurse Francis aspires to support prospective nursing and nurse practitioner students on their path to becoming surgical first-assist NPs.

Although surgery is surprisingly underrated among nurse practitioners, Nurse Francis, a cardiac telemetry nurse and current Cardiothoracic Surgery First Assist DNP Student at UMass Medical School in Worcester, MA, hopes to increase awareness of the surgical field in nursing to encourage more NP students to pursue the surgical field..

Q: TRUE or FALSE: “Nurses eat their young.”

A: Fortunately, I work in an environment where co-workers are extremely supportive of each other so the phrase “nurses eat their young” does not apply to my unit. As a new nurse for less than a year, it can feel quite overwhelming when starting out during a pandemic.

Nurse Francis Sabas, MS, RN, Adult-Gerontology

Patient ratios have doubled and patients appear to be much sicker these days. With that being said, I believe it’s important for more experienced nurses to provide support to younger nurses to prevent burnout and improve nursing workforce retention.

However, expecting an environment where everyone is always supportive is unrealistic. Consequently, it is important that new nurses should speak up when bullying takes place in the workforce.

Q: What is your specialty and where are you based?

A: My specialty is cardiac telemetry nursing. I am also enrolled in the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care DNP track as well as in the RNFA (First Assist) program at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, MA. I aim to be a cardiothoracic surgery first-assist nurse practitioner, upon graduation.

Q: What does cultural competence mean for healthcare providers?

A: Cultural competence means recognizing that the patient is so much more than their clinical presentation. It is our responsibility as healthcare providers to consider all the different dimensions of a patient’s background which would predispose a patient to developing a particular pathology.

These dimensions include social determinants of health such as a patient’s socioeconomic status and access to education and medical care. By acknowledging these external factors, we can better customize our care in order to deliver compassionate and excellent care for our patients as much as possible.

Q: What is your experience with nurse unions?

A: I’ve had first-hand experience working with nurse unions when the previous hospital I worked in underwent a massive nurse’s strike and I joined the picket line to strike for safer working conditions.

Unfortunately, the strike is still going on months later and there has been no resolution with that hospital institution. As a new nurse, it’s reassuring to know that there are unions created to protect the rights of the nurse in the workforce.

Q: Is there anything you'd like to talk about that we didn't include in our questions?

A: I started a youtube channel hoping to help aspiring nursing students and nurse practitioner students navigate the journey towards becoming a surgical first-assist NP since there are scarce resources out there for students who are pursuing this career route.

I also aim to raise awareness of the surgical field in nursing in order to encourage more NP students to pursue the surgical field since surgery is surprisingly an underrated field among nurse practitioners.

Additionally, I’ll be featuring my life working as a bedside nurse in the fields of Cardiology and Occupational Health. Moreover, I am creating a series that challenges medicine through a variety of topics that touch on care with diabetes, LGBTQ+ , veteran care, etc. And if my life seems semi-interesting to you, I’ll be showing what my day-to-day life looks as well.

Feel free to follow me on instagram @sabeyzeee or subscribe to my youtube channel, sabasinthehouse to keep up with my content!