In this episode of The Heartbeat Debrief, we talk openly about something most healthcare workers experience but rarely admit: breaking down at work. From crying at the nurses’ station to holding it together for patients while everything inside feels heavy, this conversation names the emotional reality of the job.

Joined by a guest clinician, we explore what it’s like to compartmentalize grief, move between devastating news and joyful moments in the same shift, and carry unprocessed emotions home. We discuss how healthcare culture often teaches us to suppress feelings, why that survival mode eventually catches up with us, and how therapy, vulnerability, and peer support can help us heal.

This episode also challenges outdated ideas of strength, reframing it as honesty, humanity, and the courage to feel. We talk about checking in on each other, asking for help, and giving ourselves permission to pause—because taking care of ourselves is not optional in work that asks for so much.

Content note: This episode discusses grief, emotional distress, and mental health. Listener discretion is advised, and support resources are shared.

If you’ve ever cried in the supply closet, the bathroom, or your car after shift—this episode is for you.

Because it’s okay to not be okay. And in healthcare, you never really clock out.

If you feel like everyone else knows what they’re doing and you’re just trying not to mess up—this episode is for you.

In this episode of The Heartbeat Debrief, we talk about the pressure to know everything in healthcare, why that expectation is impossible, and how real learning actually happens—on the job, over time, and sometimes through mistakes.

We break down imposter syndrome, how it sneaks into our thoughts and behaviors, and why constantly trying to prove you belong leads straight to burnout. From second-guessing yourself to overworking and staying silent, this episode names the things we don’t talk about—but all feel.

We also talk about protecting your spark—the part of you that showed up wanting to learn, help, and make a difference. You don’t have to be perfect to belong here. You just have to keep learning and take care of yourself along the way.

Because in healthcare, you never really clock out.

In today's episode of the Heartbeat Debrief, the host reflects on a career shaped by EMS, military service, humanitarian work, and the transition into nursing and the NICU. This episode explores the emotional weight healthcare workers carry long after the shift ends—how dark humor, silence, and “pushing through” become survival tools, and why that culture often leaves little room for vulnerability. Through personal stories from the back of an ambulance to the bedside of critically ill newborns, this episode sets the foundation for the podcast: a space to process what we don’t chart, to bridge the worlds of EMS and nursing, and to remind healthcare workers that strength doesn’t mean carrying it all alone.

Heartbeat Debrief was created to offer the kind of space most healthcare workers never get — one where it’s safe to talk about what we carry.