00:02:08.320And therefore, people who are coming in, especially new grads coming into this at this time, oof, I can't even wrap my head around how difficult that must be.1.00
00:02:17.480We know that nurses are burnt the fuck out.
00:02:20.520They are overworked by a terrible profit-driven system, and almost everyone that I talked to said that nurse influencing brightens some really hard days.0.96
00:02:30.460And most importantly, reminds them why they actually love their jobs.1.00
00:02:36.120But who are these nurses? Let's get the lay of the land here.1.00
00:02:40.740Glynnis and I obviously started polling all of the ICU nurses.
00:02:44.580When I told people I did this, they were like, yeah, of course you used your time in the pediatric ICU to do an episode.1.00
00:02:51.660And I was like, yes, because women fucking multitask, my friends.1.00
00:04:00.680Really make sure hospitals are a safe space.
00:04:03.460And they don't come during pandemics because that would be unsafe for them.
00:04:09.200You want to follow Nurse Blake right now, because in addition to performing stand-up comedy, writing a best-selling children's book, and being named the most influential nurse of the year, he's doing some really, really good work in the world.
00:05:16.700I think we need to have a conversation on why there are so many anti-vax nurses.
00:05:20.020Like, it's becoming the elephant in the room. We have to talk about it.
00:05:23.160The issue is that he issued a new order saying that all health care workers are required to get the COVID vaccination by September 30th or we will lose our jobs.
00:05:31.240It's not even the fact that you won't listen to doctors and scientists and medical professionals.
00:08:11.380this previous summer i had made a video and it actually it got like 5.3 million views it went
00:08:19.640crazy what it's all over yes um just basically supporting you know medical freedom that everyone
00:08:26.300should be able to kind of do their own thing it's america you know and to make your own decision and
00:08:30.940choice that's megan d'andrea she's a nurse often a traveling nurse and definitely a nurse lifestyle
00:08:39.220influencer. She's got 56,000 followers on Instagram on the account NurseMeggieDRN,
00:08:45.560and she's got 21,000 followers on TikTok as Patriot NurseMeggieD. She actually had a lot
00:08:53.680more followers back in 2021, but TikTok canceled her account after she posted an anti-vax medical
00:08:59.780freedom video. I basically just said that, you know, we should have our own choice and everything.
00:09:05.060I talked about just, you know, what I see in the field and I, you know, I've seen some, you know, negative reactions to the vaccine and, you know, it is kind of scary and it's not been tested for a long time.
00:09:19.020As a reporter, you know, that job that I've been doing forever, I usually just like to lay out the facts and let people draw their own conclusions.
00:12:44.900But in turn, it kind of worked out for my benefit because it brought a lot more traction to all my pages and my views and everything went up.
00:12:53.220And it also ended up connecting me with some more companies and stuff, too, in the long run.
00:14:07.420So besides losing that first TikTok account and a few of her sponsors,
00:14:11.860there weren't very many repercussions for Megan for posting her anti-vax content.
00:14:16.860She still got her job, her livelihood, her followers.
00:14:24.220I never had any of my employers ever say anything to me.
00:14:27.440But I know, like, in the viral video, there were people trying to, like, guess where I work and tagging all these places and these hospitals and everything.
00:14:36.520They were trying to, like, track down where I was.
00:14:40.420And actually, my LinkedIn account was, like, on fire that week.
00:14:45.120I had all these, like, CEOs and, like, health care facilities, like, out of everywhere, surrounding states and stuff, like, searching me and everything.
00:17:45.500I quickly changed my name to Nurse Tough Love, and I gave these nurses tough love.
00:17:50.160And I mean, you know, many of them did not keep their employment.
00:17:56.160And so I'm kind of wondering if this is just kind of karma coming back to me because, you know, I obviously did cause a few non-evidence-based nurses to lose their jobs.
00:18:08.140So when you took on the anti-vaxxer nurses,
00:18:10.960what kinds of things did you say on the TikTok?
00:18:13.820And how do you know that they did end up losing their jobs?
00:18:18.500To be quite honest, I did not report a lot of them.
00:18:22.560I just made the videos and my followers reported
00:18:37.520Okay, number one, you're in your, you're at work with your badge on, you are spreading misinformation while on the clock, like, that's a different breach of like, ridiculousness, you know, because I do respect one's quote opinions, but not when you're in the medical community, because you've taken an oath to utilize evidence based practice.
00:19:02.100and people are very like oh my god i can't believe you're causing people to lose their
00:19:07.700livelihood and i'm like yeah but they're causing people to lose their lives like you know i i don't
00:19:13.700know which one is uh worse in your eyes but in my eyes it's death you know it's like a a preacher
00:19:21.500preaching who doesn't believe in god i mean i'm just in awe of you right now like in awe
00:19:28.920I'm like, you're essentially a superhero.
00:22:00.780And I was just like, this is, this cannot be real.
00:22:04.820It turned out that Jen was getting fired less for attacking an anti-vax nurse0.97
00:22:08.700and more for maybe the crude language in the TikTok, the D and the B of it all.
00:22:17.580I am educating evidence-based. I'm upholding the nursing code of ethics. I'm not doing anything
00:22:25.260wrong other than having a foul mouth. And is it really foul? I mean, it depends. Do you succumb
00:22:32.740to the purity culture of this? I don't. You know what I mean? So in a way, it's like pushing your
00:22:39.160beliefs onto me. But she was like, no. I mean, obviously, she didn't agree with any of it.
00:22:45.520And I said, listen, if this is a big deal, because I took this leadership position, I'm happy to step back down to the position that I was in. Because I for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm doing something like I feel like I'm doing something good and like using my voice. And people are actually learning and listening. And I don't want to get rid of that. So I will step down.
00:23:06.860So when they called me in, they were like, well, we're accepting your resignation.
00:23:10.500I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.
00:23:12.420And they were like, well, you said that you would step down.
00:23:14.580I was like, well, to my other role, like, because y'all kept saying, like, you know, in leadership, I shouldn't use this language and whatnot, even though I've never used it in the office.
00:23:24.380And they were like, no, we're accepting your resignation with the company.
00:23:32.900me like this is not i am telling you i didn't resign like i'm sitting like you provide proof
00:23:38.640where i resigned and they put so they gave me a severance and sent me on my way oh good yes yes
00:23:45.980yes yes yes yes yes they weren't going to uh and i was like no of course they were of course they
00:23:50.180were this is termination and you're going to give me a severance because i'm a single mother
00:23:54.600and you know and like i understand that you're just trying to protect yourself but i got to
00:24:00.080protecting myself too. And so it was just crazy. Jen has been very cheery through this, or at least
00:24:08.260she was cheery with me. But the position that she's been put in is really difficult. Jen's a
00:24:14.860single mom who is now out of a job. I went back to Gleness to fill her in on all of our findings0.99
00:24:20.300since our grand hospital adventure. And she was in shock that the reporting had gone in this
00:24:26.360direction that it had gone so far from the hilarious nursing memes that we first saw
00:24:31.660in the pediatric ICU. So what you're telling me is the nurse who got fired got fired for
00:24:40.020opposing anti-vax nurse influencers on Instagram, but the anti-vax nurse influencer
00:24:46.500continues to make money off of her social media. Yeah, in a nutshell, that's what happened.
00:24:53.360And allegedly, though, this company did fire Jen, the nurse, Tupla, for using language.0.99
00:25:02.980She said, you know, D and B to mean, you know, suck my D, you stupid B, which they did not find apparently becoming of a nurse.1.00
00:25:18.480To a nurse. And that language was directed at an anti-vaxxer who was spreading misinformation about vaccination on her nurse influencer account.1.00
00:25:29.680This seems to sum up a lot of America in this moment.
00:25:36.460I mean, my head feels like it wants to explode over this, although I can't say I'm shocked entirely.
00:25:42.320I will say when I hear the anti-vax argument, which always seems to get tied into the word freedom or patriot or something like that, my first response is, should we all have the freedom to ignore stoplights? Would we like the freedom to ignore the people who are checking the safety on a plane? Would we like the freedom to avoid a security check? Like all of these things are...
00:26:08.520Would I like the freedom to do whatever I want with my uterus?
00:26:11.760I mean, exactly. Let's see where these freedoms are being applied. Anyway, all of this drives me crazy. And to see it coming from someone who has chosen a career in a science-based industry is so much more frustrating.1.00
00:26:30.240and then with the understanding that there's some aspect of anti-vaxxers who believe they
00:26:36.720are helping people as as incorrect and anti-science as that viewpoint is so all of these contradictions
00:26:45.880and bad faith operations as we know from this entire series are just exacerbated and exploded
00:26:56.200thanks to social media thanks to social media and then the person trying to push back loses their
00:27:01.400job for using some very mild language very mild language yeah yeah i really hope that jen gets a0.92
00:27:10.680job soon i just i want i'll do anything to help jen get a new job she's a single mom i mean you0.76
00:27:17.300and i both know and we both know from a recent experience in the hospital that you had far more
00:27:23.740intensity than I did with Charlie, but also my own experience with having an ill parent in care
00:27:28.800is that nurses shoulder the brunt of so much of everyone's hospital experience. They shoulder the
00:27:34.040brunt of care. Medical television dramas do not do justice to who's actually doing the labor.
00:27:40.300And I feel like all nurses should be able to go home much like teachers and like mothers. And we
00:27:46.420see this with mothers, but not the other two. And just like absolutely rant on their Instagrams
00:27:51.300about their shit day without being punished for it0.99
00:27:53.540or the people they have to deal with0.99
00:27:54.880or the people who are making their lives
00:28:16.260but how amplified they can get on social media.
00:28:19.640And now what the consequences are, people are losing their jobs, they're getting death threats.
00:28:27.160And that is such a modern day phenomenon that exists because of social media.
00:28:34.520There used to be protections for this.
00:28:37.140You think if a nurse had an interaction with someone in their hospital, there's a lot of protections that exist within the hospital on behalf of the nurse, along with teachers, along with people and companies, along with us in media.
00:28:47.560Like there are infrastructure protections. They don't exist in social media. So the punishment, the vulnerability you are operating with is as huge as the potential to reach more people. I mean, both of these things are in part and parcel with each other. Man, you are so vulnerable and the risk is really high.
00:29:13.820The risk is so high because the rules of social media remain so completely arbitrary.
00:29:20.580It's pretty much always opposite day over there.
00:29:24.040Platforms have some messaging around misinformation,
00:29:27.100but then they also leave it up to users to decide what they'll listen to or not.
00:29:32.360And that is why anti-vax nurses still exist among other nurse influencers
00:31:38.760We cannot do it unless we are demanding our own input and agency.
00:31:43.560When we just blindly take in what we see on social media, we are choosing to hurt ourselves.
00:31:49.180And so in the next episode, next week, we are again going to make the case to do less on social media.
00:31:54.960We're going back to our roots, talking to some early OG influencers,
00:31:58.800And what we're talking to them about is how they're winding down, how they're moving away from the gram, how they're going back to their roots, blogging.
00:32:09.500It's really just become this survival in a lot of ways, just this war of attrition to see who can keep getting the eyeballs.
00:32:20.020When you feel like a social media platform is really controlling the game, it's just hard to want to keep playing.
00:32:28.800And next week, we're going to a part of the internet that is much less politicized than