Shane Claytor - A View From Inside the VA Medical System

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Shane Claytor - A View From Inside the VA Medical System"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Cleared Hot
• Host: Andy Stumpf
• Episode: Shane Claytor - A View From Inside the VA Medical System
• Release Date: December 16, 2024

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Cleared Hot, host Andy Stumpf welcomes Shane Claytor, a Navy corpsman, Iraq War veteran, ICU nurse, and MBA graduate. Shane offers an in-depth perspective on the Veterans Affairs (VA) medical system, drawing from his eight years of experience, including his tenure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shane Claytor's Background

Shane introduces himself with a diverse background:

• Military Service: Joined the Navy at 31, served as a corpsman in Iraq (2006-2007), and later became an ICU nurse.
• Education: Earned an MBA, transitioning into business consulting.
• VA Experience: Worked at six different VA hospitals over eight years, including during the height of the COVID-19 crisis.
• Current Endeavors: Consulting for veteran and disabled veteran nonprofits and developing an app to aid families in making critical healthcare decisions.

Notable Quote:
"I can speak pretty deeply about what goes on at the VA, and I will let him speak for himself as to what I saw, what I experienced."
— Andy Stumpf [00:25]

Experiences at the VA Medical System

Shane delves into his firsthand experiences within the VA system, highlighting significant challenges and systemic issues that impede effective patient care.

Challenges with DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) Orders

Shane recounts multiple instances where patients' wishes regarding DNR orders were ignored or overridden by the VA staff. He emphasizes the emotional and ethical turmoil this causes for both patients and their families.

Notable Quotes:
"He just died in a horrible way... I had dealt with that, me and my brother."
— Shane Claytor [06:44]

"I want the freedom to choose. And I think people should have that early with your loved ones."
— Shane Claytor [32:31]

Systemic Inefficiencies and Outdated Technology

Shane criticizes the VA's reliance on outdated electronic health record systems like VistA and the delayed integration of modern systems like Cerner. This technological lag results in inefficiencies, increased errors, and added stress for medical staff.

Notable Quotes:
"It's like working in DOS as a kid. It's insane."
— Shane Claytor [53:05]

"They're still using Vista... it's literally like working in DOS."
— Shane Claytor [53:55]

Abuse of FMLA and Staffing Issues

The misuse of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) by VA employees leads to chronic understaffing, placing undue pressure on dedicated nurses like Shane. This abuse exacerbates workload issues, contributing to burnout and decreased quality of patient care.

Notable Quote:
"Half your employees have FMLA, so when it's a busy day and you're getting brutalized, these guys will just call each other and go, oh, it's what? They call in, and they won't come in."
— Shane Claytor [65:55]

Management and Accountability Failures

Shane shares distressing stories of poor management within the VA, including instances of discrimination, lack of accountability, and retaliatory actions against staff who speak out. He highlights a particular case where a compassionate manager was systematically undermined, leaving patients to suffer.

Notable Quote:
"This is criminal. It's trash."
— Shane Claytor [40:52]

Impact of COVID-19 on the VA System

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing issues within the VA, revealing significant vulnerabilities in patient care and administrative response. Shane describes the chaotic environment, inadequate preparation, and the emotional toll on both patients and healthcare workers.

Notable Quotes:
"It was impossible to get good sleep because every two hours they come in and say, hey, how are you doing?"
— Shane Claytor [08:18]

"It was like a war zone. Pumps were going off all day long. We were intubating patients left and right."
— Shane Claytor [69:57]

Conclusions and Recommendations

Shane advocates for comprehensive reforms within the VA medical system, emphasizing the need for:

• Modernized Technology: Immediate upgrade of electronic health records to enhance efficiency and reduce errors.
• Stricter Accountability: Implementing robust oversight to prevent abuse of leave policies and ensure management accountability.
• Patient-Centered Care: Prioritizing patients' wishes and providing genuine support during critical healthcare decisions.
• Elimination of Bureaucratic Obstacles: Streamlining processes to facilitate timely and effective patient care.

Notable Quotes:
"You have to have standards and you have to hold people accountable and you have to be willing to shed light on the issues."
— Shane Claytor [137:22]

"The patients are the ones that suffer. It's brutal."
— Shane Claytor [134:22]

Final Thoughts

Shane Claytor's candid recounting of his experiences sheds light on the profound challenges within the VA medical system. His insights underscore the urgent need for systemic reforms to honor and effectively care for veterans. Shane's dedication to improving the system through consulting and app development reflects his ongoing commitment to making a positive impact on veteran healthcare.

Closing Quote:
"At the end of the day, the patients are the ones that suffer, and they suffer greatly."
— Shane Claytor [137:22]

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Note: The timestamps provided correspond to the moments within the transcript where the quotes were made, offering listeners precise references to key points discussed during the episode.

Transcript

[Shane Claytor]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Shane Claytor]

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. God, it's going to be a good one. Before we get into today's episode, which is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, let's talk about the brand that makes this podcast possible. Black Rifle Coffee. We're heading over to the website right meow. And I knew it was going to happen at some point. We have flipped over solidly into Christmas shopping. So right there on the front banner free shopping, shopping, shipping, whatever it may be on orders over $30 or more. And then on the bottom, what do we got here? We got the last minute gift card is always a classic 30 to 70% off and then an extra 10% off for the ID me customers. That's my understanding that's a verified identification process for government workers. This video jingle shells is hilarious if you didn't know you could make music with suppressed weapons. Well, there you go. Now you do. And what do we got here? Get a free gift. Don't settle for one. Buy two coffee products and choose a free gift. So everything is Christmas related as it should be because let's click over here real fast onto the calendar, man. Two and a half weeks left in 2024. I have some awesome stuff lined up for 2025. And let me see here. We got one Friday, two Friday next Friday the 27th. I'll kind of go into the changes for the podcast for 2025 and beyond. All of them are great. I'm going to update the format a little bit. By that I mean advertising reads, what's going to be there, what's not going to be there, New brands I might be working with. Don't worry, Black Rifle is not going anywhere. Love those guys. It's going to be awesome. But I'll get into that on the 27th. My guest today reached out to me, Shane Claytor. I'm going to go ahead and read his bio right off my phone here because I don't want to miss anything. Navy corpsman, Iraq war vet, 2006, 2007 ICU nurse, newly minted MBA grad. Worked the VA off and on for eight years to include Covid. Worked at the VA when Covid began, was disciplined for speaking out. Worked as a travel nurse at six different hospitals, various hospital systems. Passionate about getting the word out to change the VA healthcare system. Now working as a business consultant, hooking veterans disabled veteran nonprofit and developing an app to help families and loved ones make decisions during the hospitalization process and the end of life decision making. Shane can speak pretty deeply about what goes on at the va and I will let him speak for himself as to what he saw, what he experienced and what he thinks of the system and what he thinks can be done to improve care for veterans, especially around end of life. I don't even know what episode it is, but whatever episode it is, enjoy it with Shane Claytor.

[Unknown Speaker]

Okay, got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

[Shane Claytor]

Come on with it, baby.

[Unknown Speaker]

Give it to me. I mean it. You're cleared hot campaign. Cleared hot.

[Shane Claytor]

Well, what led you to the military to begin with?

[Unknown Speaker]

I was 31 when I joined the military. I, I mean I was wild when I was younger, you know, kind of in and out of church. Pretty wild.

[Shane Claytor]

Started going church.

[Unknown Speaker]

In and out of church. Yeah, I grew up in church, went to a Christian school. Kind of fell into drugs in my, in my mid-20s. What was your drug of choice, you name it? Started to get kind of into the ecstasy thing. A little bit of marijuana. Yeah. It's probably a good thing that you didn't. Don't have experience with that.

[Shane Claytor]

Is that what they call Molly? Is that the same thing?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Okay. Now it was. Honestly for me, it was short lived. I was just kind of, you know, just going full bore with it. So.

[Shane Claytor]

What? I've never been a religious person.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. So I can't speak onto the guidelines of what religions usually don't or don't want you to do, but I feel like ecstasy falls outside of the world.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. It's not the best thing. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Just curious. What led you down?

[Unknown Speaker]

That's not the best thing.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. What led you there?

[Unknown Speaker]

To be honest, like, I grew up, my, my. My dad was a corpsman in Vietnam. Left us when I was a little kid. Great. You know, good, good dude. On and off drugs most of his life. My stepdad married my mom when I was like, five. Great dude. They became, like, really strong Christians when I was 7 or 8. Changed their whole lives, whole family changed around both of them. Started going to church. Kind of cleared up our whole family. A lot of drama, you know, with mixed kind of family.

[Shane Claytor]

How'd they find it?

[Unknown Speaker]

How'd they find it? Yeah, to be honest, my sister got baptized, my stepsister, and she. She had a really rough time. Her. We kind of. It was really a cool family. My. My dad left when I was a kid, kind of on and off drugs. Like I said, her mom was an alcoholic. So both. Basically, both families kind of got left alone, and my mom and dad came together like that. And then she kind of had a rough time with her mom. Her mom died really young of alcoholism after that. And then she just got baptized, became Christian, got baptized. My mom and dad were having a rough time. They were about to break up. You know, we were. I think my dad had three kids, my mom had two, and then they went to the baptism, and it was, like, immediate. They said, you know what? This is where we're headed. And the both of them kind of became Christians through that. Our family was very involved in church after that, and that kind of was where we started. So for me, I was. I mean, I was like the perfect church kid, I would say, like a kind of the all American boy, you know? And my real dad, my biological dad, was wild. He often on drugs, like I said, most of his life. I was 18 or 19. He came home and he had HIV, you know, just from the way he lived. And we're talking back in the day when HIV was HIV. Yeah. You know, it was 2000 or 1992.

[Shane Claytor]

What was the life expectancy back then, if you got diagnosed?

[Unknown Speaker]

It was short. Yeah. He lived maybe four years after that. Yeah. Yeah. And I would have said I was a Christian back then, and. But I definitely. I look back, and I wasn't. I wasn't living it even then. It was just all a show, you know what I mean?

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

But when he died, I kind of, you know, I was looking at forgiveness. And, you know, I had really been bitter at him for a lot of stuff that had gone on. And I said, you know, he's dying. I need to forgive him and do this. And he just died in, like, a horrible way. Died of a drug overdose. He was at a party, and they just threw his body out in the. Kind of in the street because nobody wanted to get in trouble. And so I went, kind of dealt with that, me and my brother, my Brother had gotten married really early. We kind of took. Took two different directions with that. My brother always had a girlfriend, always had to be with someone. I was kind of a. I mean, I was a really friendly kid, had a lot of fun with people, but I was kind of a loner deep down. Like, I didn't date a lot. I didn't. I was more alone with that kind of stuff. But so my brother went one direction after that. I kind of went off the deep end. My attitude was like, well, what's the point? You know, and forgiveness. And if that's the end result of someone's life, then all the stuff I learned at church was. Didn't. Didn't mean anything.

[Shane Claytor]

So how old were you at the time?

[Unknown Speaker]

19. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Did you have. Were you able to reconnect with your dad at all before he passed?

[Unknown Speaker]

I did, yeah. I actually. My brother and I kind of have different experiences. My dad, when I was born, he was on and off, you know, in and out of drug rehab, kind of had all those problems. And my brother.

[Shane Claytor]

Heavier drugs, heavy drugs.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. He was actually. The crazy thing is he. He was a nurse.

[Shane Claytor]

But nurses have access to some good.

[Unknown Speaker]

They do. And back then especially. Yeah. Yeah. No, for real. Back then especially.

[Shane Claytor]

Because I felt like the checks and balances now. I mean, I. I have one data point for being in a hospital for an extended period of time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Which I learned a few things. One, it's impossible to get good sleep.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Because every two hours they come in and they say, hey, how are you doing? And the answer is I was doing fucking great until 15 seconds.

[Unknown Speaker]

Were you in an ICU for a.

[Shane Claytor]

Little bit right before I went into surgery.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's the worst.

[Shane Claytor]

Even the post surgical win.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's brutal. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And I was appreciative of all the stuff they were giving me, but it was like barcoding everything. I feel like it would be a lot harder to hide the little scrape you're taking off the top for yourself nowadays.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Because everything's scanned. You have to be slick. And a lot of them now, what they do is they go to hospice and they start emptying syringes from a bag. That's how they do it now. Yeah. When I actually, when I. My first day in a VA as a nurse, I got there and FBI and all these police were there, and it was a. It was a marine. And he overdosed on. And he had gone to hospice and was taking it from the. The bags, you know, and. And he was given an IV in the. In the bathroom. Overdose. So.

[Shane Claytor]

So I am a fan of Netflix documentaries.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

The genres that I prefer, I feel like it's safe to say, horrifies my wife, right. Because, like, she's out of town right now, and I watched the entire Rajneeshi. Wild, Wild country one to six.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Shane Claytor]

Not the first time I've watched. And she called me and asked me what I was doing. I'm like, I'm watching the Rajneeshi. She's just like, why? What's wrong with you? It's fascinating. But the other genre that I love are nurses killing people and how they do it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Holy. It's dark shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I've been an ICU nurse for the last eight years. The crazy thing is, my dad didn't raise me. I wanted nothing to do with him. I didn't definitely didn't want to be like him. I used to cry when I was a kid, and my mom would tell me, oh, you're just like your dad. And it scares me. Blah, blah, blah. 31. I joined the military, become a Navy corpsman, go to combat just like he did in Vietnam, and then get out and become a nurse just like he did. So that stuff's in your genes. Nothing you can do about it. And now I'm actually. It doesn't bother me at all, you know, I mean, it's just that it's the life I've had. It's cool. You know, that was the gift that I was given, I guess.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

You know, nothing wrong with it. But. Yeah, but, yeah. As far as your. Your question is, you had asked about how I joined the military. I started going back to church in my 20s after kind of, you know, dealing with the drugs, and started to kind of try and like, fix my life, I guess, morally, like, all right, I got to get back into this.

[Shane Claytor]

Did it help?

[Unknown Speaker]

It did, yeah. I mean, I would say I definitely wasn't on and off drugs as much. You know, I definitely wasn't doing drugs. But did it help? As far as. Did I stop? Was I a Christian? Did I give my life over to it? And I would say no. Okay. But what happened was there was a couple guys that came into my life. One guy was a World War II vet, and he was in Japan. I forget where he was in Japan, but, I mean, the dude was a stud. You know, he was. Had hidden from the Japanese for three or four days, you know, listen to worms, you know, eat some of the soldiers that he had killed. Hiding out. I mean, the dude was a stud. And then he came out and was a thief for years. You know, his mid-30s just had this radical transformation because like a jewel thief.

[Shane Claytor]

We talking Oceans eleven shit.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. Everything. You name it. Yeah, yeah. Because he was dark. You know what I mean? Had. He had a. Kind of a dark background and a lot of stuff went on in the military. So he just got out and kind of used that to, I guess to his advantage. But he had a testimony like he just. It. It clicked with him like that and just poured into the church. And the dude was like. You'd hear a pastor preach and this guy would get up. Never. Never was a pastor or nothing like that. But, I mean, he could quote the Bible like nobody I've ever heard. And just verse after ver. The dude was brilliant, you know what I mean? Just a cool dude. He died right before I joined the military. But the other guy that he was kind of like mentoring or discipling, he was the son of a Korean War. What's the Korean War Pilots. The. The famous Korean War pilots.

[Shane Claytor]

You're talking like the Tuskegee Airmen.

[Unknown Speaker]

Close, but it's not the Tuskegee Airmen. I'll have to think about it. But anyways, he was. He was the son of one of those guys. He always wanted to be a chap chaplain in the military.

[Shane Claytor]

You're talking about like the do little Raiders sort of.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's not that. Okay, I'll have to think about it.

[Shane Claytor]

Those are the only two I know off the top.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's the Korean War. Famous Korean War pilots from. They were in China for a while, but his dad was one of them. His dad was a mess too, but this guy kind of had a similar testimony as, I guess as, you know, the World War II. Guy kind of had a radical transformation. He always wanted to be a chaplain, became a chaplain, and he really wanted to go to Iraq and serve as a chaplain. So he was kind of in my life. I really loved the dude. Really good dude. He helped me land a really good job, like, kind of after, you know, I was on and off drugs. I was actually a surgical sales rep.

[Shane Claytor]

Doing really well prior to the military.

[Unknown Speaker]

Prior? Right before the military? Yeah. You know, in la, in California. I had landed. I'm from California. I had landed what I thought was like my dream job and started doing it. I just wasn't very happy. The war in Iraq was going on. We actually met him and I met a kid at the church who had just got back from Afghanistan. And the kid was a mess. Like, he had, you know, he was A corpsman had gone to Afghanistan. Kind of a. Kind of the kind of kid people would pick on. You know, you could just tell kid had been raped, you know, by Marines. Had a real rough time. And so we were kind of helping him. But I don't know, whatever really hit me, just dealing with the kid. I said, what have I ever done, man? I've been selfish. I was on and off drugs, doing this or that, and I literally. I just woke up one day. I didn't call anybody, and I just went and signed up, went home, told my mom, hey, I'm leaving, you know, she hit my dad. My stepdad said, I told you he was gonna do this as soon as this. This war kicked off, that he was gonna leave and do this. So what year? June list, 2005.

[Shane Claytor]

How'd you answer the drug questions?

[Unknown Speaker]

That's a good question. That's a good question. We'll leave it at that. No, we'll leave it at that. I can tell you I scored, like, perfect on the asvab. And they came out and asked me me about the seals. And I was like, I don't think I want to do the background thing. I'm not sure you're probably better off.

[Shane Claytor]

To be a SEAL with a lower ASVAB score.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, I had a really good as bad. They were asking that.

[Shane Claytor]

Or probably nuclear submarines.

[Unknown Speaker]

Nuclear sub. That's what they really asked me to be, a nuke. And I said, nah, all of it. I just wasn't comfortable. I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna. Do you ever, especially at my age.

[Shane Claytor]

Do you ever interface with submariners while you were in the Navy?

[Unknown Speaker]

I did. I actually lived with a dude when I first got out of the military as a submariner mariner. He was a trip. He was an interesting dude.

[Shane Claytor]

They glow white.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, they.

[Shane Claytor]

I did 30 days on a submarine way pre 9 11.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Based out of Guam. Just doing MSLO MSLI. So mass swimmer lockout. Mass where? Lock in at the dry deck shelter.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And then I was gonna say, we're, like, driving around in Guam. I don't know where the we were.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Like, I was up there being consulted on the navigational charge, but they surfaced it and they just did a swim call in the middle of the ocean. And here's a reference I don't think you'll ever get. Michael, have you ever seen the movie Powder?

[Unknown Speaker]

No. You've never seen Powder?

[Shane Claytor]

No.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, that's a great movie.

[Shane Claytor]

I try to throw every movie.

[Unknown Speaker]

You gotta watch that, Michael. That's a great movie. You can name almost any movie. That's a great movie. I'm sorry I haven't seen it.

[Shane Claytor]

Just to help me make this point, give me a fable and just Google powder the movie and go ahead and pull up Michael.

[Unknown Speaker]

He could be powder if he shaved everything.

[Shane Claytor]

Well, yeah. And he was the color of that shirt up the. The COVID art for the old powder movie. And this will help.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So this is what a submariner looks like.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not too far off. I mean, my roommate's gonna. My old roommate's gonna kill me for saying this. He was a cool dude.

[Shane Claytor]

No, I was gonna say some of the coolest people ever. Their job just doesn't involve a lot.

[Unknown Speaker]

Of vitamin D. No, no.

[Shane Claytor]

When they came out, that swim call, about a hundred of those came out.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Highlights the point, doesn't it, Michael?

[Unknown Speaker]

It really does. Yeah. Yeah. He was an interesting. Smartest guy I've ever been around in my life. He was a smart dude.

[Shane Claytor]

They don't take a lot of idiots down there.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. You know what he does now? He does. He writes the instructions. Rockets.

[Shane Claytor]

Really?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. For Pratt Whitney out in Florida. So he's the guy that. I mean, you talk about meticulous. He used to drive me crazy because I'm the exact opposite. And I mean meticulous to the bone, where I'm like, dude, we just. You gotta stop. You know? But that's his. That's his background. That's his life. I'm very sharp dude, so. Yeah. Yeah. Very sharp guy.

[Shane Claytor]

So let me see here. Probably boot camp. And then. What, do they just send you to, Corman? A school.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I went to a school in Lejeune right away. And then I. I wanted. Well, Lejeune was a school. Was in. Was in Chicago area.

[Shane Claytor]

Okay. Great Lakes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. And then right from there, I wanted to be with the Marines. I didn't. You know, I wanted to go overseas. I wanted to do all that. I didn't really. For me, that was why I did it at an older age.

[Shane Claytor]

So did you go down the FMF pipeline then?

[Unknown Speaker]

I did, yeah. I went right to. So right out of a school, I went to FMF in Lejeune. Yeah. Which was a good time. I mean, I had a good time in. In. In FMF school. It was fun.

[Shane Claytor]

And for people listening. Excuse me. The Marine Corps doesn't have their own corpsman, so they pull from the Navy, and they call the Navy corpsman attached to the Marine Corps FMF Corpsman. So people can understand we're talking.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. And I've heard you talk about why that is, and I think I have an answer for you that you probably haven't heard.

[Shane Claytor]

Let's hear it. I have heard a variety of answers, none of them from somebody who's responsible for any doctrine. So.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I don't know about doctrine, but I know, like, in reality, I think it helps to separate the branches because you got, you know, like, I've. I mean, I've had to give officers STD checks or like, Master Gunnery Sergeant you know, stick a. Stick a. You know, a cotton swab in his penis because he thinks he has an std. Or, you know, in Iraq, had a colonel crying because he had sent some guys off, and they end up dying from his decision. I think it. It helps to separate the two. That would be maybe why. And then the Marine Corps doesn't. You know how the Marine Corps is. They don't. They want warriors. I actually think it's great to have a separation because you got to really stand up to those guys sometimes because they can brutalize the. The guys. And you. Even as a, you know, E3, I had to say, hey, you can't do this. You know, like, you got to let this guy. You got to either send this guy home, Let it. Let him go. You gotta. You gotta drop it like, he's. He's hurt. You know, he's legitimately hurt. So I think some of that is helpful, but I don't know if that's doctrine, you know, but in my experience, I do think it's helpful to separate the branches because you. You really do have to stand up to those guys sometimes, or else, you know, they're gonna. They're gonna hurt their. They're. They're guys.

[Shane Claytor]

They're a unique and special breed.

[Unknown Speaker]

Marines.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, I love them. Right. I've got stories.

[Shane Claytor]

I love them too.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

They're espera de corps and camaraderie and love of their service is to me, from what I've seen. So the data point only counts for one. It exceeds all other branches.

[Unknown Speaker]

I totally agree. I mean, I, you know, I worked for the VA the last seven years off. Actually eight years off and on. And they. They keep that with them in their 90s. And I can smell a Marine from a mile. I'm talking about the real Marines, the hardcore guys.

[Shane Claytor]

Yep.

[Unknown Speaker]

They don't ever lose it, even if they were in four years. They don't lose that Marine feel. I mean, they just keep that with them. Their Whole lives. It's wild.

[Shane Claytor]

So a school or boot camp? A school, FMF course. And then how does that work? You get attached to a unit in the Marine Corps?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, Yeah, I kind of had a choice. I actually, I, you know, I was naive. I, I didn't, my dad was a corpsman. My uncle was a recon. My uncle was actually first recon unit in the, in the military in Vietnam. He became a homicide detective. Had had kind of a cool story himself, but I didn't know much about that. I didn't know my uncle really too well growing up because of my real dad, you know, we, we were more bonded with my stepdad. But yeah, I, I chose the other. Like you had division side, which is like the, you know, the front runners that, the frontline Marines. And then you had the, I don't know what you, I don't even remember what you call them now. But basically what I, my envision was like mash, you know, I wanted to be in a hospital working with injured guys coming in and out. That's what I was thinking. So I, I, I went with a, a seventh esb, so an engineering support battalion. We had obviously EOD with us, so we were losing a lot of guys with eod, you know, when I was over there. But yeah, I went over to Camp Pendleton right after that with an esb, you know, with a seventh ESB unit. So.

[Shane Claytor]

And then where'd you deploy?

[Unknown Speaker]

Iraq. I was in Fallujah in 2006, 2007. I had a wild experience. I mean, I, you know, I joined the military, went FMF right away, Camp Pendleton. I was there for a day and some, you know, senior chief sat with me and said, oh, you know, you're going to go to Iraq in about a year. I said, all right. You know, I haven't, I had never dealt with patients before. I mean, I was, I always had a medical brain. I worked for a big biotech company and did pretty well before the military. And then, like I said, I was.

[Shane Claytor]

Doing surgical sales even in a school and in the pipeline, you guys didn't have any patient interface.

[Unknown Speaker]

You do. No, you don't. Do. You do a lot of, like, it's all on each other. I mean, you tear each other up with IVs, all your shots. You can tell where someone's in, in a school. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Based on their, by their arms.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, their arms are all bruise up. And then you can tell how far along they are because they get less bruises. You get better at it, you know. But, yeah, you guys would have done.

[Shane Claytor]

Rounds or something like that. I know they do.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, you would think you do mild. Like, I did some mild rounds in a. Like a surgery center, but it's, it's very. It was like at a va, you know, it was very mild. And you really don't. You would think you would do that, but not at all. It's really. When I was in, they were testing out that it was all done, that the computer is all online. So we had guys that were instructors, but a lot of your day to day sessions were just online. It was, it was really wild. So. And, and they ended up ending that within a couple years because they had a really. It wasn't a good setup. So I know they had. They lost a lot of guys or just. They felt. Felt like guys weren't being proficient when they got out, so. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[Shane Claytor]

So you're over at Camp Pendleton. I know there's a couple hospitals there. My sister actually worked at one. The one that was deep inside of Cab Pendleton for.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Years.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, Actually she worked there. Just rebuilt that.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, yeah, but closer to the gate, right?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Just crazy. You can see it from the freeway.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, the new one. Yeah, yeah, the new one's gorgeous.

[Shane Claytor]

She worked there for a while.

[Unknown Speaker]

Gorgeous.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

Corpsman or a nurse?

[Shane Claytor]

She was a nurse practitioner. She's a civilian. And then she also does hospice as well.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So she bounces back and forth between helping people try to stay out of the grave and then easing the transition into the grave.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

I tell you what, I don't know how people do hospice, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Hospice is rough. My mom's. We tease my mom because she, she's. She was a secretary for hospice for a long time and she loves it. She thinks it's the greatest thing in the world because she doesn't like to see people suffer. My grandmother suffered like brutally in a hospital for a long time before she went. And she was. She was kind of wired like that, scared to death of death. And, man, she went out clawing, you know, and my mind always bothered. My mind bothered all of us really. But, you know, she's a big believer in hospice, so we always tease her that, you know, she's going to get a friggin, you know, broken toe and she's going to hospice. Or Mom, Mom. No, no, you're not there.

[Shane Claytor]

It's not your time. You just hit your head.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. So that's kind of the family joke. But I actually think hospice is a good thing. But it's. It's heavy. You Know, a lot of death. I mean, ICU is kind of like that, but ICU is. You know, some people make it out.

[Shane Claytor]

Of there, but what percentage of people don't make it out of the icu?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, it depends on where we're at. Va?

[Shane Claytor]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Probably a lower percentage. And there's reasons for that. The va. So the VA doesn't like to let people go where most places. I'm sure we'll get into that later, but most hospitals have, like, ethics committees that will get involved if a patient's basically rotting and there's just no hope.

[Shane Claytor]

We're talking, like, brain dead, but still alive.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Like, maybe innovated on life support. The VA allow those guys to sit there for a long time. And the reason is. And there's a lot of reasons, in my opinion, and I actually think it's. It's not just opinion. I mean, most people would say the same thing. The VA is really worried about public sentiment. Like, they don't. You know, so they're more worried about the community hearing that we're not taking care of guys or that they gave up on a guy in the hospital. So guys will sit and just rot, you know, because they don't want to.

[Shane Claytor]

And probably have the same end state anyway.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, they. I mean, almost all the time. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of life support for a long time. Most. Most ICU nurses aren't. I mean, it's a dark, dark road, I would say in all the years, I mean, people have come out of obviously being innovated and on life support, but usually they're younger, they were likely, you know, after surgery, things like that. Very few of them come out. When it's an emergency and you absolutely have to do it. I mean, even CPR.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. What does it work? Less than 5% of the time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like.

[Shane Claytor]

It's not like the movies.

[Unknown Speaker]

No. Live and they spit up. No, it's actually kind of dark. I mean, you break their chest, you.

[Shane Claytor]

Know, and sometimes people have never been around cpr.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah. It's. It's dark.

[Shane Claytor]

They. Yeah. I don't think they realize you're gonna break almost every bone in their sternum.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, the first time I ever did it on a guy in a VA was an older guy, and I didn't even want to touch the guy, but I had to.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I did it. The guy was like, 83, and it literally was just like. I mean, I broke every bone in his sternum, and then he was just Spewing blood from his mouth, from his nose, from his ears, because it just, you know, I just shattered everything in there. And it was. It's dark, you know.

[Shane Claytor]

Didn't they change the CPR protocol? It used to be, what, 15 and 2, and now it's 30 to 2, 32. So it's mostly about the compressions versus the.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I mean, you. You know, the reality is you. I mean, real CPR is probably like anything else. I mean, you just kind of get in there and get it done, you know, I mean, 30 to 2 is in the hospital. It's kind of a machine. I honestly, I. You just start. Everyone kind of fills their roles.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, they just get.

[Unknown Speaker]

After when I'm doing it, I just start doing compressions and let everyone else tell me when to stop and so that they can. Because it's just an easy way to go. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Hook that back, right?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the AED and the backboard. Backboard's a big one too.

[Shane Claytor]

It's unfortunate that the AED doesn't have an override switch because we used to hook each other up to that thing. I'm not saying this is smart. And it would. Non shockable rhythm.

[Unknown Speaker]

Did you shock yourself?

[Shane Claytor]

We were. Well, hypothetically.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right. Well, I got a story about that.

[Shane Claytor]

Hypothetically. We might have been testing out on the new guys.

[Unknown Speaker]

Really?

[Shane Claytor]

It didn't go off. But I'm not gonna say it didn't go off because we weren't trying to get it to go off. It didn't go off because it had embedded safety protocols that we couldn't figure out our way around, which is probably to the benefit of the person who might have been. May have been taped to a spine board with. No. For us to be playing the games.

[Unknown Speaker]

Teams or.

[Shane Claytor]

It's hard to say.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I'm tracking. Oh, that's. Yeah, you can.

[Shane Claytor]

Non shockable rhythm.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah, you can throw. You can actually, you know, you use an AED to get these guys out of a. Out of a funky rhythm, but you can. It does the opposite if you're healthy.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, I think it can throw you.

[Unknown Speaker]

In your daily rhythm. Yeah, I mean, I have a story about that. When I was in nursing school, we had one. And I still blame the va. It was their fault. Like, it said training. It said training aed. So if I see training aed, that's a training aed.

[Shane Claytor]

You would think it would be a nerd.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's what I would think. To the degree to be able to deliver a shot. And I'm the Oldest guy by far in my group. You know, the other ones are probably 21, 22. I think by then I was like 35. And I said, let's. It's got to be a nerd. Let's try it out. So they put it on me and we had it all the way up to about 180, which might have killed me or definitely would have thrown me into a lifelong messed up rhythm. And I got it down to like 10 and I said, just go for it. And we push in. And it was like someone crawled in my chest and grabbed my heart and just. It was brutal. I mean, to this day I probably lost. I mean, I'm not even. I probably lost five years from that. You know, my dad, my. My stepdad had surgery and woke up being shocked. And it messed him up mentally for a long time. So. Yeah, wasn't the smartest. It wasn't my. It wasn't the smartest thing I've ever.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, just say that it is. Man. It's wild to be around people who are getting shocked that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Not that I've been around a touch, but I've been around it enough. And yeah, it's a sight to behold for sure.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, it's kind of fun to watch too, because they do kind of.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

You know, jerk. It's. I mean, it's not fun when it's not going anywhere. And most. A lot of times it doesn't go anywhere, you know?

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, and a lot of times you're just kind of cycling through. I think you're right. It's 5% actually make it out of a hospital and live after cpr. And a lot of those times it's pretty ideal. Patients, I think it's 75 to 80% survive, but then they have to be intubated and, you know, they're a mess and they. Within seven or eight days, they pass away after that.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. The intubation doesn't really tend to have a long term great output, does it?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I mean, when, you know, when you get intubated, your body's, you know, you're obviously not breathing on your own. And I mean, the, the long term effects of that are rough on your body. I think it's one every day you're innovated. The recovery is like seven. So you get guys that are innovated for two or three months. Your recovery is like a year, you know, weren't they.

[Shane Claytor]

And I don't want to be wrong about this, so correct me if I am But I swear, when Covid first kicked off, weren't they putting people on respirators early?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the VA was one of the big ones. Some of it was. I have a different opinion probably than a lot of other people with that stuff.

[Shane Claytor]

And I'm not saying they're trying to hurt anybody. I do believe they're trying to have policy.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think.

[Shane Claytor]

Well, I think they were trying to do the best that they could. But I wonder if they let the person know, hey, for every day you're on this, it's a 7x recovery.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I'm actually. The funny thing is, I'm. I mean, this has nothing to do with this because I can't really talk about it too much, but I'm actually trying to develop an app to help people make that decision. Like informed consent. Yeah. As I've seen so much into life, a lot of times things are emergency or, you know, obviously people probably should have been thinking about that ahead of time, what their decisions are going to be.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And they don't. And then they end up in a bad spot. And a lot of times they're innovating. The family members really wish they hadn't.

[Shane Claytor]

I was going to say it not only puts them in a bad. But then you put this decision onto somebody else.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Exactly. I just did my last patient in. In the VA before I left. I left in September. It's my favorite patient I ever had. The guy didn't want to be intubated and didn't want to be trached and had it all. And then, you know, his poor brother was left with the decision, and it took him about seven or eight months to make the decision. It was just rough, man. I mean, the guy just suffered seven or eight months. Seven or eight months. Yeah. Tracheostomy, which he didn't want.

[Shane Claytor]

So how are you allowed to do it to somebody if they don't want it to be?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, that's a. That's a long story. I mean, that's a long. I guess we might as well get into it now.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. We can bounce on as we need to.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

But I thought if you had that essentially a living will.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, that's some of the issues at the VA that hopefully I'm sure we'll talk about. So this guy came in, he had. He was. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Had one leg, and his. Had an infection on his right leg. Well, it was. There was no leg there, so.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

So he had an infection so bad in his right hip. It was all the way to the bone. I mean, you could see exposed bone and just. It literally looked like a giant hamburger patty. You could see the outline of the hip bone.

[Shane Claytor]

How did he get to that point?

[Unknown Speaker]

He was in the. He was at home, I think, and just not being taken care of. I mean, when you're, you know, when you're not moving around like that, you're in bed all the time, especially paralyzed guy, you got to really get after it as far as moving them around, having them in the right bed.

[Shane Claytor]

How did he get paralyzed? Is what.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, oh. He got in a car accident when he was younger. Okay. Yeah, he. He was. He was. He was older, maybe, you know, close to 70. And he got out of the military, and at some point, he got in a car accident, got paralyzed from the waist down, and then lost his leg. He got an infection before that and lost his leg. But he. What happened with him was he. He came into us, you know, in the ICU having difficulty breathing. This was just like, maybe a year ago. And so we started working with him. I loved the guy. Him and I got along right away. And he had had a. When he got in that car accident, he had a brain injury as well. So he was all there. He was just hyperverbal. That doesn't mean, you know, a lot of medical people, especially nurses, are really bad about it. Just not listening to a guy and say, oh, he's crazy. He's this or that. You sit and listen to a lot of guys they might talk to. I mean, you would know this from the military guys that have had brain injuries. They're all there. Sometimes the pathways just aren't as quick to connect, you know, so that sometimes.

[Shane Claytor]

Sometimes you go on a fantastic journey along the way to get to the end.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, I do that myself. I think. What does Trump call that? The weave, I think, is what he.

[Shane Claytor]

I think he did call it that. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he even knows what he's talking about himself when he says that.

[Unknown Speaker]

But, no, I don't think it's the most effective way to communicate, but let's.

[Shane Claytor]

Just call it answering the question.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, are going way off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's.

[Shane Claytor]

It's.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, we all do it, but. Yeah, I don't think it's that. Every time you said that, I'm like, I don't think that's the most effective way to answer the question at all. Whatever you want to.

[Shane Claytor]

Let's not promote the weed.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, but this guy was all there, you know, and he came in, he was. He was kind of at the end of his road, you know what I mean? Didn't really want to. Didn't really want any medical care anymore. He had a history of suicidal ideation, which, you know, I mean, makes sense. And the guy's been paralyzed for like 20 years. Been in and out of the hospital. You really want to stay in the hospital. Because he felt like he was cared for better. And when he got to us, he didn't want to, you know, he didn't want to be innovated. He didn't want to be tricked especially. And you know, as he's talking to me and the big thing, I used to fight for these guys a lot because, you know, I was a lot of the VA hospitals I worked at. I worked at three different VA hospitals a lot of times I was one of the only veterans in the day shifts. And I'm just a big believer. And you gotta honor guys wishes, you.

[Shane Claytor]

Know, for the VA to honor the wish, does it have to be more than just verbalized? Do you have to document this to write it?

[Unknown Speaker]

I have a crazy story about this guy that. It's brutal, actually. So he came in and he wanted to be a dnr, which is do not resuscitate.

[Shane Claytor]

Yes. I also want to be that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right. And I want to be that. Now my dad doesn't know that he.

[Shane Claytor]

Is that because I wrote it down for him.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's the right way to go. I mean, unless you're young and have some traumatic thing and you can always change it the majority of the time. I. I'm a big believer in do not resuscitate because you, you know, it's a. Especially the end of life is brutal after you resuscitate someone. You know, it's a. It's just a brutal. I think I heard a thing on. I think something like 90% of the medical bills happen in the last three weeks of life. And it's because of being innovated. Life support. The intensity of all the stuff that they have to go through.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, all joking aside, my dad is not DNR yet. I'll get that paperwork done when I get power of attorney. But I had. I used to have very direct conversations with the guys that I worked with. And it was pretty clear, like, if I step on an IED and I'm dual or triple above the knee, let me go. And you'd actually have to sit down. Cause at first, you know, guys are Joking. Cause it's like gallows humor.

[Unknown Speaker]

Like, no, dude, no, I'm serious.

[Shane Claytor]

Like, I'm fucking serious. And eventually it would get to. You would kind of sit around and talk with the guys about where to fight and where to let it go.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And not the easiest conversation to have. And I was never put into a place where I had to actually take the action on the words.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

For somebody like that. But I was glad to know where they stood. And I legitimately wanted people to understand, like, if I'm in pieces, fucking let me go.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I told my mom that before I left. My mom and my dad, I signed the same thing. Dnr.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I told them, I don't even want to be on a respirator. I don't want any of it. And they were, you know, all in tears. And my aunt, I think, busted out some joke about not having legs or it wasn't the best timing, you know, And I was like, I don't want any of. You know. I mean, I respect a lot of the guys that go through that.

[Shane Claytor]

Think about it, too. I mean. Yeah. So hard to have that conversation with your family.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Imagine, though, you being in that place where you can't communicate, and now they're having to try to figure out what the fuck to do.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

That, to me, feels like it would be harder.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. And that's. That's part of why I want to develop an app. I've seen that so much. It's. It's. It's. A lot of it is people don't want to. To face death, and they don't want to face the truth. And you have to. You have to think of that stuff ahead of time. Like, what you're doing now is the way to do that with your mom, your dad, or. You know what I mean, your loved ones, you have to do that early because by the time you get there, all the. The emotion. And I. I've seen it happen all the time where people say, I don't want them innovated. I don't want them on life support. And then the event happens, and they want it, and now they want it all because they're scared to death to let go. And then, you know, and that a lot of times that patient suffers. You know, sometimes they make it out of there, but the majority of times they don't when it gets to that point. But, yeah. Yeah. This guy, though, so what happened was with him, he had. We wanted it. He kept saying he wanted to be a DNR to me one day, and they were working on that for a long time. And I came in and said, all right, he needs to be a dnr. Like, we need to make him a dnr. This guy's asking for that. They had already trached him, which he really didn't want, but he allowed his brother, talked him into it, which, you know, I understand that. I respect that. If he made the decision, his brother leaned on him. The doctors sometimes tell him that there's gonna be hope. That's their decision. But I came in and started talking to him, and he said, I want. He could still. He was still pretty verbal, even through the trach. And he told me, I want to be a dnr. And I was happy for him. I said, all right, let me do the work and get this done, you know, And. And I go talk to. You know, I had to call a psych doc. And then all the other doctors got involved, and I left. I was gone. I think I went to Europe for a week or something for school. And I come back, and the dude's not a dnr. He's still full resuscitation. I'm like, what happened? The dude, you know, he clearly. And. And I asked him, why do you want to be a dnr? And clearly he said, I don't have movement from the waist down. I have a wound that's never gonna heal, which is true. And I'm never getting out of this place. Like, I'm never getting out of the situation, is what he said to me. To me, that makes sense. So some psych doctor at the VA came and evaluated him and said, he's not capable of making that decision himself, which to me is criminal. That's disgusting. And the reason he did that is.

[Shane Claytor]

Because how would you rob somebody of that age?

[Unknown Speaker]

He's got a history of suicidal ideation. So he said, oh, this is. That's not suicide. That's not. That's a clear decision from a man who. Who. You know what I mean, who made that decision himself. So I was disgusted by that kind of stuff. And you see that sometimes in the hospital. The easy decision is to make a decision like that is the doctor says, oh, well, you know, hey, I'm just going on his history. I'm protecting him. But it's crap. I mean, it's trash.

[Shane Claytor]

It's absolutely responsible for the potential suffering of that person. Post that decision.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I know who should be responsible for it is all.

[Shane Claytor]

I know who I would like to make responsible.

[Unknown Speaker]

There's no legal way to do so 100. And it didn't even end there with that guy. So that happens. And then I come in one day. I. I usually work days, and I came in at night to fill in. And I was a. I was doing travel nursing at this point in Miami, and I come in, and the guy wanted to be DNR again, and I guess they approved it, right? So I'm there tonight. Same guy.

[Shane Claytor]

Yep.

[Unknown Speaker]

So I'm there at night. I'm happy for the guy. I'm like, sweet, let's do this. Well, I look in the system, and he's not a dnr. And I. You know, I run around, I go find a doctor. It's a night doctor. She's a resident. So residents are. You know, they're. They're not student doctors. They're full doctors, but they're new, and they're usually rotating through. It's their last day in the icu. She doesn't want to be there, and she doesn't want to do her job. So I go in and tell her, hey, you need to put this in the system. This guy has been fighting for this for, like, six months now. You need to make him a dnr. She doesn't do it. I come in an hour later, and I. I start arguing with her like, no, I'm not joking. Like, you need to make this guy DNR in the system. Doesn't do it. Oh, leave me alone. You're jinxing me. Nothing's gonna happen to this guy. It's my last night. I'm busy, Blah, blah, blah. So I go in one more time at maybe midnight, and I start yelling at her like, hey, you know, I'm like, I'm just a nurse here, but you have got to make this guy a dnr. If something happens to him and we go against his wishes. This is brutal. It's wrong. Sure enough, two in the morning, we go to clean him. I'm cleaning him with a charge nurse. So the charge nurse is kind of in charge of the floor, and we're cleaning him up, and we flip them around. And the dude, blue. I mean, he's. He's gone. He's on his way out. And I'm. I'm so brutal to admit, but I'm arguing with her, saying, let him go. Like, this is what he wants. He's a dnr. And she says, you have to bag him. Like, you have to. You have to bring him back or at least try.

[Shane Claytor]

And the blue is just from lack of oxygen.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. So when we Flipped him over. When you're paralyzed, even the waist down, you're just not moving very well. Any small movements sometimes, especially when you have a trach can throw you, throw you through a loop and, you know, and you just don't recover.

[Shane Claytor]

I forgot he had a trach in.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, he had a trach as well. So we flip him back over and I'm, I'm arguing with, over, over his body. Like, I, I don't, I need, I want to honor his wishes. And she was right. I mean, I hate to admit that because I would, you know, I, I, that's jail time for me if I don't do it. And so I have to bag him, you know, and I bag him, and he comes back, the doctor runs in and I just go off on her, you know, start yelling at her in front of everybody. Like, you, you look at this guy, you just made this gu. Six more months because you didn't want to do the basics of your job, blah, blah, blah. And I kept telling, she's crying, you know, the next morning I kept going because I'm like, you just ruined this guy. You know, for. To me, that's criminal. I, I feel like maybe not, you know, maybe she doesn't need to go.

[Shane Claytor]

To jail for that, but metaphorically, I see.

[Unknown Speaker]

At least punish her, you know, I mean, at least take her license or make her nothing. Not the va. Nothing, Nothing. Not even a. And I told everybody, you know, I wasn't a full time employee there. I was a travel nurse. Obviously I worked full time, but I wasn't considered one of their staff. I mean, my buddies was a. He was a assistant manager there. Cool dude. He was a corpsman. One of their only, you know, real strong military guys that was there and just nobody did anything. He couldn't do anything about it. You know, he didn't have the power to, to make anything happen. But to me, that kind of stuff in a hospital is criminal. In the va, that kind of stuff happens all the time.

[Shane Claytor]

How much longer did he live?

[Unknown Speaker]

About six more months. I mean, I was right. He died just about maybe three weeks ago.

[Shane Claytor]

Had you not bagged him in that moment, how long do you think it would have taken?

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, he was gone. He was gone. I mean, he was blue. He was probably a minute, two minutes to being gone.

[Shane Claytor]

Did he ever recover consciousness after that?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, no, he recovered and came back. I love the guy because he, you know, at that point, he, he could talk. You know, he flipped me off all the time. Every time I see him, like I love me, but he took it out on all the staff, you know, and, and you know, a lot of the VA's filled with some really good nurses, you know, and I mean, genuinely, some, really, some of the best nurses I've worked at are at the va. Some of the worst nurses and worst humans I've ever worked with are at the VA as well. And it's just like the military, you know, you can't get rid of them. So you have like the best, you have people that are in there for the right reasons and then you have the absolute worst, where I don't think they could work anywhere else. But there's, and it's, it's very hard to fire people. And so you get a, you get a decent amount of both and it causes a lot of problems in the system. But yeah, so what he would do is just mess with the nurses that were bad. I mean, he would, he had a, you know, like a suction, because you got to suction yourself quite a bit when you, when you have a trach. And he would just click, you know, on the side of the bed 24 hours a day if he didn't like you. Sometimes if he was in a mood, he would do it just to get on your nerves, but. And you had to respond because the guy would lose oxygen pretty quick. So I thought it was hilarious and he didn't do it to me that much, but, but I, you know, some of the nurses would go, he would drive them insane and I would come in and help him and he would just smile at me like, yeah, yeah, you know exactly what I'm, yeah, I know exactly what you're doing, you know, so I got him once good. I felt bad, I made him cry, but he did it to me one time and I had just had enough. So I walked in and I grabbed his stick and I just banged it on the side of the bed. And I just looked at him, he looked at me and I just banged it again, looked at him, banged it again, looked at him. He said, exactly. How does that feel? Exactly, you know, you're. And then he stopped. He got a little teary eyed and I came back and apologized to him. Say, hey man, yeah, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you know, I'm here to help you. I don't do this stuff to you like some of these other guys. So, yeah, what do you call a.

[Shane Claytor]

Doctor that's not a resident anymore?

[Unknown Speaker]

Just a doctor? Yeah, so it's kind of, I mean, they're, they're doctors. They're just in a residence. It's a. Not kind of. It's like a three or four year training program at the va. The VA is a little longer than it needs to be. It's. I think it's a four year program. So they get out, they're doctors, and they basically spend four years rotating through all the different floors while they're figuring out their next. What they want to focus on. You know, a lot of the doctors we worked with in the ICU wanted. They were anesthesiologists, so they were full anesthesiologists. And then they're kind of figuring out where they're going to go next in their. You know, are they going to go surgery or anything? Or this kind of surgery. The problem, especially in the VA with those kind of guys is a lot of them, that's not their end goal. So you sit them in an icu, especially at night, they're alone. They don't want to be there. And it puts guys in danger. Like what happened with this guy is a pretty. It's not an unheard of story in that kind of system, you know, and it's because of that you get people that just. They just don't want to do their job. They don't even want to be there. They just want to get out and do the next thing. And the patients at the end of the day really suffer when you have something like that.

[Shane Claytor]

So, yeah, if you are. So the nurses and doctors that are working directly for the va, how are they hired? Are they GS?

[Unknown Speaker]

They're not GS. They're under. It's a medical. I forget what you call it. It's very similar, but they're not.

[Shane Claytor]

Then I ask because for people who are unfamiliar, the GS or Government Service Protocol, you get to 366 days. It's really hard to get rid of somebody. There's that one year kind of raised two.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think it's two. Two probation. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

For the docs or nurses.

[Unknown Speaker]

Nurses. It's two. I think the docs are the same. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Does it cross over to that threshold, though? It's almost God. To remove.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, my God. I've got stories. I could tell stories for the next 10 years about the VA and some of the things that go on there and they don't deal with. You know, I mean, it's insane.

[Shane Claytor]

I worry a couple of things, you know, with Trump coming into office, he's got Vivek and fucking Elon.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

They're talking a real good game.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

About carving out Efficiencies and systems. And I have had some conversations with people. Nobody wants to point that scalpel towards.

[Unknown Speaker]

The va, which shocks me. Well, it's a second. Second.

[Shane Claytor]

It doesn't shock me because of the optic, the optic that people are, but they butt up against. When you look at reducing efficiency in the va, what they hear, I think is we're not gonna care for veterans.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

What I don't think that they realize is that is a bureaucracy like all of these other bureaucracies, and it probably would net better treatment if they did put it under that same optic. But I'm worried it's going to escape scrutiny because of that social optic.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I, I, I mean, maybe stuff like this will help, I hope, but I mean, it's, no, that is the, it's brutal. I mean, it's the, it's, you know, when you hear about these government agencies and the waste and the VA is the absolute king of that, in my opinion, from working there. I mean, it's insane. I mean, they've talked. When I, when I started, I started there, I didn't know anything about the va. I didn't, I, you know, I was a typical, probably like, I didn't want anything to do with the va. When I got out of the military, I just wanted to move on with my life, get on to the next thing. And I moved to Florida. 2011, I moved to Florida. My dad, my stepdad had passed away when I was in the military and I moved to Florida. My brother married a girl from that area and he had lived there for a long time. And so I was kind of helping with my mom or just being around her. You know, I moved to get closer to her and we moved there together. And my brother was kind of having a rough time at the time. And then I ended up kind of going to nursing school. I didn't really want to go to nursing school. I tried to start a business and that flopped. Not, it was actually. We got in some legal issues. It was an ex military guy that got us into trouble. But I went to nursing school and I saw like they, they had an, I had an opportunity to be like a, you know, a student nurse at the VA while I was in training. It paid pretty well. You know, it was an easy job. I knew. And that was my first experience with va. I had never even walked into a VA before that. I wanted nothing to do with it. I had heard nothing but bad things. And I interviewed and got, you know, there was three of us that got hired into this program and yeah, the inefficiencies are through the roof. I mean, in 2016, when I started there, they were talking about bringing in Cerner, which is a medical health record. It's like a database. It's basically a way. It's not a database, it's a system, an operating system that nurses and doctors use. So it's an electronic health records. So basically what Cerner is, is you have all the patient's data. You have the ability to look at. You know, if you have a patient, say, in the icu, you can look at all the systems, what their heart rate is. Everything's on one system. I can do all their medication from one system.

[Shane Claytor]

Is this what I was hooked up to? Like December of last year in the hospital, when they're beating stuff?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. So when you're hooked up to all that, I can see that from Cerner. I have a system that shows all that. Okay, well, the va. Okay, let's put it this way. The va, when you first get there and you get a job and they do the, like, the, you know, the, the new. New employee, whatever, they brag about being the first to have an electronic health record. Well, they. They brought in their electronic health record. It's called CPRS. They brought that in in, like, 1981. Great. You have a first to get the electronic health record. Well, now it's 2016, and you haven't changed it. So now. Now you're on pace with, like, Guatemala. You know what I mean? I mean, for real, like, that's how insane it is.

[Shane Claytor]

Basically, you have a quill pen and a piece of parchment.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's dos. It's literally like, you know, Vista. Vista. Have you. Did you guys do Vista in the seal? It's the same kind of system.

[Shane Claytor]

The fuck is vista?

[Unknown Speaker]

I think. Did you guys use VISTA in the. In. At least? We did in our medical thing. It's. Vista's like the old. It's almost like working in dos. It's military.

[Shane Claytor]

I never did my own medical stuff.

[Unknown Speaker]

I wanted to, but did you guys have a. You guys had to have some kind of a computer system, right? The cornbreading system.

[Shane Claytor]

So we had corpsman attached to the command. Yeah, I would go see them. Yeah, I have a clue what they were.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's. It's Vista.

[Shane Claytor]

Okay.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, it's. It's Vista. It's basically the same kind of system. And it's clunky. It's. I mean, it's. It's literally like working in DOS as a kid. I mean, when I was like 12. It's the same kind of system. It's insane. So when I first got there in 2016, they were saying, hey, we're going to bring in Cerner. Cerner's like the new thing. You can do everything in one shot. Congress spent billions of dollars doing it. It's.

[Shane Claytor]

Are civilians already using it?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes, they've been using it.

[Shane Claytor]

That's what I was gonna say. Okay, so, yeah, you're just gonna go ahead and bring in the current state.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, here's what. Here's where, where we're at now. So 20, 24, eight years later, they still haven't gotten Cerner in, and now.

[Shane Claytor]

They'Re still using Vista.

[Unknown Speaker]

They're still using the same kind of old system, cprs. Yeah. And they don't just do that. The system sold, you can't even do, like, when you go in, you have to log in and you have patient data. So, like, if you come in as a patient and I need to read notes or whatever, that's one system. And then when I'm doing your medication, that's another system. So I'm operating now in two systems. They're both just as clunky. Yes, somewhat. Not somewhat. Yes, but not really. And they go out of whack all the time. So you're constantly have to turn your computer off and on. And then for ICU nurses, you have another system to chart, like your daily. Like if you're, you know, if you're hooked up to the machines that you were talking about. So you're basically operating in three separate charting system. It's brutal. And then, you know, they lean on you like, the big one, especially nowadays in the va, is drug discrepancies. That's any. Because they've had so many meaning.

[Shane Claytor]

Giving somebody the wrong stuff, wrong stuff.

[Unknown Speaker]

Or forgetting to scan a medication, a misplaced narcotic. But they, you know, and they'll get onto you. And they're really harsh on. I mean, I've seen them, you know, I've seen them bring cops in to nurses and bring them out. And a lot of it's to scare them. It's a scare tactic so they don't make the same mistake or so that other nurses see, oh, hey, they're taking it real serious. But you've got, you know, the charting systems are so out of date and so clunky that they'll say, well, the VA isn't as busy as a regular hospital. Which a lot of times that's true, but the systems are so clunky and out of date, it's way more difficult. And when you're. When you're working in a. In a system that doesn't operate efficiently, I mean, you make a lot of mistakes. And my opinion has always been, I don't care. I wasn't married and have kids. You can write me up a thousand times for these kind of mistakes. Fix your systems. And my concern is always going to be patient first. You know, I could sit and make my charting perfect and my systems and my patient suffers. That's just not how I. How I've always operated as a nurse. I'm going to worry about my patient first, and then I'll worry about, you know, and then when I get written up for a drug discrepancy, I'm going to be honest, I'm going to say, hey, you know, I don't know, turn on the computer. It probably was clunky and it didn't work the end. And I would give them that piece of paper rather than making some huge excuse, which a lot of nurses do, and they would freak. They would get pissed at me, like, how are you? This is your story. And I'd say, yeah, yeah, I probably turned my computer on. It was going on and off, and I gave my patient the medication. I forgot to scan it. I'm sure that's what happened, because that happens all the time. So. But yeah, that's the. I mean, the amount of money they wasted on trying to bring Cerner in. And then I had. The crazy thing is, during COVID I had a patient that she was in charge of. She was like an engineer, you know, computer engineer, and she was in charge. She was one of the top dogs for Cerner in integrating the system because she was a veteran. She. Her job was to integrate the systems. And I said, well, what's like, what's going on with this? How come they can do this in other hospitals? And she said, you know, obviously, the VA operates on an old, clunky system. It's the biggest healthcare system in the country, and you have to get all those records into Cerner before you can get going. But she said, the truth is the reason, the real reason they've had a hard time with it is just personnel. Each VA hospital runs separately, so it's just getting all these guys on board and they. They play all the games. They do fmla, where, you know, my kid's sick, I'm sick, I can't come into work today. And that's from the top down. And they. They just can't get all these These different hospitals on board together. So they just create chaos for them. It's cost. It's cost the government billions of dollars. They still haven't done it. So now Cerner's out of date.

[Shane Claytor]

No way.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The new one. Epic is the new one. And it's like. I mean, epic's amazing. I did EPIC in Idaho as a travel nurse. And Epic has like. I mean, you can see when a patient is coming from another hospital, you can pull up what's going on with them. They, you know, the systems communicate together. You have a. You know, as if I need to chart on you. You come in and you're, you know, you have injuries. That's a big one for us, obviously, to chart if you have any kind of physical injuries, because you want to make sure that nothing happened while they were in the hospital. I mean, you can pull up a body and it's a 3D image, so you can just mark things right there to keep track of it. I mean, it's amazing. But now Cerner's out of date. By the time they get it in, if they ever get it in.

[Shane Claytor]

Are they still trying to.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's what drives me insane. I mean, you mentioned Elon Musk and Vivek, and, you know, if these guys. I don't understand, with the amount of knowledge these guys would have, why they can't just come in and blow it all up. I mean, you absolutely have to come in and just say, all right, enough is enough. Like, this is what we're gonna do. Everyone shut their mouths, everyone's on board, or you're out of here. That's what you have to do.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, I look at it, I'll put myself in Elon's shoes for a few minutes. First off, I would take a rocket to work every day if I was able to save.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Suck. It must be very, very clear. His IQ is substantially higher than mine, so I'll probably sound like an idiot and. Yeah, we'll just leave it at that. If I was looking at that. Not that. Not that that organization, from my understanding, the Doge organization would have the ability to necessarily make the change, but they could make the recommendation to somebody who could. Right. And I don't know what. Because I think they're going to identify stuff and then make recommendations. That's my understanding.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So I guess I would have to put myself in somebody else's shoes. Yeah. Cool. Each VA hospital works independently.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Just looking at this, like, okay, you guys are using something that was current in the 90s.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, whereas.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. 80s. Whereas modern medicine now is. Let's just use EPIC as an example. That's the gold standard. Cool. I don't really care if you want to come into work and put these records in. You have a fucking week to do this.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you.

[Shane Claytor]

And the VA medical system would take a galactic leap forward, at least in the portal and the information protocol.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Cool story that you all work independently, but I feel like the money all comes from the same budget.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

You want your money? Yeah. It's Monday, Friday at 1600, which is 4pm for those of you not in the military.

[Unknown Speaker]

100. I mean especially nowadays you have systems. I don't care what it takes takes to put in these guys history and the records. Then you create a intermediate system that does that, that I can go to and check while you're implementing this new system. And other hospitals do it all the time. And what they do is they farm out other nurses and doctors to come in and help while maybe the standard nurses and doctors are inputting or whatever.

[Shane Claytor]

You have while they're onboarding a new system.

[Unknown Speaker]

And they have so many patients.

[Shane Claytor]

It's a solvable problem.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. It's not that difficult, but it is because of the personnel and all the games that they play. And then you've got, you know, I mean, it's insane how deep it goes. And I don't know if you know about FMLA in the system. FMLA is like it's family medical leave and assistance or something like that. That's the game a lot of VA employees play. And they're gonna hate me for saying this, but I hate it. It's disgusting. So these guys will go and get a doctor to sign off that, you know, their kid's sick or whatever, which is fine, you know, you need some time off. Well, they'll do it for a year, from year to year or they have some kind of medical condition. Long term, what that does, it's basically a free pass. They can call into work whenever they want and there's nothing the VA can do about it. You know, and if they, you know, if they get rid of all their sick time and all their vacation time, they basically still have that pass to call into work whenever they want. So half your employees have FMLA and, and they just, you know, so like if you're busy on a shift and you know, the, the dirtbag nurses will find out the patients that are there and how busy it is and they'll just use their FMLA and they Won't come in. And that's every hospital. I've been at three VA hospitals. I started in Florida, and then I went to Kentucky and then back to Florida. They all have that same problem. And it doesn't just go with the nurses. It.

[Shane Claytor]

It's.

[Unknown Speaker]

The entire system has that problem. And if you don't fix that kind of stuff, you're never going to be able to get anything done because they'll just. And they'll do it to punish management. Like, oh, you're. You're. You know, you want me to do this here? Let me just call in. And there's nothing you can do about it. I'll just say my kid is. Whatever.

[Shane Claytor]

Is there a civilian equivalent of that?

[Unknown Speaker]

I don't know. Like, not to that level. There's no way. I've never worked anywhere where. Not at that level. I mean, I've worked it during COVID I worked it six hospitals. Six different hospitals. Three VAs, one, like, local community hospital, one large system, the largest system in Idaho, and then another large system in Tampa. And the VA is. The VA is the only one that I've ever worked at that where you could. Employees could get away with that. There's nothing like that.

[Shane Claytor]

Michael, will you pull up FMLA real fast? I just actually want to read what the actual doctrine is.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, it's wild.

[Shane Claytor]

Do you know if that's a VA system only?

[Unknown Speaker]

I think it's the federal government in general. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Let us take a look at this.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

This is why, Michael. This is how he earns his paycheck.

[Unknown Speaker]

Go for it, Michael.

[Shane Claytor]

Why does it do that? Why does it want to sassy like that?

[Unknown Speaker]

It's really annoying, though.

[Shane Claytor]

Does it?

[Unknown Speaker]

Every time. You're better looking than powder, too, by the way.

[Shane Claytor]

I know.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Can't you see him, though? I mean, we should.

[Unknown Speaker]

Much better.

[Shane Claytor]

We could shave him up.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Lock him in a closet for a month. He'd be about the same color as his shirt.

[Unknown Speaker]

And you're in Montana. There's not much sun right now anyways. No, I just go outside for a little bit. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

All right. So. Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid job protected leave for specified family and medical reasons. So job protected, I think, is the key word there with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. Ooh. Okay. Eligible employees are entitled to 12 work weeks of leave in a 12 month period. Wow. A week. A month.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Some things under here, Birth of a child and care for the newborn within one year. Placement with the employment of child for adoption or foster care to care for the employee's spouse, child or parent. Serious medical condition, serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job. Any qualifying exigency. This is where. Yeah. Arising out of the fact the employee's spouse, son, daughter, parent is a covered military member on covered active duty. Wow. Okay.

[Unknown Speaker]

26 work weeks of leave during a single 12 month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or whatever. So all you have to do is get a doctor to sign that off. And they really don't like to argue too much because they would basically be fighting with a doctor.

[Shane Claytor]

It's also the same optic as, well the optic you face is. Are you trying to withhold somebody's ability to care for their family?

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly, exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Job protected is.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's the, that's critical. Yeah. So imagine now you understand, you know, that's the. To me, that's the dirty secret. They don't talk about a lot. Half your employees have this, half the nurses on a floor have that. So when it's a busy day and you're, you're getting brutalized, these guys will just call each other and go, oh, it's, it's what? There's this patient, this patient, this patient. I'm taking off, I'm using my fmla and they do it all the time and it's disgusting.

[Shane Claytor]

So it's wild too, because it says, you know, they take it unpaid. Which people would say, so what does it really matter? Well, it matters because patient care.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

And your ratios are probably all over the damn place.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, it kills you. I mean, absolutely. In an ICU setting, especially when it's really busy. I mean, you need every body you can get. And it absolutely murders the system. I mean, it stresses. Usually it's a standard group of people that are hardworking, they're going to do whatever they can to get it done. And it stresses them, you know, to a point where they, A lot of times they'll break and either they become like the rest of them and just go do it themselves, or they leave.

[Shane Claytor]

And they find green pastures.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, exactly. Or they just go to some clinic and sit around and do nothing for the rest of their careers. That's a pretty common thing, especially from the ICUs. Every ICU in the VA that I've worked at has that issue. I mean, I, you know, as a travel nurse, like I was Getting paid quite a bit. I come, I'm a guy too. Like, you know, and the military helps. I never cry about that stuff. I mean, it takes a lot to get me to that level. Every now and then I would get pissed and I would go nuts, but I just looked as whatever. I'm a travel nurse. This is, my job is to get beat up and get the worst patients or the patient, like the patient that's crapping all over himself or the, that nobody wants to deal with. Like, that's kind of my job. But, you know, like the, especially the girls that, you know, work their tails off, they love veterans. They're there to really help. I mean, they get really beat up in that system and they get abused and they break, you know, eventually they'll, they'll break and it's, it's really sad to watch and there's really not a lot of help for them, you know, and they just get, they get overworked because the management has to take care of the patient. They got to get, you know, the patients taken care of. And it's just, it's a constant problem in those systems.

[Shane Claytor]

So as somebody who has seen that being abused, how would you, how would you change the FMLA system?

[Unknown Speaker]

I, I mean, I think, I honestly think you got to go in and root it out and just say, listen, there's certain standards that we have to have. And if you're a nurse at this level, and it really, to me, any floor nurse, you just got to get rid of that stuff. I mean, given there's, there's, I mean, there's times where if you have a kid, you know, obviously you need to take time off if you have an illness. But the standard needs to be if you can't do the job and you can't perform in this kind of setting, you shouldn't, you can't be working on the floors. There's younger nurses they can bring in. I mean, you know, that's, I would just root it out and get it out of there. I don't see how you can fix it when you have that kind of stuff. Because the natural response of humans is if you give them that leeway, they're going to use it. And a lot of times they use it because, you know, either they get in trouble or management is on them and they say, well, screw it, I'm going to go do this to protect myself. Or they're burnout and broken themselves. So they go use this. And then now they have their get out of jail free card and they use it whenever, but there's no punishment, there's no penalty for the guys that use that. And, I mean, you wonder why. It's a broken system. And the end of the day, the. The patients are the ones that suffer for that kind of stuff, and they suffer greatly. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's bad, you know. So how was.

[Shane Claytor]

How was the COVID time period, just as a nurse in general and then interfacing with the va?

[Unknown Speaker]

So I. I mean, I have some crazy stories during, you know, when co. When Covid hit, I was working at a VA and I was splitting time. I never wanted to be, like, institutionalized, so I. I knew right away I got to get out of the VA system and work at other hospitals. I started at a va, you know, as an employee, as a nurse. And so I was working at a. At a local hospital in. In Florida, in Jupiter, Florida, and I was splitting time when Covid first hit. I have a hard time now because a lot of people look back and go, oh, you know, nurses were dancing. It wasn't scary when Covid first hit. It was scary. I mean, it was.

[Shane Claytor]

The first reports were gnarly.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. And we were hearing all of it because I worked at the va, we were hearing all of the reports from China, and then we were hearing reports from New York, like the real reports of what was going on. And it was scary. I remember my first patient in a local hospital. I came in, and they hadn't had any COVID patients. And I walked in and it was. I mean, it was literally like a war zone. I walked in and there were, you know, crap going off all day long. The pumps were going off. We had. We were given, you know, intubating patients left and right. I had a patient. I had two patients when this was the first where I had real COVID patients, you know, and that's kind of how covet kind of came in streaks. You wouldn't have any COVID patient, and you'd have 20 at once. And in the beginning, all of them were getting pretty sick right away. A lot of them had all the comorbidities that were causing issues. But my first day in the local hospital when that happened, for one, they locked us in a room like they didn't even have a. There was no. No negative air pressure. The charge nurses, the old school nurses, were scared to death of COVID obviously. So the new nurses, I was a. Like a contract nurse there. They locked us in a big square room, like eight. Eight beds. And it was brutal. There was no air. And we're just like. We're all like, we're gonna die. You know, I. I have a sixth sense of humor, especially after the military. I thought some of it was funny. You know, me and my buddy were just kind of joking around, but I know, like, the first day I was in there, we had a doctor, he was a surgeon, and he had gotten Covid from a patient in his clinic. And it was brutal, man. He had one lung. He had been pretty sick. I think he had cancer. He had just survived cancer. And I was in. Like, it wasn't my patient. And I was in the room. We were helping innovate him. You know, I'm. I've got a. You know, he's on FaceTime with his wife crying, she's saying goodbye to him. And that was when, you know, early when, you know, they were. Patients were totally isolated. And as we're like, doing all this, I'm like, where's his nurse? I'm not even his nurse. And I look over and she was in the corner with her head between her knees, just. She just had a breakdown, just crying her eyes out, and she couldn't function. And so we had to tell her, you gotta, you know, you gotta go somewhere else. You can't. Especially in front of a patient. You can't do this. You know, that was kind of the beginning. There was a couple girls in the very beginning on that day that had breakdowns like that. I actually, that. That day I made a decision to leave and go to the VA full time. And the only reason was I was worried. I had to make a decision. When Covid first hit, I was working at two different hospitals. My fear was I was gonna get Covid and get isolated and never seen my family, which is what was happening. I was like, I'm never gonna see my family again. I don't want to have to deal with that, you know, And I was really worried. Working in 200 hospitals, if I got sick, nobody was going to cover me, you know, So I said, I'm going to the va. And the va, as an employee, you have the federal insurance. And the federal insurance is amazing. You know, I mean, that. That insurance is top notch. So I. That was why I made my decision. I went back to the va. When I went back to the va, I mean, this gets crazy, but I think it exposes a lot of stuff that goes on in the va. When I went back to the va, I had kind of gotten into it with the manager there. She was terrified of COVID And you Know, in the very beginning, when we were hearing all the reports, we were trying to set up the ICU to, you know, help patients. A lot of, like, you know, setting up kind of makeshift negative pressure rooms, the clear rooms where you put on your. Don your gear, you know, so you don't get exposed. It's all military stuff. And I had kept volunteering to help. I'm like, this is, like, basic stuff for military guys, especially if you've been overseas. And they didn't want to do they. The. The manager kept getting mad at me, like, get your nose out. I said, all right, well, you guys are. You guys have no idea what you're doing, for one. And. And we were having meetings like, every. I'm not. I'm not even exaggerating, like, every hour for, like, two weeks. When you're having a meeting every hour to change the policy, you're scared, and you don't know what you're doing, and it exposes that. So I had finally. I had had enough, and I came in one day, and the manager kind of started getting into it with me. I think I came in when I wasn't supposed to, because at that time, I was working at both hospitals. And she started yelling at me and told me to leave. You're going to infect us. That she was terrified of other nurses giving us it to her as well. And I left, and I turned back around and I said, you know, you're. I said, you're the most fearful manager I've ever worked with in my life. Like, you can't lead like this. You're. You're. You're causing everybody else to be fearful, and it's going to break down the whole unit. You can't do this. So she, you know, got mad at me, blah, blah, blah. I left. And my buddies, all the other nurses called me and said, here's what's going to happen. You're going to get kicked out of the icu. She knows the game. You're going to get in trouble and just expect it. And at some point, you're. This is going to happen, I promise you. Because she's been calling us asking if she's fearful. And, you know, about what you said, because I think she knew that I called her out on it. So when Covid, you know, when we first started getting Covid at the va, I came in and we had a. It was actually a kind of a brutal story. It was an employee, kind of a heavyset guy, had all the comorbidities, got really sick from COVID right away. And he got intubated. He was in an isolation room and they had to put him on a rotoprone bed. And a rotoprone bed is basically. You have so much fluid in your lungs, and it's just that you can't drain that fluid even by machines or whatever. So you have to flip that patient over on a bed and just physically drain him from all the fluid. And you. I think it's like 16 and 8. He's flipped over upside down for six weeks.

[Shane Claytor]

When you say drain him, what is the mechanic.

[Unknown Speaker]

Pull up rotoprone bridge bed.

[Shane Claytor]

What is.

[Unknown Speaker]

You literally drain. So you're physically.

[Shane Claytor]

Like he opens his mouth and it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Pours out or what are we talking int. Right. And he's got all this crap in his lungs and you're literally physically flipping this guy over and just draining. All of it's coming. I mean, it's the most.

[Shane Claytor]

Does it just pour out?

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, it's the most disgusting thing you can ever imagine. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Flip, look up rotor prone bed. Rotor video.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, I think I understand the mechanics of the bed.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. I mean, the mechanic. It makes sense, you know, you training.

[Shane Claytor]

A human being using gravity. Sounds fucking horrendous.

[Unknown Speaker]

It is horrific. It is. It's absolutely horrific. So that's. That's putting a patient in. But I don't know if you got any videos of. So this is all. Okay. Yeah. So this is how you. You put a patient. A rotoprome bed.

[Shane Claytor]

Okay. Yeah. So obviously, if you're going to be rotating, they're going to be.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, you have to serious. And the hard thing, you know, the difficult thing is you got to make sure that everything strapped. Strapped in or.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, yeah, that would be rotations.

[Unknown Speaker]

Dead. Yeah. And then they're obviously on Nimbex, which is like a neuromuscular blocker. So they're totally paralyzed. And they have propofol. So they're. They're completely out of it.

[Shane Claytor]

Skip.

[Unknown Speaker]

Brutal.

[Shane Claytor]

Let's see this thing driving. Okay. I mean, yeah, so far. Yep. We're gonna get ready. Go, Michael. Go, Michael, go. Holy shit.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's no joke. It's no joke. Oh, it didn't. Oh, wait.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. You don't even know how to use YouTube.

[Unknown Speaker]

I thought I wasn't gonna show it.

[Shane Claytor]

Enhance. Enhance.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm enhancing.

[Shane Claytor]

Holy shit.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

What's the price tag on one of these things?

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, I don't. They rented them, but they've gotta be.

[Shane Claytor]

Michael, for the love of God, take the fucking mouse icon to the bar. And pull it to the right. Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Fine powder. You can do it.

[Shane Claytor]

All right. You just skip past it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Essentially. That's.

[Shane Claytor]

God, you suck.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you put up, like, you're fired.

[Shane Claytor]

Until tomorrow, maybe as we're talking, pull.

[Unknown Speaker]

An actual patient up in one.

[Shane Claytor]

No. So. No, I mean, I get it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So you're telling me you flip this person over and that was just like.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah. No, it just drains for hours.

[Shane Claytor]

What are you. What. What color is it?

[Unknown Speaker]

Buckets. I mean, it's usually clear. Sometimes it's thick. Yellow. If they're really. Obviously, if they've got infection. A lot of them do. It's gnarly. It's actually the mucus, like, that makes me gag more than. Like, more than crap, more than vomit. Mucus at that level is one of the worst.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. Michael, you had it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's no joke.

[Shane Claytor]

How fast can you spin that thing?

[Unknown Speaker]

You got to be really careful. Yeah. Because you can. I'm actually during COVID I got my guy. The first guy I had. I got him stuck. He was hanging. I'm getting so much trouble if I admit this, but I was in the room by myself, and no one was there with me. I mean, you could kill the guy. I mean, because he. You know, now his heart is all in a weird spot. He's in a comparable. But I got it. I got it. Fit. Next. So what had happened? The crazy thing is what had happened when Covid first hit. I had a patient like this.

[Shane Claytor]

And so it basically just. It goes down the long act.

[Unknown Speaker]

It just flips a patient all the way over like that. And you. You keep them there for 16 hours, and in the morning, you flip them back.

[Shane Claytor]

How fast can you spend that thing, though?

[Unknown Speaker]

You got to be careful. You can't spin it too fast because they're.

[Shane Claytor]

But could you. If you wanted to.

[Unknown Speaker]

You. If you. If you really wanted to screw with one. Something.

[Shane Claytor]

I'm thinking about, like a new.

[Unknown Speaker]

A new seal. You. Absolutely.

[Shane Claytor]

No, I'm. Like the pilot videos, you know where they put them in the G thing.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Until they pass. I'm just curious.

[Unknown Speaker]

It'd be fun. I mean. Yeah. I don't. I don't know. I've never. I've never tried it. We don't get to mess with them too much. If a patient's not actually.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, no.

[Unknown Speaker]

Because it's a guy. You call a guy. You read it, he comes in, he helps you kind of like, set up the first process, and then he's out of there, and then he comes Back. He actually the guy that he had.

[Shane Claytor]

Never do it on the patient. You would do it on a fully healthy nurse?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. No, I would. I would do it. I mean, I've already, you know, given myself a. Had heart attack basically by. With the AED Sometimes. I'll try this. This would be nothing comparatively.

[Shane Claytor]

Estimated price tag on one of those.

[Unknown Speaker]

I would say a million, probably.

[Shane Claytor]

Michael. No, look up more. No, I want you to look up the price.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh. I thought you were gonna say we can do this to you because maybe.

[Shane Claytor]

It could fit right there.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Next time you have a cold, that's all you need.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, no. He. I'd put him in there for two. I'd pay. I would pay him to be in there two hours a day. But I get to control it.

[Unknown Speaker]

He says, get a qu. Hold on. Let me see if I can. Maybe it's less, maybe it's a couple.

[Shane Claytor]

Hundred thousand, but it's definitely not cheap.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's got to be in the millions, though, because it's all. It's got sensors on it. But see, the brutal thing in. A lot of those guys, like our guy had a chest tube. That's a chest tube. Yeah, they're. You know, their head has all these tubes going into them. They're. They're. Usually it's in their neck. If they're at that point, they've got an IV in their neck. A central line.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, you might as well go direct.

[Unknown Speaker]

This one's used, but it's. That's 5,000. Really?

[Shane Claytor]

Where is it located?

[Unknown Speaker]

Get out of here. There you go. I would have thought that thing's like a million dollars. I don't know.

[Shane Claytor]

Well, it might be heavily Texas.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. It's all right.

[Shane Claytor]

You said you wanted to go check out Austin. We can get you a truck. We'll run a truck.

[Unknown Speaker]

Wow. That's. That's at all, actually.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, that's a 24 PN 29500.

[Unknown Speaker]

Is that to. Is that. Yes, that's. That's the selling price. I would have thought it'd be in the millions. Huh. I said, this doesn't look as fancy as the one in the video.

[Shane Claytor]

It's not about being fancy. It's about whether or not you fit that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Michael. Definitely functional. That'll work.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, dude, bookmark that page. That might be your Christmas present.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I'm deleting this from search history.

[Shane Claytor]

Man, that is.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's gnarly. It's not. So I had. When Covid. First hit. This was our first Patient. And it was a brutal situation because he was an employee. The family was real involved. Nobody wanted to get him because they were terrified of COVID You know, the va, I think the VA has the oldest nursing like corps in the, in the country.

[Shane Claytor]

Like, like median age.

[Unknown Speaker]

The average age is, is older. And they, you know, a lot of them were married and had kids and a lot of women, you know, and I, I'm a dude, you know, I didn't have kids. I felt like I should be responsible to kind of do those things. So in the beginning, I volunteered to take COVID patients whenever. And the, the policy in the VA at the time was you only had to have a COVID patient one day and you had like an assistant to help you change and do all that. This was when we had like a full on spacesuits. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it was a little overkill even then. I thought it was a little overkill.

[Shane Claytor]

What was that Morgan Freeman movie? This is another one. I guarantee you Michael has an outbreak.

[Unknown Speaker]

Outbreak. Yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Have you seen that?

[Unknown Speaker]

Seen it? Nope. No.

[Shane Claytor]

God damn it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Have you seen 12 Monkeys?

[Shane Claytor]

Assume that if it's an awesome movie. He hasn't seen it. He's seen Moana, though.

[Unknown Speaker]

I haven't seen Moana. What's the new one? Have you seen that? Wicked. Oh, I've heard that was horrible. Okay. I don't know though.

[Shane Claytor]

Gladiator 2.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, heard that was horrible. I've seen the first Gladiator, though. It's pretty bad. Yeah, that one looks rough.

[Shane Claytor]

What character do you think he would have been in? Gladiator Michael.

[Unknown Speaker]

And it's been a while. The main Denzel. Would you been Denzel?

[Shane Claytor]

You would have at best been a dude holding a palm frond, potentially feeding grapes like that. Is that you are apexed out at that. I digress. So back to your guy.

[Unknown Speaker]

So I, I had volunteered for three days to take the patient because nobody wanted him. They were terrified of COVID And it.

[Shane Claytor]

Was, was the one day based on. Hey, you probably.

[Unknown Speaker]

It was exposure. Like we don't want you to.

[Shane Claytor]

Still a good amount of exposure.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. 12 hours. I mean, and this kind of patient to be in the room forever. So not only did I do. And you know, I'm nothing special, but I, I had been through the military and all that, and, and I, I felt especially as a veteran, I was the only veteran on the day shift. Just kind of, you know, I, I more than anything, I, I wasn't married. I didn't have kids. So I'm like, this is My responsibility. I should be doing this kind of stuff. And. And, you know, the nurses were crying. I mean, it was brutal. So I went in and I had that patient for three days in a row. The rotoprone is a lot of work now. Even the respiratory therapists at the time were scared to death of it, so they weren't really helping. So a lot of it I'm having to do by myself. And usually that's like a three or four man job because you gotta. I mean, you really gotta make sure everybody's. You know, that they're in there tight.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And that everything's safe. And then when you turn, you gotta hold the. All the tubes and everything. You know, this guy had a tube in his nose and his throat.

[Shane Claytor]

An engine tube.

[Unknown Speaker]

An NG tube. Yeah. You gotta make sure they're brutal.

[Shane Claytor]

They tried to give me one when I was in the er.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

This little. Yeah, this little nurse walks in with two helpers.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I can imagine.

[Shane Claytor]

And she says, hey, we're gonna do an NG tube. And don't worry, I know all the tricks. I got the lidocaine. I instantly recognized what was happening. I was about to be a medical training device.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So my wife's sitting in there with me, and she didn't realize. You can say no.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So I sat there and I said, absolutely not.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And then the doc comes in and he goes, well, how come? Like, what's the deal? And I said, doc, you and I both know these are horrendous. I've helped put these in on people. Don't sit there and tell me that this is going to be a walk in the park. And he looks at me, he goes, yeah, they kind of suck.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And so then when they put me under, that's the first thing they did.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Getting it pulled out was. That was a bespoke experience.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Take a deep breath. Bury your chin. And then she started a. Basically a lawnmower.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Felt a lot better, though, once it was out.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. Usually it's like a relief when it goes out, you know? I mean, people worry about it.

[Shane Claytor]

You can feel it on the back of your throat. I was, like, trying to sleep, and I'd have to. Yeah, I'd have to rotate my head just a little bit so it wasn't irritating the back of my throat.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're. They're brutal to put in, too, if the patient's awake. Because you. I mean, if you're good, you just. The way to do it is you just Got to get it in, you know, and you tell them to swallow a drink and as they're swallowing, you just shove it. The best way to do it is just get it done quickly.

[Shane Claytor]

But the better way is wait till general anesthesia.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, no, I actually agree with that because I've, I've had a, I saw a patient die in Idaho where they were trying to do it with her and they kept trying to do it and they kept trying to force it and she went into cardiac arrest because she was so scared of it. It. And you know, if you're, especially if you're claustrophobic, if you don't like things in your mind, it's, it's brutal. I, it wasn't my patient, but I watched it happen. And then after one words, everyone asked me why I'm so cautious with that stuff. I'm like, because I've seen somebody die with it.

[Shane Claytor]

What are you typing over there, Michael? Are you looking up NG tubes Insertion?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes. In. In death by insertion? No, no, I'm just looking up ng.

[Shane Claytor]

Anything good coming up?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, imagine so it's a tube. Imagine it goes into your nose and through your throat all the way into your stomach is basically where it is. And then you tape it, you know, to their nose so that it's, it stays there.

[Shane Claytor]

We could probably have one him do one on you.

[Unknown Speaker]

No. Yeah, yeah, not today.

[Shane Claytor]

But we could come back.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I mean, the corpsman used to do that to the marines.

[Shane Claytor]

I'll give you a bonus.

[Unknown Speaker]

So, yeah, it would, it would have to be a very large bonus. Rotor prone bed.

[Shane Claytor]

I'll give you a two thousand dollar bonus if we can put an NG tube in on you.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, I don't know that that's, that's a no go.

[Shane Claytor]

Don't do it, Michael.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm not going to. So what happened was my first day, I go in there and I'm getting brutalized, you know what I mean? Like, just trying to do all this stuff myself and I, I feel wet all over my body and I'm like, what the, what the heck just happened? And I looked down and the guy's tubing had broke, like at the hub where it comes out of the machine, you know, where it's feeding his, his fluids and blood because it's in a central line, so it's in a heavy, you know, area that has a lot of blood in his neck. The blood backed up and it came and it had been spraying all over me. And we're talking the very beginning of COVID when you're thinking they can't tell you anything. They don't know if it's airborne. They don't know anything. I'm covered in this dude's blood from head to toe.

[Shane Claytor]

Is there. I mean, in this situation. Imagine there's a metal door with a small glass window, and people's eyes are.

[Unknown Speaker]

Just looking at you as you hear the door lock. Yeah. Basically, that's how it was. That's how a lot of my experience with COVID was. There was the group of us that got in there and just did it, and the other group, they were absolutely terrified of any exposure to Covid. And some of it got to be kind of absurd, but that happened. So this was like, on a Friday. I go and, you know, I'm freaking out, obviously. I take a shower, I change. I call the infection control people, and they say, we don't know. We can't tell you anything. We don't think this is good.

[Shane Claytor]

What were you exposed to? Everything.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the dude had bled all over me. So I give report to that nurse at night, and nothing happens. In the morning, I. I get the same patient. The guy doesn't say anything to me, so I don't think anything about it. And then that day, I'm. I'm trying to get the guy's blood sugar, and I poke myself with a needle because he's upside down. I've got to get through all those pads and everything while he's upside down, and I accidentally poke myself. So now I've got two things that happen with a COVID patient. Nobody can tell me if you're going to get Covid, what the chances are. They literally said, we don't know. Just stand by. Like, maybe don't work with the COVID patients for a little bit, is all they could tell me. So Sunday, I came in, took the same patient. No problems on Sunday. And on Wednesday, maybe two or three days later, I get called into the manager's office, and here's where my buddies had told me, you're going to get in trouble with this lady. So after volunteering to take a COVID patient for three days, after going through all this, I sit in this manager's office, and she gives me a list of, like, 15 things that supposedly I did wrong in a room. And the nerd that I didn't even know who did it, but supposedly somebody had gone into the room and said you had, like. I mean, it was insane. Some of the stuff they accused me of, that you had the tubing hooked up to you Know, IV tubing hooked up to giving the guy blood, which is insane for an ICU nurse. You would never have that. The guy's neck was out of whack in the bed. It was insanity. Like, all the stuff that they accused me of. And one was, I had left it. They said I left a cup of urine on the floor, which the manager, who was now pissed at me. And they had already warned me that I was getting in trouble for kind of talking back to her. She tried to get me for. It's called a delay of care. And a delay of care for an ICU nurse is death. I mean, you can lose your license for that kind of stuff, because delay of care is basically. You waited on their care when they needed emergency help or whatever. So delay of care would be like, they need blood, and you waited too long to give them blood. They needed cardiac meds, and you waited too long, so you delayed their care, which could have basically cost them their life. Life. That's a big one for an ICU nurse. So she had that one on me, and I. I was like, what the hell? You know, like, this all came from. Because I had. They had told me, hey, you watch out. Like, this lady.

[Shane Claytor]

This was all from this one patient?

[Unknown Speaker]

This is all from one patient. Yeah. When I had volunteered to kind of take that patient extra to help the unit out. But this manager had it out for me and was coming, you know, and this is kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Some of the VA policies that I absolutely destroyed, especially during COVID But, I mean, Covid just kind of highlighted a lot of the issues. This manager was kind of checked all the boxes. That's all I'll say. She was a. She was a lawyer. She had passed law school, but she hadn't done the bar. The bar. And she failed the bar a couple times. So when I first got there, all she was doing was studying for the bar. We never saw her. And then Covid hit, and the managers didn't even have to come in. I think every two or three weeks, they had to be there. So they were never even there. This woman had a sign on her door. Do not knock, do not see me call. Anything you need, because she was terrified of COVID Well, in my mind, you shouldn't even be there. You know? I mean, you're the manager. You're supposed to be leading us. So we were the ones doing all this stuff.

[Shane Claytor]

And she didn't have a medical background at all.

[Unknown Speaker]

She was a nurse, but she was a typical, like, VA Nurse, like, she wasn't that great at her job, from what I heard. And so she skipped through, got her master's right away and moved up the ladder and checked a lot of boxes for them. So they. They moved her up. So you had a manager who wasn't very skilled moved up the ladder because she wasn't good at that part of her job. And now she's managing a bunch of, you know, relatively skilled nurses, and. And she's miserable. She's bitter at. Because she wasn't, you know, good at her job, which the VA is filled with. The world's filled with those kind of managers, you know, But I think in nursing especially, there's a. There's a good amount of them in the va. I'll just say that. But. So, yeah, I came into her office and I had printed out, I had gone because I. I kind of suspected it was coming. I just didn't expect, like, man, when I've actually volunteered to go the extra mile. And I was the only veteran on the floor. So really, it was kind of sad for the patients because, I mean, one. I was one of the only ones really willing to go in the room and work with the patients. I was a veteran. So I. The only reason I really wanted to stay at the VA is because I cared about the guys, you know, and I felt like, well, you know, if this is the end, they can't have their family in. At least they have another vet in the room to be with them, you know, and nurses at the time and doctors were afraid to go in their room. They were barely spending time in the room. A lot of them weren't going in their room at all and doing the basics of their job. So this manager basically kicked me out of the icu, and instead of working with patients, I spent the next seven months outside taking people's temperatures for seven months during, you know, during the height of COVID which is insane. I mean, and I. You know, I had been warned it was coming, but, I mean, I look at it as just the waste of resources. Like, when you lose one ICU nurse like that, what they had to do is they had to. To pull from all these other areas in the hospital, other nurses that had ever worked in an ICU. Some of them hadn't worked there for 10 years, and they brought them in just to replace one ICU nurse during COVID So it took four or five different nurses to try and replace me. Most of them haven't even worked directly with ICU patients, so they didn't know what they were doing. So what they did is they paid, had to bring all these extra nurses in, and they had to hire from the outside and bring extra nurses in to fill in the gaps. That's just for one ICU nurse. Because this manager was mad about, you know, I mean, whatever happened, she was protected because the, The. The unit a couple years before that had all come after her. She had kind of been brutalizing the nurses. So they decided to, you know, all get together and write a report on her. And then she turned around to management and basically claimed racism, that they're all racists against her. So now she's protected. She was a lawyer.

[Shane Claytor]

It's a magic word.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. In the federal system, you just.

[Shane Claytor]

And not that it doesn't happen, but I'm saying that particular term.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Yeah. That you. Now you're a protected class, and you basically get away with. And that's rampant in the federal system. Once you get that and once you're protected under that, now you basically carte blanche, you can do whatever you want. And a lot of the nurses do that, too. And it, I mean, who suffers is the veteran when you do that? Because you, You. You know, it puts pressure on the system. The people that actually do their jobs have to do your job, too. And now you're protected. And then the people that are actually doing their jobs and your job because you're. You're sitting back doing nothing because you have that protected class, they're actually exposed to more situations. You know, like what happened with me, I'm going to be exposed more because I'm actually doing my job. You're not. So eventually you're going to get involved in a situation where you get in trouble. So it's like. It's this cascade of events when you don't hold people to standards and you don't hold them to account, you know, when there's no accountability, that's what happens. So, yeah, I spent seven months literally just outside doing nothing. I mean, taking the policy was insane. During COVID they were. They had a guard shack outside and they were bringing, you know, as patients, any workers came into the hospital. It was really just a show. We would literally go to their car and take their temperature in their car. If they had any symptoms, we would call the police and they would police escort these guys up to the ER and then send them, rather than just setting up like a little side area, you know, hey, you need to go here, go into a little side police escort. It was insane. It was abs. It was. I think it Was they had all this extra Covid money, so they were able to get extra employees. I think it was a show to the community. Like, look, we're going the extra mile for Covid. To me, it was absolute insanity. But. And I was going to leave, you know, I had opportunities. I had an opportunity to make like $12,000 a week in the Bahamas when all that happened.

[Shane Claytor]

Same thing. Travel nurse.

[Unknown Speaker]

As a travel nurse. Yeah. And I wanted to go as a travel nurse when Covid hit, you know, obviously we were finding out how much money was out there, and I wasn't real happy with the manager anyways, and, you know, I just wanted to go make some extra money. But when that happened, I felt like, well, I can't just leave now because I probably will never be able to work back in the federal system if I don't deal with this issue that this manager accused me of. So I'm going to have to write it out. And my. My buddy had called me and he had the same thing happen to him a year before and that. I love that dude. Great nurse, definitely, like, very skilled. He's a lot like me, like, skilled, but doesn't take any crap, you know what I mean? Just kind of does his job and doesn't worry about all the politics. But he had gotten in trouble with her and got kicked out. And, you know, I basically investigated for about a year. And he called me and said, listen, man, don't flip out. Don't leave. You're literally going to go outside, you're going to get a golf cart, you're going to be in charge of all these other nurses where you're just taking temperatures. They're not taking away any of your money. They're just going to investigate you. The investigation is the punishment. Let it happen and come back and. And just make sure when you come back, you. You know what I mean? You, you, you not get her back, but you basically, like, show her that it didn't break you. So that was kind of my attitude. I said, all right, man, I'm just gonna ride this out. But what a waste of resources during COVID you know?

[Shane Claytor]

Well, especially if they had to draw from other areas. Oh, yeah, you and I were talking about this, and this is maybe an interesting talking point that people don't know either this is second or third hand from people that I know in the area. Hospitals were letting nursing staff go.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Because of disputes with. I don't know if they were unionized, but it was about paying.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

But then they would bring in travel nurses At a pay that was 3 to 5x. What they were paying the people they were letting go.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, absolutely.

[Shane Claytor]

And I didn't realize. And you were telling me on the walk over they were paying for that via this Covid money. So they were just line iting in it from somewhere else.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Which is insane.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. There was all the FEMA money that, you know, FEMA and Covid and what they would do. Like. I, I didn't. I chose not to get vaccinated. I, you know, I mean, if you're in the military, you get vaccinated up the. You know, I, I didn't care about vaccines. I never even thought about it. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

The air gun line, we go down.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

With the sickle of penicillin.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. And I did that. I was. I was a corpsman, so that's all I did. No, I didn't. They stopped that when I was in. But my uncle, we used to do. We used to put X's on guys and drop the. Drop the needle. Especially if they. You know what I mean? Mean like some cocky corporal or something in the Marine Corps, we'd bend them over and drop the needle on them. But I. Where were we? Where were we at?

[Shane Claytor]

We were talking about travel nurses.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Travel nurses. And FEMA money I had. When I first left the va, I chose not to get vaccinated. I had an aunt, her sister was a nun, her sister by marriage. My aunt by marriage. Her sister died of a blood clot to the brain and she got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. And I kind of stopped and did a little bit of research I had already been following, like Dr. Malone, Dr. McColla, a lot of these guys from earlier. Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

It's wild how much of their conspiracy is no longer a conspiracy.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, Dr. Mercola, the most published cardiologist in history in any specialty. The most published cardiologist, Dr. Malone, who actually was one of the inventors of MRNA vaccine, Dr. Pierre Corey, who was a pulmonologist, a lung doctor. And you're talking about one of the top lung doctors. And then the other guy was Dr. Merrick, Dr. Peter Merrick. He was an ICU doc. Well, those are the four studs that had different ideas on it, you know, so I started really listening to them. And those are all the areas that Covid affected the heart, the lungs, especially intubation and ICU care, which is Dr. Merrick. And then, you know, I, I was listening to a guy that actually invented the technology. And then some different veterinarian guys and the reason? Veterinarian guys, that's where they test vaccine they use. It's not veterinarian, but it's. It's basically doctors that, you know, are. I guess they are veterinarian doctors. But that's, that's where vaccines are tested. So that usually they have the most knowledge. Dr. Hirsch or Hirsch or. She's a Yale guy. I mean, I was listening to a lot of big time guys that. And I was starting to kind of compare both and say, you know, I think I'm gonna avoid this for now.

[Shane Claytor]

What was the VA's policy on the vaccine?

[Unknown Speaker]

The VA had a. So it was facility to facility. They leaned really heavily on guys to get the vaccine. See, when I got kicked out of the VA to take temperatures, the vaccine hadn't come through yet. There was a lot of word about it. And actually the day. So 2020 through 2021, September 2021, is when I left the VA to go travel. And they had just like, actually the day that I left, Biden came out and said that all federal employees need to be vaccinated and all medical employees have to be vaccinated. That was literally the day I left and I didn't get vaccinated. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, I was pissed. You know, obviously I'm like, I can't work and blah, blah, blah. But they. He said that to try and put pressure on people. And I had an exemption. I had a legit religious exemption and it got approved everywhere I went. So the VA was just doing it. It depended on the va. Some of them were really strict on it, some of them not at all. The VA I was at in Florida was pretty strict on it. And then I was actually at a VA in Kentucky where as a traveler and they had, I mean, it's a crazy story, but I had gotten, you know, through my travel agency when they, you know, when I, I actually said I was never going to work for the VA again when I left. But then the contract came up. I wanted to finish my mba, my master's in business, and I knew if the, if the VA is behind on him on personnel now, they're. They're probably not going to catch up for two or three years. So if I get a travel contract now, I'm going to be good for two or three years while I finish my mba, which is basically what happened and what I did. But in Kentucky, you know, I went through my travel agency. I told them, hey, you know, I'm not vaccinated. I have an Exemption. They had approved it, and I had been in two hospitals before that that both. Both have had approved mine, so there wasn't an issue. The VA in Kentucky approved it. They obviously. I had emails back and forth from the, you know, the. The. The travel contract, and they said, you're fine. And I started working there. Where. The first day I got there. This is kind of answering your question. The first day I get there, I find out that they're bringing us in to replace the unvaccinated nurses in the icu. So they're kicking out all the unvaccinated work nurses, you know, saying that they can't work directly with patients, and they're putting them in, like, clinics. A lot of them ended up working from home, which really wasn't that much of a punishment. A lot of them were happy about that. But I kind of thought it was hilarious that they're bringing in an unvaccinated travel nurse to replace your unvaccinated nurses that are.

[Shane Claytor]

Because they can say exactly that. The direct hire employee that works for them. They don't have any of those that are working unvaccinated. Whereas you as a contractor.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. That's a really convenient way, literally, from a tax perspective, to get around.

[Unknown Speaker]

It was dirty. Yeah. Actually, all. All three hospitals that I worked at when. When I left the VA in Florida, they all said that publicly. You know, we don't have any unvaccinated nurses or doctors. And they had a lot. But, yeah, they were on travel contracts, so they weren't technically their employees. It was a really.

[Shane Claytor]

That is such a bullshit way to.

[Unknown Speaker]

Learn to get disgusting. And. And it was. It was sad because I, like, I came in and they're kicking out the nurses. So what happened with me is I came in and Kentucky, and I. I knew not to say anything, but I had a big mouth. And one of the girls leaving was crying about it, and she said, are. And I was just talking to her, and she goes, you're not vaccinated, are you? And I said, I don't want to. Yeah, no, I'm not. You know, and I said, here's the deal, blah, blah, blah. So I don't think anything about it. Well, I guess she had gone and told everybody that I wasn't vaccinated. So I worked there three months, took care of all their COVID patients, and I get a phone call one day from, you know, the higher ups, and they said, are you not vaccinated? And I said, no. Like, you guys approved my. I wouldn't be here If I wasn't vaccinated, that's literally. Or I wouldn't be here if you guys hadn't approved that. That's literally the first piece of paper that I filled out. So I guess what had happened is they went around and they were talking. It was actually a buddy of mine, he was another corpsman that worked in Kentucky and he had found out there there was an unvaccinated nurse that had replaced some of his buddies. And he, he was my buddy. He had no idea it was me. And he was pissed about having to get vaccinated himself. So he goes off to upper management that they had an unvaccinated worst nurse. Not. So the next morning I came in and they basically marched me out of there. It was like, and it, it was insane. I mean, I, I, I was. As a traveler, you get all the COVID patients. None of the nurses want to deal with COVID patients. They were still terrified of it at that point. I thought it was kind of ridiculous to be terrified of the COVID patients. It was 2022. Yeah, 2022 at the time. So I, it was a little bit, it was insane.

[Shane Claytor]

Well, the data kept more and more and more and more and more pointing in a different direction.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly, exactly. And a lot of patients were, at that point were making it out of there. The only patients not making it had 50 comorbidities and were really sick and a bad flu was going to kill someone like that. So. But yeah, they, they kicked me out. And, and then I got another call from the, the travel company that felt bad about it and they said, listen, there's another VA contract back in Florida if you want to take it. And I, I made sure, listen, I'll do it. Which is insane that I did it, but I just knew I need a couple more years because I'm, I want to finish my mba. I want to finish, you know, it's easier to do it at the VA because I know I'll have a long term contract. Most travel contracts at the time were like three to four months. It's just easier to be in one place. And I went to the University of Florida. So that was in, you know, my, my VA was back in Florida and they, they, I didn't have a problem there. They all accepted it. They all accepted my exemption. I never had a problem, you know, as far as that went. So, yeah, it was insane. Some of the policies were absolutely insanity.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, do you think there will ever be any atonement for how that vaccine was pushed? Here's What I believe. I believe that the people who are rushing to create it had the best of intentions.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

I do. I don't think that they were trying to kill people.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

But watching from a distance, very intelligent, educated people who were literally just trying to offer a different opinion.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And watching them being burned at the stake. The metaphorical stake.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Just crucified.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And massive talking heads. The vaccine is safe. There are no vaccine injuries. And then, you know, I know I've had people on the podcast who were deeply injured.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

By the vaccine. And I just. I don't know if there's. I've heard people say, well, it was a. You know, it was an experiment. You know, there's microchips and blah, blah, blah. And it's an experiment in control. And my response to that is, I think they really fucked up if it was an experiment in control.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Because I don't think people would go that far anymore. And I just don't understand. I'm not a vaccine. I'm a highly vaccinated person. Like, you and I, we ran the pandemic. I have no issue with vaccines. I have an issue with people who think that I am not capable to think for myself.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. That's, like, the core of my issue. Like, I don't. I'm not really. I have pretty strong opinions on all that, especially. The crazy thing is, while I was working in the. I. The ICU all that time during COVID I was on. Actually, somebody asked me to be on a board of a group that was trying to help people with the alternative medicine. So I saw both sides of that. It was wild. I mean, and I worked at six different hospitals during COVID All had different policies, so I kind of had seen every angle. My opinion on that is there's, like, I would look at as like a Christian if God came in a room. There's always sin on both sides of any. Any divorce or whatever. One person wants to say this, and everybody's got some issues. Well, the unvaccinated people that were real strong on the one side, I think some people went way too far. And, you know, like, you'd get a. I mean, you know, I don't mean to be brutal, but you get some fat guy that has diabetes and 50 comorbidities come in, and he's, you know, he's dying from COVID and he's pissed off about the vaccines going on, and I'm like, you know, you probably should have gotten the vaccine because you. You have nothing. You have no Support outside of this.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

So you may be one that. That should have. You know, if you were healthy, I think you. You probably should have made a different decision. Or at least, like you said, you have the freedom to make that decision. My thing on medical freedom is you need to. It's. It's where I think people should burn for it. If they hid information.

[Shane Claytor]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

If they hid information on the vaccine for the greater good, which it is.

[Shane Claytor]

Clear that they likely did.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's not a. That's not a free society. These newscasters that are going on now, trying to back off. No, no, no. You had a responsibility to do the research before you came out spouting off medical things. Because what it did in the. In the ICU is what. I mean, I saw it firsthand. It created hatred from the nurses towards the unvaccinated. And they were. Especially at the va. They were brutal. And you came in and you were unvaccinated. The attitude. Not all of them. There were a lot of us that were not like that, but the attitude was like, hey, just go off and die. I don't even have to. Another unvaccinated nurse or another unvaccinated patient. I mean, it was. It was. It got vicious. Because that's what happens when you, you know, you. You pump out that information. My thing is freedom. You know, I want the freedom to choose. And I. If you hide information, that's. That's. You know, you should have told me what the effects are of the vaccine. I should be able to see that.

[Shane Claytor]

They didn't.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, when you. When you first. When they first gave you the vaccine, there wasn't even any ingredients on. I can't even see what's in the vaccine, which is insane. And then they hid, like, Ivermet, all these other alternative treatments. They hid information on that. Then. Yeah. People should burn for that. Absolutely. Because it's. It's taken away your freedom to choose. And then they'll say, well, it's for the greater good. Well, no, no, no. There's no. You know, that doesn't apply in a free society. It shouldn't apply. You know, it's a very.

[Shane Claytor]

It's a really weird binary conversation, too, where you either completely trust what the medical professional is saying, or you're a denier and you want people to die.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's. That's where it went. But, you know, the medical community so captured that. I mean, you got, you know, the.

[Shane Claytor]

F. Well, the five people that you mentioned, too, that you were listening to, guess what? Community. They fucking come from.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

The medical community. There wasn't even consensus amongst that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right. But there never is. There never. If you.

[Shane Claytor]

That's the point. So let's have a goddamn conversation.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you. That's exactly what my point was. And then let me make my choice. I mean, if I'm. That's my problem with, like, the VA healthcare system as a whole is you're locked into the system where there's not a lot of freedom to choose. If you're an older patient, you don't really have a lot of decision. You're not even presented all these other options. Whereas a patient, you should be presented that and be able to make your own choice. Okay, here's the odds of this. Here's the odds of this. Here's the side effects. If we do this surgery and it doesn't go. You know, you got to be able to have that information and make those decisions. And, yeah, they hit a lot of that, which was. Is. Wasn't good. You know, I mean, I think it's evil.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, a lot of people I've heard talking. You know, basically, Fauci is the devil. And I mean, you could. You could research Fauci all you want to your heart's content. My contention through the whole thing was I think we would have been better off if they just told the fucking truth.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, this is the best information we have today.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

And this is what we think is the best approach. And just be honest with what you know and what you don't know, because. And I have spent an immense amount of time research researching this. But the vaccine injury stuff is definitely real.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And if you start researching some other. Like, there's now surges and other types of medical maladies in age groups that didn't appear anywhere else until a few years ago. And I'm not trying to connect the dots and be a conspiracy theorist, but I mean, to ignore that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And only look at one side of it. I mean, what are we doing here?

[Unknown Speaker]

It's insanity. I mean, my thing with that is, so if you. I'm gonna get in so much trouble for this, but I don't care. Like, it's. I've. I dealt with so much during COVID and watched so many people die and all the. Like, I was. Because I didn't get vaccinated because people found out. I mean, there were times where I got brutalized, and my attitude was always like, you guys are falling out with COVID left and right. They got vaccinated. I don't care. You do. I'm. I'm. Like you said, I'm. Medical freedom, whatever you choose. But this vaccine is not preventing you from getting Covid, and it's definitely not preventing you from giving it to other people, because it's happening all around you. I actually never got Covid to where I had to take time off. I got Covid in Idaho two years after Covid started. I was out for a week, and I had a sore throat, and I never missed a day of work because I was on a travel contract. And I just had a week off naturally, the way my shifts work. So I literally, the whole time during COVID I never lost a day for, you know, actually having Covid. And I mean, nurses would tell me all the time, like, you're going to die when you get it, it's going to be that bad. And I'm like, you guys are falling out left and right, and you can't tell me, like, you can't tell me the side effects of this because it's so new. And I mean, here's my thing. Like, I. This is what I was going to say I was going to get in trouble for when I started really researching it, especially MRNA vaccine. You've got, okay, DNA codes for mRNA, right? MRNA takes that code and delivers it to the ribosome. The ribosome is like the machine that produces a protein. Well, that machine, the ribosome produces the spike protein. Well, the spike protein in Covid is the worst part of COVID that causes all the issues. So right away I thought, it doesn't seem like that's the best thing to have your body making a spike protein because it's the autoimmune attacks. It's not a natural thing. You're bypassing your DNA. And then my big one was, DNA regulates that process. DNA is the instruction manual that says, okay, you know, Andy, you need X amount of protein to build more muscle. Well, if it keeps going, you're going to die. You're going to get over muscle or over protein. That's how cancers, all those kind of things happen. So if you bypass your DNA and you go right to the mRNA, you have nothing regulating that. So how do I know how much is produced? How do I stop autoimmune diseases? And it's off the charts. And then another one, when I was in the military, because I was a little bit older, I actually, we had a problem with a smallpox vaccine. Like, they were out of date, like six months out of date. And actually, it was on my resume For a long time. And I don't. I could care less about it, but I think I saved our unit like $5 million because I. I said, listen, I've worked in medical companies before. Just because it's out of date, a lot of times they'll give extensions. Let me call, blah, blah, blah. So I call and they say, well, what's the batch number? And I say, well, here's the batch number. They go, okay, you're good. Like, we're going to give you an extension, blah, blah. And so I started asking them, well, why. Why is this? Why did you ask the batch number? And they said, because some batch numbers had too much of the. The virus in it and it was really harming guys.

[Shane Claytor]

A hot load, if you will.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Exactly. So when that happened. When that happened with Powder Baby. So when that happened, I thought, you know, how. How can that. I know that that's happened? Because I've talked to vaccine makers himself.

[Shane Claytor]

Fucked me up.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. And how do I know that with the mRNA it's not the same thing that you have? And now they're. They're saying that some batches had all this extra virus in it. I'm like, I remember that from the military making those phone calls. Calls and finding out that. No, we did have batches that had extra virulent, like extra strong.

[Shane Claytor]

That small. I got that right before, oh, the initial invasion of Iraq.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

That had me flat. Them. My lymph nodes were this.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah, Golf ball. Yeah. Yeah. I used to love giving that and watching guys get all torn up because we had to give it.

[Shane Claytor]

That was the easiest one to get because it's, you know, the little tap, tap. You don't even feel the thing.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

My wife was pregnant at the time, so I got it on the plane.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Our first stop was in Incirlik, Turkey.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And I'm sitting there, like, feeling too good. We land in Saudi Arabia. Holy. I was down hard.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's brutal. And I mean, we had all kinds of. When we first gave the vaccine in the hospitals, usually you could, you know, especially in the VA when, because I came back, they. I finally, like, after getting kicked out for seven months, I finally had my time to, like, with the manager and with the. The leaders in the VA system and, you know, and they. They allowed me to come back because everything she accused me of was. Was false, you know, and I was able to prove that. But when I.

[Shane Claytor]

Does that reflect on her at all?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I'll tell you. No, no. Which is.

[Shane Claytor]

Which is wild.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right, yeah, yeah. No, I'll tell you how disgusting it was. So I found out when I finally came back and they allowed me to come back, I had to meet with upper management, you know, to have my day in court, I guess. And I had printed out right after it happened when I got in trouble in the VA from that manager. I went in and printed out that night nurse's notes from the night that I gave him report. So I had all in a printout that at 8pm at night, right after I gave him report. I mean, in an ICU you have to be. The notes are very thorough and it's a checkoff thing. Literally everything that I got accused of. This guy had gone in at 8pm and checked off that his head was in a proper place. All the IVs were in proper place. No problem with the blood tubing. I mean, like, what? I got accused of like 13 or 14 things. And literally at 8pm he went in and checked off every one of those things. So when I had my time, I said, wait, either this guy committed fraud, either he went in and didn't see those things, or he never went in the room, or he's. You know what I mean, he's full of it. And you're accepting this because this man. And I know what happened. This manager, you know, he's going to do whatever she says, he's one of her boys. So he, you know, five days later fills out a report saying that I did all these things. I mean, if we were anywhere else, that's absolute fraud. And that it's actually potential prison time. Time because you've, you've gone in and absolutely lied that you did all this stuff. And I got investigated for seven months and he got no punishment for it for her. They brought me back. She had no consequences. She left because I had called, I did two things. I called a lawyer. And I wasn't, I genuinely wasn't trying to sue them. I was trying to back them off so that it would never happened again. I wanted them to know, listen, and if I stay in the system, you're. And that's. My buddy had told me to do that. He said, listen, you call a lawyer, do your. Do the dance, come back, and then they'll never. He said, you could be like me, they'll never mess with you again. Which is what would have happened. But I had called like EEOC or something. It's like the state investigative committee. And as soon as the date, the next day, that man, manager said she was leaving because she was A lawyer. And if she had lost that, which I think she knew she was going to lose, it goes on her legal record as a lawyer and as a brand new lawyer, she wasn't going to be able to work. There was no, no, absolutely no consequences from the va. Any idea where she is now? She's a lawyer somewhere. Yeah, she. She finally passed the bar. But what the crazy thing is that the, the, the really bad one in that, that I was like, this is so illegal and so obvious what this woman did. She tried to the urine that I. That she accused me of leaving on the floor, that she tried to give me a delay of care for. There was never even an order in it, in the system. So when I finally was able to look in the actual system, I'm like, this was never even ordered. So you're. You're accusing me of leaving something on the floor that was never even ordered. You're accusing me. Which is. That's. I mean, that's an absolute crime, you know, and absolutely there. She's of a protected class. And so they're allowed to. She can brutalize me. She can. And they got all the reports two weeks after it all happened. So I should have come back two weeks later. Instead, it was seven months. Because I think they were hoping I would quit or they would hope, you know, that I wouldn't fight. I think they were just hoping I'd eventually quit or. A lot of times in those systems, what people do under investigation like that is they snap and then they're. They snap and do something way out of line, and then they have to.

[Shane Claytor]

Like blowing up at work.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Yeah. And that's kind of what I think happens and what they're hoping for. But that stuff goes on in the VA all the time. I mean, you get these protected class of people that know that they're protected and they brutalize everyone else and they get away with murder and it gets. It gets rough. I mean, I mean, I've worked. I worked a day. When I, When I first went to Miami, I had a day I was in an open heart unit, and I had come from an open heart unit in Idaho. And, you know, open heart unit is more of a. Those are big surgeries. But I wasn't an open heart nurse, so I'm really not supposed to get an open heart patient. I would get them maybe two, three, four days after. Well, some of the nurses there were bitter because they found out how much I was making, which is. I was used to that. You get used to dealing with that kind of stuff. And the way I dealt with it, you just work hard, come in and work hard, you know, bust your ass and you don't have to worry about that, you know, and, and, and eventually they're gonna, even if they're not making that kind of money, I just look at as like just make yourself needed and they're not gonna care about that. And a lot of them, when you're, when you're lazy by nature, you're, you're not willing to do that. And you know what I mean? I'm willing to do that. So I'm, I'm gonna make the money and you stop complaining about. That's how I approached a lot of that. But I had a day in an open heart unit. This guy, he was kind of a protected guy too, checked a lot of boxes. I come in and he gives me this patient and I'm like, I'm not supposed to take an open heart patient. It's like a one day heart. And it was an absolute dumpster fire. The guy was, I mean, not only am I not trained as an open heart nurse, which is a set training, the guy was, it was a dumpster fire. The guy was super sick. The doctors were arguing over what to do, you know, with the patient. There was like three different specialties. They were arguing about it and I'm stuck in the middle of it. And when I came in, I couldn't get in, I couldn't get into the system. Like I, my, my ID wasn't working for some reason. So I mean, it's amazing that the guy didn't die. You know, I, I literally had to do all that without any help because this nurse who was in charge is supposed to be in charge and supposed to help me did nothing. Just sat there while I'm trying to suffer in a room. Go back and thank God I had experience. So I knew how to kind of get around of a lot of, a lot of things. But I mean, and I almost did, I almost went after the nurse because I, you know, there was so much chaos in the room with all the doctors arguing everything. The guy was on a lot of emergency, like life saving meds, especially cardiac meds. You know, you have to, you're constantly changing bags and trying to, you know, the way I deal with that, I just go over religiously and make sure every bag is up and it's hooked up to the right area. Well, I had hooked up the wrong bag to a pump and the bag was, it was a cardiac med that I had hooked up and it was supposed to be a med to kind of keep him sedated. And so the amount that we were going to give him was, like, it would have killed him. It would have killed him in minutes. And because I was so religious about checking, I caught it at the last minute. So, you know, I mean, I had been in ICU for a while by then. I just switched out the bag really quick and fixed it. But I came out of the room, and the nurses had to hold me back as, I'm going to kill this guy. I don't care. I'm a travel nurse. I don't need the job. I'm going to kill this guy for putting me in this situation, because he could kill this patient. And that's the kind of stuff that happens that I want to get out there in those kind of systems. When you have these protected classes, it affects the patients on that level because they play those kind of games all the time. Time. And if they're protected, man, you're. You're gonna have to do all the extra work. And, I mean, I. You know, I don't know. Did you ever see that interview with Elon Musk and Don. Don Lamone or Don Lemon? Yeah. Where they were arguing back and forth and. And Elon Musk tells him, well, would you hire a doctor based on all these protected things on, you know, that. Would you hire a doctor even if he wasn't better because he was black or because he was gay or whatever? And. And Don Lamone's like, yeah, And Elon Musk is telling him, not if he's not the best. You hire the best doctor. Like, you don't. You don't check the boxes. You hire, the absence.

[Shane Claytor]

I don't answer that way. When it's a hypothetical situation.

[Unknown Speaker]

I can tell you in real time that I've sat there at a VA and seen that happen. Where I. I went to when I first worked at the VA in Florida as an. As a new nurse, I had worked with this guy. He was a trauma surgeon. The guy was an absolute student. And. And I. I trained with him in. In school. And the guy was amazing, absolute lifesaver. And I sat with him at a VA one day. He was there, and I was like, what are you doing here? Like, why are you at a va? And he said, I'm applying to be their. Their chief surgeon. And I was like, dude, if they get a guy like this, like, it's over. Like, the VA would be. I mean, it would be amazing. You know, this guy knows what he's doing. He's a trauma surgeon, whatever. And he said, I'm not going to get the job. And I said, why? And he said, because I don't check the boxes. And you know, and it was obviously race stuff, but a lot of it actually then it was. He wasn't military. He said, I wasn't prior military. So, you know, and I said, well, who are they going to hire before you? And he said, this one guy, he's, you know, and the guy had no experience compared to him. And I started working there after and the, the surgical unit was an absolute mess. I mean it was a nightmare at the va. And so that stuff is real. I mean, they hire people based, even nurses and doctors that check all these boxes. At the end of the day, the patients suffer. I mean, it's brutal. It's a very common thing in the VA system, even with nurses and doctors. It's very sad.

[Shane Claytor]

Hold that thought. I'm take a piss.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, say here's my thing with, with all of it, right? So say you have. There's diarrhea, right? So a bunch of scientists together get together and say, hey, what would happen if we created super diarrhea? Super diarrhea in a lab that could kill half the the country or half the world? Right? Let's just do that. Well, that doesn't seem like a very good idea.

[Shane Claytor]

No, right.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, but that's what they've been doing for years.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, the gain of function stuff.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. So, okay, so now we created super diary. And then, you know, when there's an outbreak in that area, we're gonna say, oh, you know, freaking unicorn, you know, had ate some unicorn dust. And that's how super diarrhea, not the actual facility that was creating super diarrhea, you know, and then, you know, and we're gonna have a. And we already happen to have a vaccine that we were working on that's already there, that just happens to work for this. And then you say, well, how about apples? Like apples work for diarrhea because they have fiber. Oh, no, no, that's evil. That's. You're racist. You're. We're not gonna have apples, you know. No, you need this, you need this unicorn dust. You need to eat this. And this is the only thing that's gonna fix it. And then later, quietly, you say, ah, you know what apples do kind of work. And we'll just keep that quiet.

[Shane Claytor]

What do you think would happen if they did say, yes, it was an accidental leak on a human engineered virus. That came out of Wilhelm.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think it's gonna be. It would be. I think the.

[Shane Claytor]

I mean, it changes.

[Unknown Speaker]

The rabbit hole goes so deep because I think so many big players were involved. I think it's a world. I think it was a big. It was a big system behind all that. You know what I mean? So I think a lot of people would burn. That's what I think. I mean, I think that it wasn't just, you know, our country. It wasn't just. I think there was a lot of people involved. They would get exposed. But I think we've given them so much time to hide the information.

[Shane Claytor]

You can Google Canada flew on a commercial airline. Ebola to the Wuhan lab on a commercial airline.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

You know, it definitely the.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Are you looking that up, Michael? Yeah. Pull that thing up.

[Unknown Speaker]

They flew it in a. Like in a test tube or, or whatever. In a. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So that they would have the material that the lab could work on it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And. But again, we also had some of their scientists training on. I think they called it Level 4 criteria in Texas.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. You know, it's not North Carolina too. I think North Carolina is where all the.

[Shane Claytor]

Look at that suit. That's what I'm talking about. Yep. Canadian scientist.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And it wasn't until the Canadian scientists didn't do that illegally.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

It was an above board.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

It was intentional. So that they could work on and have that virus.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. I think a lot of the gain of function and the stuff that had been going on for years kind of. Because no one really thought about that stuff until now. I think it's insane. I mean, that's what. I mean, the whole thing of diarrhea, it's like. So you're going to take something that has minimal kill ratio and you're gonna make it super deadly. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. And I get the argument, but it's.

[Shane Claytor]

An escalating Jacob Ladder to hell.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Exactly. And what do we have a contingency plan if this gets out? What are we going to do with that? Which seems like is exactly what happened, you know, and, and I mean there's all the emails back and forth on Fauci and all these guys hiding information. I mean, come on, you know, it's, it's. It's a joke.

[Shane Claytor]

I hope it sees its day in the sun. I do too.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, no, I, I mean, I. Absolutely. For justice sake. It absolutely should. I mean, it needs to. You know the crazy thing, when I was in high School. I went to a private school and the professor there just wiping. Yeah, yeah. The professor there was talking about one world government and how eventually the CFR Council on Foreign Relations, all this crazy stuff we thought they got was nuts. It was my senior year in high school. He was a. He was the father in law of one of the pastors there and he taught. And literally the last couple years I've called a lot of people I went to high school with. It was small school and a lot of us kept in touch and we were like, this guy's. Maybe he wasn't as crazy as we thought he was.

[Shane Claytor]

It's called a cabal, which is a word I'm trying to use more in my day to day life.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's a great word. Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

I haven't used it much until recently.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

What would you king for a day at the VA in the medical world that you want worked in? Yeah, I guess two things. What would you want people to know about what's happening that they have no idea. And then what would you change?

[Unknown Speaker]

So the, the accountability is the big one that. I mean, some of the stories I've told are, you know, I'm. Like I said, I'm a. I'm a vet. I'm pretty rough around the edges. I can. I. None of that stuff broke me. I actually find. Found it kind of funny that as I got punished for all this crap, it ended up sending me off. I traveled, I paid all my bills. It ended up working out for me, but it cost the VA a fortune. So my big one is accountability. You have to have accountability in the system to everything to institute a new. I mean, the patients suffer when you don't have accountability. The kind of stuff that I talked about that happened to me happens all the time, time in those systems, and it breaks a lot of nurses or, and doctors, or it makes them turn the corner and become just like everybody else so that they can survive. And at the end of the day, my biggest thing is the patients suffer. So you have to come in and absolutely be willing to blow up the system and have accountability. You got to be willing to get rid of people, all the freaking government, bullcrap, bureaucracy. You got to get rid of that stuff. I mean, and you have to not be afraid to shine a light on it. That's one thing. And there's another angle that I hadn't really talked about that I personally think a lot of these special interest groups and a lot of these vet advocacy places, and what do you call them? The lobbyists and stuff for the veterans. A lot of times that works against the veterans. And the reason is, say my example would be open heart surgery. If you need open heart surgery, most hospitals, you have to be a good candidate for that. You have to, you can't be lazy, fat out of shape, all these other things and say, I'm going to go in and get open heart surgery because I'm about to lose my heart if I haven't set any of the standards that would make me a good candidate to recover well from that system. Well, in the va, they'll give guys like that open heart surgery because they'll go to these advocacy groups and they're fearful of the information getting out and that they're more fearful of having the bad press. So they'll give these guys those kind of surgeries and they end up dying like really brutal deaths because they're not a good candidate for that kind of surgery. So a lot of these advocacy groups actually don't help the veterans. It's the exact opposite, you know what I mean? And a lot of the veterans that, that make a lot of noise and cry and complain, some of it's their fault too, you know what I mean? They make it really bad for good dudes who need help. A lot of the guys that are just trying to milk the system, you know, and get their disability sometimes that's a full time career. A lot of people do not want.

[Shane Claytor]

To talk about that, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Or they need to talk about that. And what bothers me is when you come in as a patient and you're doing that stuff, you don't think I, I mean, I know, know, you know, I've been there. I've been, you know, in Iraq. I've seen, you know, blast injuries. I was in some of those myself and, and I know, like you just know the difference, you know, I know that you've spent your entire career in the military. You want sick, call commandos that were never sick, you know, and, and not always, you know, but there's plenty of those guys and you're right, they do need to start calling that out. And that really ruin it for good. Solid dudes that really did something that aren't complainers, that aren't crybabies. Those kind of guys force the VA and force the government to make rules that really harm good dudes that really deserve it. So those guys in my mind should burn. I hate to say it like that. They should, they should have consequences for that. But it's, it's a very difficult thing to navigate so that's the one, and then the. What was the other one? What changes?

[Shane Claytor]

Well, actually, before you go into the changes, you've worked in civilian and VA healthcare.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Is there a, Is there a legit difference between the two?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I mean, the biggest difference is the VA is not like. So there are good people in the system. It's the system that's broken, you know, and that, that causes all these personnel issues. All the, the, all those things I talked about, that FMLA where people call in and they're never there. The abuse of personnel, like what happened to me is a very common story in the va. There's no accountability. So in a regular hospital, you would never get that. No way. I mean, regular hospital, you'd be gone. If you pulled some of that crap, especially a manager or another nurse that, like, what they did to me, that's, that's actually illegal. And you would, I mean, you could be prosecuted for something like that. You literally went in and, I mean, it's crystal clear you committed fraud. I could pursue that legally and it's going to take. They're going to bleed me dry before it ever comes out. So it's not even worth it.

[Shane Claytor]

And the problem is that you end up with a different caliber of person.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. And that's what happens all the time there is you end up with low quality and you end up with a ton of people that know how to play the games and know how to abuse the system and they rule the roost and they beat up everybody else. That actually works. And the people that work really hard, hard are actually exposed more to these events because they're actually working and doing the job. So it's like, it's like this cascade of just disgusting things that happens. And at the end of the day, the patients suffer for that kind of stuff. All of those situations, the patients suffer. So my, if I had, like, what I would change, for one, I personally think this is my opinion on it. Politicians don't want the VA to get fixed a lot of times on both sides of the coin, because whoever's in charge, they don't want the other side to get the victory. So they're going to vote and do whatever they can to not get that victory, because that's a big victory if you fix the system. And I find it to be like the most reprehensible thing you can imagine. I mean, you send guys off to war at a young age, 18, 19 years old, they don't know any better. I was older when I went, so I had A little bit of a better head on my, and even me. You know, you put guys through a lot that the least you can do is give them the absolute best system in the country to help them deal with their, their issues. And if, if it's not the best medical system that you provide, you should free them up so they can have those choices. So that's like one big thing. Also, I think every VA should have the absolute best charting system. When you compare that to the outside, like you asked, the, the smoothness of a good solid, like high speed system allows you to do your job so much better. When you have a bulky system and it's messed up, you, you make a lot of mistakes. You don't even get all the information. Patients have to constantly repeat themselves. You know, patients with some mental issues, I mean, they break over that. They just have to keep repeating their stories over and over and over again. A lot of it's just because you have clunky systems and you can't even find the information and the guys break from that kind of stuff. So my opinion is like, overall they should have the absolute best, the best equipment, the best charting systems. I mean, they shouldn't. It's a, it's, it's tragic that a guy, you know, that the VA has a charting system from the 80s. To me, that's absolutely disgusting.

[Shane Claytor]

It doesn't make any sense.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, it's disgusting.

[Shane Claytor]

Especially when there's already a civilian model.

[Unknown Speaker]

That'S being used and it's, and, and there's large systems that use it, that interconnect, that communicate with each other. I mean, you should have standards Every, every hospital, you should go to the top doctors in the country in every specialty. And if you're going to keep the va, then every VA should be, every VA should be set up the same exact way. And it's set up from the best minds in the business saying, here, here's what an ICU should look like, here's what our, these are the products we use, you know, but they have all these different side deals and you know.

[Shane Claytor]

What'S the reasoning for having it disparate like that as opposed to one entity?

[Unknown Speaker]

I think it's all the, what do you call them? All the, the contractors, you know, and guys have side deals with contractors or they want to use this contractor rather than the other. So everybody just uses whatever contractor they want, which I think is crap. They should just have one system. And then the contractors provide the items that they actually need. Go out and get this, because this is the Best. Whatever. This. These are the best IVs on the market. The best. Whatever. But it's. It's just a. It's a. The. It's a rat race and a cluster just trying to get all that stuff done. It's madness.

[Shane Claytor]

Which is wild. If I were to. If I were to guess before having this conversation with you, the civilian medical world versus the va, you would think that because the VA is a federal system, that they would be mandated to be under one system, and that the civilian system would be the one that has disparate contracts out there and using whatever they want to. It's odd that it is flipped, even though one is literally a federal organization.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah, you would think that. And I thought that when I first started working there, but I've worked at three different VAs, and they all have different policies. They all have different. I mean, I worked at VA in Miami. This is horrible to admit, but I couldn't land an IV for like a year, maybe like 14 months. I mean, ICU nurses don't do that many IVs, because a lot of times they're already, you know, have IVs or big central lines in, but we have to do them every now and then. I kept missing my IVs, and then I finally found out that the. The whole system was different. Like, we're used to. You. You put fluid in a system before you put it in? Well, this one you didn't. And nobody had told me. I had no training on it. It didn't look any different than anything else. And I realized why I was missing my IVs, because it. I was blowing their veins because it was pressurized. Well, I don't know. There's no way for me to know that. What gauge needle? 18 or 20. I usually use 18 or 20. 20. Usually. Usually. Which is not a big needle.

[Shane Claytor]

It's not.

[Unknown Speaker]

But old guys. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the military, you can land those.

[Shane Claytor]

Get that soda straw out of here.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, it's brutal. Yeah. In the military, I did that all the day, especially guys have massive veins as they're in good shape now. Va, you're talking old farts that are smoking. They've been living on the streets forever. That their veins are brutal. I mean, it's the hardest place you could work to land IVs. I mean, that's definitely tough.

[Shane Claytor]

So you can push some fluid through a 14.

[Unknown Speaker]

You could. The experience of getting it into the vein is you could drop a whole bag in minutes. Through a 14? Yeah, yeah. I mean, a 14 is a trauma. That's an absolute trauma situation. You would do that in the military, obviously, for.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, we used to do it to our friends all the time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah, yeah. When they're drinking or.

[Shane Claytor]

I have plenty of pictures of myself with an IV bag holding it up while taking a piss and a beer in the same hand.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, that was a. As a corpsman with the Marine Corps, that was. Half our jobs is keeping guys out of trouble after they drank all night. Sneaking into the. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Quotes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. We'd sneak them into the bah, you know, at, at night or early in the morning before a run and give them an IV and give them a bag so that, you know, they didn't pop positive and get in trouble. But yeah, I mean, that there's a lot of guys that owe us their careers for that because there were a lot of guys on the edge that were getting in trouble for that stuff. So that's. But you guys did the same thing, I'm sure.

[Shane Claytor]

Why did you decide to leave the VA system for the last time? Do you think you'll ever go back?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, no, I'm done. I, I mean, I got, I had the one situation and then the other situation, the last one, I was a travel nurse and our contract, they tried to undercut our contract and they, they basically didn't give us any warning. And I got a call about it and I was like this. I think you guys have to give us like a month's notice if you're gonna. I mean, they literally cut our contract in half. So I, I didn't leave. I, I obviously I got somebody to take care of my patient. I had like three days of sick leave left. And I said, I'm done. Like, I'm done here. I'm, I'm not. And I left. And then they actually brought us back. I was right. Legally, they had to give us a month notice before they changed the contract that was in our contract. I just didn't know it was in our contract. So they brought me back for a week and then they called and said I can't come back because I suppose I walked out on my patient, which isn't obviously, if I walked out on my patient, that's a legal thing. I didn't walk. I had somebody cover my shift and I left. So I'm done with the va. I mean, I'm in a really good place. I left in September. I finished my mba. I was helping a non profit kind of launch the last couple months, that's done. I mean, which I'm Thankful for. It was good, like, bridge. Kind of a positive bridge to help me. And I was kind of on, like, compassion fatigue, I think the operator fatigue for you guys, right. Where you just, It's.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, I mean, I know what you're talking about. I see that a lot in my law enforcement friends.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Two things. One, they get a very jaded perspective of humanity because of who they're constantly interfacing with, and it just, it kind of mutes their emotional response.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Which I think if you are in it long enough, you might not be able to turn it back up. I'm not sure.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, it old. I mean, old. Old bag. ICU nurses are like, some of the most heartless. They're brutal. It is like. I mean, they're brutal. I mean, vicious. Because they've seen so much death. They've seen so much. Especially in the VA system, they've seen so much just insuff. You know, just a, A messy system. They've seen so much of that. They just, they're like zombies. They're like bitter zombies. I mean, they're brutal. And so I got out and realized I'm done. I would never go back to the VA again. I mean, are you gonna keep nursing? No, I think I'm done. I mean, I, I, I got my MBA for a reason. I've, I've kind of actually helping. This nonprofit was good. It was healthy for me. The guy was a, A double amputee. It's called hooking veterans. They're taking, taking guys out on really high level fishing trips. It was like a good, positive bridge. And what I kind of realized, what I'm good at is consulting, business consulting. And so I'm changing my, I changed my whole resume to that. And I didn't work for. I haven't worked since September. I've done, I work for this nonprofit.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, you haven't done nursing work.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. But I was busting my ass for this nonprofit that's done. And I've kind of learned what I really like to do. I like to, to help companies kind of get to where they need to, and then I'm out of there. When all the drama and all the. Yeah, all that stuff occurs, I'm out. You know, I've dealt with all that in nursing, and I mean, nursing's full of drama. I'm tired of that stuff. So I'm kind of moving on. I'm, you know, I'm trying to develop an app with a, with another nursing friend, and we're going through some app developers now and then I'm, I'm really just kind of putting my name out there, trying to do consulting, but I think the floor nursing, I'm done. I can't. A lot of the policies I have, the more I'm removed from it, and I think down the road it'll just grow stronger. I have some serious issues with a lot of the way they do medicine these days. I think, like we talked about, medical freedom is really important. And a lot of times if you work in a traditional hospital system, you're not going to see a lot of that and it becomes hard to deal with, you know, and I don't. It's just not something I really want to deal with anymore. So I feel like I'm. I saved a bunch of money, I'm free, and I'd rather. Even if I didn't work for six more months, I don't care, you know, I think it's worth it.

[Shane Claytor]

So how'd you get or how long did it take you to be comfortable with being around that level of death? It's a different setting, right? You're more of a clinical setting, but it's not uncommon.

[Unknown Speaker]

The strange thing is I talked about how my dad died. Died, you know, years ago. I, I feel like God kind of prepared me for that kind of stuff. So the sad thing is, I do feel, I mean, any nurse that I work with would tell you I'm pretty good in those situations because I've dealt with it myself. So I think a lot about. I, A lot of times, to me, ICU care is not even taking care of the patient, it's taking care of the families. Interesting. You know, I mean, you, you, if you, if this patient's on his way out and so you're gonna know before they are. Yeah, exactly. The best thing you can do for them is take care of their husband, take care of their wife, take care of their kids, and let them know, hey, you know, like, you need to take care of yourself. You need to. And, and that really puts a smile on the patient's face or puts them at ease. I mean, my example is we had a. He was a master gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps, came in one time and he had open heart surgery. And you know how master gunnery in the Marine Corps, that dude's a, that dude's hardcore screaming and yelling. Everybody when he came out of, out of being intubated. And I get him, you know, I hear his report and his wife comes up and she's, you know, 70. This guy's, you know, he can barely move. He's gonna have to go through this big process. And I watch her, and she's half blind, she can barely walk. And I'm like, has anyone even thought of just taking care of his wife? Like, just go grab a wheelchair and take her back and forth and why would you do that? You're going. You go too far. You do. I started doing that for her, just looking after her. And the guy was like. It was like a 180, you know what I mean? The nicest dude you've ever seen. Telling me stories for days about his. And. And that's like, that's a big example. But that's a very common thing in icu. All you have to do is take care of their loved ones. And. And a lot of times you'll see the patients change and they'll kind of turn the corner because it's, you know, that's what's most important for people before they die. For me, I mean, I dealt with a lot of, like, personal, like, loss in the military. That. The guy. The guy. The guy that was a chaplain. Flying Tigers is who it was, okay? From. From the Korean War. That's who he was. His dad was. But that chaplain died right when I went into the military. Like I was right out of boot camp. It was crazy. He was a big reason why I went in. I left a really good job. He was really pumped about me going. And the last phone call I had gotten from him, he was. He was delivering on a volunteer basis, delivering death letters to families in, you know, in California. This guy had a huge heart and he just died of a massive heart attack. So I dealt with that. Right. Right out of the military, you know, right. Going into the military. And then I had a roommate that died. 21 year old kid, actually, Michael Montoya. Montoya, the EOD guy.

[Shane Claytor]

He.

[Unknown Speaker]

He probably knows my roommate. He died. He was a corpsman. He died in an explosion right as I was coming back from Iraq. And then my dad died right before I was supposed to go to Iraq again as a Kazakh, as like a flight corpsman. And then my dad dies right before that.

[Shane Claytor]

So.

[Unknown Speaker]

And then right when I got out of the military like a month later, my best friend that I grew up with died. He was a fireman. It was a big story in California. He died. He fell over in a. In a truck and died. So I feel like I was. God just kind of prepared me for a lot of personal tragedy while, you know, in the military and trying to make a lot of decisions. So I'VE I've. You know, I feel like I was good at helping people wade through that, but I. You know, I mean, that was eight years during COVID Some pretty heavy times. I stayed in Covid units because I felt strong that these people are dying, isolated. I've been through some of that. So it's good to be there for them in their last moments. You know, as far as being. I don't think you can ever fully be prepared for it. You know, you kind of turn yourself off. But I actually. It's one of the reasons I started to realize I probably need to get out is it started to affect me more. I actually had a breakdown. I was sharing. I was in my mba. I was doing a. I was. We were consulting this. This veteran nonprofit called Hooking Veterans. And I was getting up and I was talking about the. The. Tyler's the main guy's name. He's a double amputee. I was telling his story, and I just started crying in the middle of class. And I was like, what is going on, man? I'm. I mean, I'm an ICU nurse. I see this all the time. I see guys.

[Shane Claytor]

Doesn't mean you're impervious to it.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, no. And I think it just. It. It's where I started to really realize. And then I walked away and I went upstairs and I could not stop crying. I was like, what happened? I mean, I think I just. I think I. It's compassion fatigue is what they call it in nursing. Any medical. But I think you just. You get to the point where you break and you. You know, you. It just starts to get dark. And I. That's when I realized I probably need to get out of this and start to do some positive things, maybe get into business or whatever.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

So. Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So let's say that they develop a team that would look at critically the va. How long do you think it would actually take from just. Again, the medical side? Because there's variety of branches. Just from what you've seen, the medical side, how long do you think it would take for them to make appreciable change?

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, the truth. If they got rid of all the special interest groups and all that crap, I think it'd be six months. I mean, it's not hard. It's like anything else. If you shine a light on the issues, then the cockroaches start to scatter, you know, And I've seen it happen in. In. In small areas in the va. Like when that manager left after I came back, she Left. I stayed for about six more months before I left. It became like a whole different facility that in the ICU because she was gone. Everyone realized she wasn't doing her job. She was beating people up, she was hiding information. She's doing all these other things. So as soon as she left, man, it was a whole new thing. So I think, think, I think six months with someone like Elon involved where they can bring in a new charting system, you just, you have to be willing to shed light on it and you have to be willing to do the hard thing. It's. It's any, anything in leadership, you know, I mean, what happens when there's a bad SEAL team or what you got to come in and it's never happened. Right. Ever. Right.

[Shane Claytor]

It's perfection.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. Now especially, I think that's what I hear now is supposed to be. I, I hear now guys are like so thrilled to be in the.

[Shane Claytor]

God. You know, honestly, a lot of the times with leadership issues, what would happen is it would get kicked down the road.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Kick the can. And because. Oh, man. Let's say an average workup and deployment for a SEAL team, conventional SEAL team is going to be about 2 years, 18 months training, 6 month deployment. I think on average, you get rid of about one guy.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

During that time period.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And I am not joking. The stack of paper is about that hole.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

It's work.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

So the easier and easier. Not the easier and easier choice is let's laterally move this guy. Let's let somebody else deal with this problem is that nobody really deals with it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

You know, and then certain people achieve a rank where they have a lot more influence and then you got a problem on your hands.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Not always the case, but yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And then how much does that one person damage the whole unit? The.

[Shane Claytor]

The can be wild.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah. And you know, I've worked for. And I have probably been a bad leader too. Probably put that out there as well. But I've worked for bad leaders and experienced that when that person is removed and it's like a rope that was around your lungs preventing you from taking a full breath is gone. And for the first time, people are collaborative.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

And they're communicating. And instantly things are better. That one person in that key position can be so impactful. I don't understand where we drifted away from standards being the key metric.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's when you start bringing in all these policies on, on race and religion and blah, blah, blah, like. No, it doesn't. You know what I mean? It's standard. You have to have standards and accountability. People suffer.

[Shane Claytor]

Well, I can understand, I understand, understand the conversations in an academic, non operational, not intended setting. But I mean, if you were to go talk to somebody and legitimately say, hey, you have a brain tumor, this surgery is complicated and it's risky. Do you want, you personally have to make this choice? Do you want the most qualified and capable person to do this.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

Or do you want this person who was not necessarily hired based on those same standards? I don't really think that when push comes to shove, when people's toes are up on the line, I don't really think anybody's going for anything other than the standards and the track record and the objective proof.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. I mean, that would be my answer. I think it's the same in the circumstances. Community is. You have to, I mean, you have to have standards and you have to hold people accountable and you have to be willing to shed light on the issues at that kind of high level operation for the hospital and medical would be the same thing.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, or the entire unit suffers. And at the end of the day for me, like in a VA hospital, the veterans suffer. And I mean, they suffer miserable fates because of that. And then you have special interest groups that actually protect the system and not the patient, you know, and it's, it's disgusting. So that's, I think, I honestly think it's just you got to be willing to do the hard stuff and get your hands dirty and someone's got to be willing to step up and say, all right, enough's enough, and we're going to suffer a little bit and there's going to be bad press and the news is going to call us racists and whatever they're going to say, let them do it, but we're going to fix the system because at the end of the day, that's what's best for veterans. That's, that's how I feel about it. Like, you just got to get in there and get it done.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, man. So what else you want to leave people with for almost three hours?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, I was working with hooking veterans. They're a good organization to look into. The, the stars of that group that I, I really discovered is actually through Manect. Yeah, I've learned, I learned more in dealing with Manect than in, like, I learned how to do an elevator pitch. I got a hold of you, of you through Manect. I actually, I got a hold of Patrick bet David because I had his wife watch these. The hooking veterans video.

[Shane Claytor]

Yeah, it's a great video.

[Unknown Speaker]

And then I told her to show it to him because he wasn't answering me. And then he. He gave me your information. So, you know, the original plan was to get those guys on a podcast. They couldn't come at the time. And then you asked me because I had worked at the va. Yeah. So that's kind of how that worked. But yeah, I mean, you can look into them. Donate. They have a. The guy that did their video, his name is Mike Harris. He's with. With Manect. He's actually there, the PBD shows main videographer. The dude's an absolute stud. So if you're on Manect, I highly recommend Manect. I mean, I think for.

[Shane Claytor]

People don't know we're talking about. It's. It.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

How would you describe it? It's an app that.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean it's professionals. Like. Like, I would say high level. Not always, but.

[Shane Claytor]

But what would you just. It's. It. You basically can book a short period of their time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. 15 minutes. You know, I think it, it costs like maybe everyone, you know, sets their own price, but it costs maybe 200 bucks to have a 15 minute conversation with somebody assuming the software works. What's that?

[Shane Claytor]

Assuming the software works?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole another issue we might.

[Shane Claytor]

Have ended up FaceTiming.

[Unknown Speaker]

But hey, I have your personal number. It's. I'm gonna call you all the time.

[Shane Claytor]

I don't care. Good.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. But. And you know, I think it's, you know, to be able to talk to some high level people that are succeeding in their industry, especially coming out of business school. It's invaluable. It perfected my. I'm not, not that I'm perfect at it, but it really helped my, My elevator pitch. It helped. You know, that's how I'm on this podcast. Those guys are on the hook and veterans guys are on Michael franchise podcasts in a couple weeks and I'll have.

[Shane Claytor]

Them on from that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. That's up to. Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

The scheduling just didn't line up.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

And yours did.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I'm not put, you know, that's. That's on them. And you. I'm. I'm. That's what I like about consulting now is you, you know, hey, I, I helped you. Now I'm out of there. See ya.

[Shane Claytor]

I think the growth phase is the most fun.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

The institutional phase is when people start brushing their teeth at the Six Shooter.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's when. I mean, I'm sure you. Phyllis, that's when. When you're like, bye. You know.

[Shane Claytor]

Oh, man. First off, nobody consults with me on that stuff. I know how to do very few things well, and most of them are completely irrelevant. Like, I can test gravity pretty good. No, that's a fucking skill set. That doesn't.

[Unknown Speaker]

I've listened to you on some podcasts and actually you. You gave Jack Carr information that I saw like a little clip that was really helpful to me. What?

[Shane Claytor]

I tell him to stop being gay?

[Unknown Speaker]

No. Close. You basically told him like, to just, you know, learn to not over involve yourself.

[Shane Claytor]

Dude, you got to say no.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Shane Claytor]

That's it Is. Subtraction is more powerful than addition.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. I was recently. It was good for me to hear and be like, you know what? It's okay to walk away. And it's.

[Shane Claytor]

I needed to hear that this hunting season, because anytime somebody says to me, hey, do you want to come kill something? I'm like, yes. And then I pull up my calendar. I'm like, well, I guess I'll be visiting my home in Q4. And every year I tell myself the same thing.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

I have to back it off in 2025. I'm going to try to live up to my own advice to other people. There's so many. I. I enjoy the stuff that I do, so it's hard to say no.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

But I'm. I've got to start saying no.

[Unknown Speaker]

My. My hunting team just. I just want to make you proud. Is. Is. Is called Squeal Team six, so.

[Shane Claytor]

Squeal Team Six.

[Unknown Speaker]

Squeal Team Six. Yeah. Bringing home the bacon is the back of it.

[Shane Claytor]

So, yeah, I'm game with that.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's pig hunting. So. Yeah, I just want to make you proud. You know, all that, all that effort.

[Shane Claytor]

There's a lot of Team Sixes out there. There's Meal Team six.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

There's Gravy Team Six.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, I. They were gonna market it and I said, you know, I. I did business school. Let me look this up. And there was a ton of it. We weren't the first guys to come up with the idea. So, I mean, there's just. There's but a 50 year old, you know, guys falling over their e bikes.

[Shane Claytor]

And there's better.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's fun.

[Shane Claytor]

The seal thing. I'm hoping, I hate to say this because some people will hate it. I'm hoping that the. The star has reached its apex. It'd be better if the community went a Little bit more back behind the shadows. And I say that as somebody that I know damn well that I use my experience in the SEAL community and it frames the lens that I view the world. But it's not the end all, be all, you know, it's just a job.

[Unknown Speaker]

I, I, one thing I appreciate, it's like your podcast that I do think the SEAL community, the more I've thought about it and watched a lot of these because I know, you know, I dated a girl for a while that was really, really. Her dad's best friend was a Delta guy and he was a pretty high level Delta guy. One of those Delta guys you, you never hear about, but I can tell you after, but so he's got a real ethos about all that. I actually think a lot of the SEAL community and the Delta Force talking right now has been good for people because it's, it's shedding light on a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that the government, government just wants to hide. And I think people should have those conversations, you know what I mean? On is this right? Are we always the good guys? Should we always make these, these decisions? And is it right to tell guys to go do that and then shut their mouths? Because we have an ethos. So I think some of that's good. But I know what you're saying too, like it's, it's okay, let's, it'll serve.

[Shane Claytor]

The community better a little bit if they were to go one foot back behind the curtain.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Which I have no control over. And again, people are free to do with what they want to, with their experiences. I try to trade on it or tread on it lightly, but it is what it is. At the same time, what do you want to close it out with?

[Unknown Speaker]

That's it. You know, I mean, I'm, I'm making the rounds. I'm, I'm doing my own thing, you know, trying to do the consulting and develop an app. I mean, anybody wants to, I mean, we're trying to raise money for it. I got really good advice.

[Shane Claytor]

What's an app cost?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, if we do it through insurance companies, I think It'll be about 2 to 300,000. I just talked to build it. Yeah. A high level app developer that told me, you have a good idea. And he saved me. I love the guy. He said, are you going to spend all your savings? I said, yeah, how'd you know that? He said, don't do it if it's, it's a good idea. Raise the money, give up 30% and wait. So I'm super thankful for that. So now I'm just kind of of sitting back. We're approaching some insurance companies soon about it. I'm kind of hoping they'll fund it, which I think is. Is likely because I think the idea is decent enough, you know, that we'll see how it goes. But yeah.

[Shane Claytor]

Do you play in the social media world at all or do you have any interest in putting anything out there where people can get in touch with you if they want?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I. I should start to, you know, I actually, I'm on LinkedIn. That's it. I stopped Facebook, Instagram. I never had any of that. I mean, if I make the rounds I make may do that, you know, I mean, I thought about down the road, especially with my background, opening a, you know, a wellness center with some of the off brand meds because I'm, I'm. I've learned a lot about that. So, you know, I may start to do that down the road. This kind of came out of nowhere. I was really trying to get the other guys on. You asked me to come on and I just decided, yeah, I think it's a good idea to. To talk about the va.

[Shane Claytor]

I was gonna say. Well, there was.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh my gosh.

[Shane Claytor]

That conversation bifurcated quickly like, yes, the hook. The hookah hero thing is awesome. But also, let's have a little chat about your experience.

[Unknown Speaker]

I actually think on the big picture it's good.

[Shane Claytor]

Both are great conversations.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Shed light on it.

[Shane Claytor]

It would have been hard to actually have a collaborative conversation with them here and you at the same time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Possible. No, I think it would have been. It would have been funky, you know, or it would just been. Or been. We would have been what the weave would have been weaving the whole time. Never got anywhere.

[Shane Claytor]

Worst description ever. The weave.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. It's not a. It's not a healthy way to communicate for sure.

[Shane Claytor]

No. Well, cool, man. Let's get you off to. For people out there listening. Steakhouse, Kalispell, the Mercantile. Let's get you over there.

[Unknown Speaker]

Mercantile. Absolutely.

[Shane Claytor]

Cool, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Shane Claytor]

Yep.

[Unknown Speaker]

It'S better over here.

[Shane Claytor]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Shane Claytor]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Shane Claytor]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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