Clint Patty:
Well, hello there. Welcome to Investing in Good, a podcast that shines a spotlight on those making a profound impact within Northeast Kansas. This podcast is proudly presented by Clayton Wealth Partners, your partner in philanthropic financial planning for individual donors and investment management for endowments, foundations, and nonprofit organizations. In each episode, we’re going to sit down with the remarkable leaders and dedicated workers of nonprofits across the state of Kansas. We’re going to listen to their stories, learn about their causes, and talk about the challenges they have in making the lives of Kansans better each and every day. So stay tuned now as we delve into our next inspiring story on Investing in Good.
Welcome back to Investing in Good. I’m Clint Patty, the managing partner at Clayton Wealth Partners. Very pleased on this very, very cold day, Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Top City to welcome to the podcast Thaina Dos Santos Jensen. Thaina is one of Topeka’s 20 under 40 recently named and is the organizer and the head of an organization called Nurses Topeka. Nurses Topeka is why she is here today to talk about how that organization works, how it supports our local nurses. So we are glad to have you. Thank you, Thaina.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Clint Patty:
Absolutely. Thaina and I met actually at the 20, she was at our table at the 20 under 40 dinner and we got to talking about the nursing profession, the incredible challenges that it has faced both pre, during, and post COVID and her work I just found fascinating for someone so young and so new to the profession to really take on some of the more difficult parts of it. So for our audience, the benefit of our audience who does not know you, Thaina, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. So my name’s Thaina. I work at a local hospital here in town. I work in the post anesthesia care unit, also known as the PACU. Really though to kind of tell you who I am as a nurse I kind of have to talk about where it all started. So when I was three years old, I moved from Sao Paulo, Brazil to America. So I am a first generation immigrant.
Clint Patty:
Wow.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. And so-
Clint Patty:
And you moved to Topeka?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Moved to Topeka. Yeah.
Clint Patty:
Of all the places.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Of all the places. Yeah. I went from this impoverished town here to Topeka, Kansas and ever since I was young, my parents always told me I always had an interest for people, taking care of people. They would tell me at four years old I wanted to be a brain surgeon. That’s what I wanted to be at four years old. I didn’t want to be a princess, I wanted to be a brain surgeon. And so that stuck with me throughout my childhood. I wanted to take care of people, whether that was being a brain surgeon, whether that was being a CNA, I wanted to take care of people. And so I go through high school and I get this opportunity to get track scholarship to go to Highland Community College. So I go up there, get that done. I worked three jobs and went to school full time. One of those jobs being in the nursing home there up in Highland. And so I got to learn that interaction with people and nurses and CNAs and all that. And so it kind of made me realize, “Okay, yeah. This is what I want to do.”
Clint Patty:
That’s what you want. Yeah.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
“I want to do healthcare.” So I decided to come back to Topeka, save money. Again, came from immigrant parents. I wanted to save some money, live with my dad, and go to Washburn University. While I was there, I decided I think I wanted to be a PA. I want to still take care of people. Let’s do PA. So I shadowed this PA and I get my biology and psychology degree at the same time. And so during my psych track, I got to learn some of the mental health facilities here in town. So I got to shadow at Family Service & Guidance Center. I got to shadow out Valeo. Kind of got to learn that aspect and I’m like, “Okay, yeah. I do like the brain, I do mental health. This is cool.”
Clint Patty:
Shout out to Family Service & Guidance Center. Pam Evans was my first guest-
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah.
Clint Patty:
On the podcast
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
It was a great organization.
Clint Patty:
They’re fantastic.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. They’re fantastic. And so that experience made me realize, “Okay. I like this. This is cool.” But then I realized after shadowing a PA, I was like, “I don’t know if this is it though. I don’t know if this is what I really want to do. I think I want to really interact with people.” And so I got the opportunity to see the nurses there and got to see what they got to do and I was like, “Okay. I want to be a nurse.” So I decide to apply for nursing school at Washburn, got accepted, and then that’s where I became a PCT and a patient advocate at a local organization here in town and I got to learn more about people. I was working night shift. The cool time is what I like to say. Got to work night shift with these-
Clint Patty:
You get to really know people during the night shift.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
You really get to learn though. I got to work with these really cool nurses up on a medical surgical floor, got to get to know them, got to see patients at night, which is a different story than patients during the day.
Clint Patty:
Sure.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
And so I got to get that experience and I was like, “Okay, yeah. I want to be a nurse.” So I graduated in May 2020, ended up getting my nursing, my biology, and my psychology degree.
Clint Patty:
Wow. Three separate degrees all at once.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
While working full-time. Yes.
Clint Patty:
While working full time.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yes.
Clint Patty:
And then congratulations for all that hard work and all your perseverance, you’re going to walk right into COVID as your first full-time nursing job.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
And all during that, by the way, I had a baby right in nursing school too.
Clint Patty:
Oh my goodness.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So I had all this experience, but it was good experience, right. I got to learn how to interact with people. I got to learn the struggles of working and going to college and having a kid. And I think all those experiences kind of taught me who I am as a-
Clint Patty:
Busiest I’ll bet you ever had been in your life.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Very.
Clint Patty:
That had to be.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Very busy. Very busy. And, I mean, I’m still busy to this day, but that was a different type of busy. But I like to tell people that story of me because that explains, a lot of people are always like, “Why do you work so hard? Why do you always,” like my 110% is someone’s 300%. It’s just I just always have worked very hard. My time there working where I work and all these committee and council has taught me to kind of do more, do more for my community, do more for the profession, and that’s kind of why I started Nurses Topeka.
Clint Patty:
I just want to run down just some of the basic statistics and you tell me whether these sound about right to you.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Okay.
Clint Patty:
Between 2020 and 2021, the registered nurse workforce declined by over 100,000 nationwide, which was the most substantial decrease in four decades. The trend is expected to continue post COVID with an estimated 1.2 million new RNs needed by 2030 to address the deficit. That’s a huge, huge number. Does that sound about right to you?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yes. It definitely sounds right. Just for my experience of being a nurse, I noticed the trend of the boomer nurses, that generation, were close to retiring and this kind of just set it off for them. So they decided to retire and I think that’s kind of where that number drops is we’re missing that generation of nurses, which is truly a valuable generation. They were the ones who they had work ethic, they’re the ones who trained the nurses who are on the floors now. So that was a really big hard hit to the profession I feel like. But those numbers sound very accurate.
Clint Patty:
I was at the Mayo Clinic about two years ago picking up a friend of mine who had a major surgery there and I was just chatting with the nursing staff up there and what surprised me about Mayo, once you got beyond the sort of grander of entering Mayo Clinic and going through six layers of security, it really is like any other hospital, including their shortage of staff. I mean, she had commented that during COVID, the nurse I talked to at Mayo said that there were a lot of nurses that retired certainly, but there were some that just disappeared and they never saw them again.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yes.
Clint Patty:
But basically the same struggle that we’re having in Topeka that’s happening all over the country is happening at places like Mayo Clinic too.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yes. It’s a nationwide issue. And really nowadays where it’s 2025 now and now you’re trying to see organizations and really just corporations trying to bounce back from something that happened five years ago. We are trying to find nurses to be educators, we’re trying to find nurses to train new nurses that are coming in, and really it’s just us trying to bounce back from these numbers that we’ve lacked due to this pandemic, which is unfortunate, but it’s made the profession and the leaders really have to think and puzzle through this and figure out, “How can we be better for this next generation of nurses to come in?”
Clint Patty:
So tell me how Nurses Topeka helps support nursing throughout this region.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So really what I created this page, I wanted a positive culture here in town, somewhere that nurses can feel safe going to, somewhere nurses can post about job posting, volunteer opportunities, a place where nurses can have these crucial conversations that are happening on a political aspect really just in general. And so I just wanted to create this safe and environment for them. So what I like about it is on Facebook you can post anonymously. So you can have these crucial conversations. The nurses don’t feel like they would get in trouble for trying to have these crucial conversations that are really vital and necessary. And for example, there are conversations that have been had about, for instance, the blizzard that we just had.
Clint Patty:
Right.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Nurses were asking questions such as, “Are organizations offering hazard pay for nurses to come in during these times? What is happening? Highways are shut down. What are hospitals doing to support nurses to get them to work?” And so I think this is just a safe place for those questions to be asked and I think when you work in an organization, it’s a business, so you got to follow their policies and protocols and procedures, which is necessary, but I also feel like there should be a space for those nurses to ask those difficult questions too.
Clint Patty:
So describe Nurses Topeka and how exactly it operates to our listeners.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Right now it’s a Facebook page, but I’m actually in the process of working with someone to create it as a website just because the new generation shows they’re not using Facebook as much as the Millennials, the Boomers, the Gen Xers.
Clint Patty:
Right.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So we’re going to create a website. And really what this website is going to have is one of my plans are is to have job posting, volunteer opportunities, and even what my main goal is to create a resource center. And what people don’t realize is that, again, nurses are part of this community too. We’re humans. A lot of people don’t know, some of us live paycheck to paycheck as it is. Some of us are scarce when it comes to feeding our families. So I want to create a resource center where nurses can get the supplies they need to take care of themselves so they can take care of the community that we serve.
Clint Patty:
And how long has Nurses Topeka been functioning as a Facebook page?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Honestly, a little bit over a year and I have about 1,200 nurses.
Clint Patty:
That is amazing. And are most of those nurses local or does it go beyond the geographic region here?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
I would say most of them are in Shawnee County area. And I got a very vast amount like nursing. Nursing is just not nurses. It’s you have CNAs, you have CMAs, you have PCTs, you have nurses with associate’s degrees, nurses with bachelor’s degrees, you have master’s degree nurses, DNPs, PhDs, you have nurse practitioners, you have CRNAs. So this page has all of that.
Clint Patty:
And it gives those folks an opportunity then to express themselves, share concerns, ask for help and-
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yes.
Clint Patty:
Maybe receive it.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah and it’s really cool because you get to see it from that vast array of nurses that we have. So sometimes we’ll have nursing students be like, “Hey, I need some textbooks. I’m going to start level three nursing. Did any of you guys go to Washburn University? Offer me cheap sale of my books.” And then you have Ph.D. students who are like, “Hey, I’m doing a research project for school. Wanting to be willing to be participants for my research project.” So it’s a vast array, but it’s cool. It’s really cool to see.
Clint Patty:
You know, I’m shocked that there wasn’t something like this before. What gave you the idea to start this? What was the inspiration for it?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So really there is a page in Kansas City, it’s called Nurses KC, and so I got to be a part of that page and just kind of got to learn and see what the creator over there, her name’s Holly, and see what kind of she’s doing. And I thought it was really cool that Kansas City got something like this because Kansas City is a vast array of cities. And so she has about 16,000 people on her page, but she’s had it since I think 2008.
Clint Patty:
Yeah. Wow.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
And so I was like, “Well Topeka, it’s its own beast.” We’re our own area. Let’s see. We have Washburn University, Baker University, Rasmussen, Washburn Tech. So you have four nursing schools here in town and then you have three main hospitals and then you have 10 plus nursing homes here in town. We’re a big nursing area and I don’t think people understand that until you start really giving them the numbers. Like nursing’s big here.
Clint Patty:
Well, and anyone who’s had to be in either of our two major hospitals here in Topeka in the last six months knows the challenge that the hospitals have of being full a great deal at the time. So that care in those cases becomes even more critical, the need for nurses becomes more critical, and presumably the issues for nurses become greater.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yes.
Clint Patty:
So tell me, what are the biggest, we talked about some, but what are some of the overall biggest challenges that the profession is facing right now? Other than shortage.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Right.
Clint Patty:
We know that one.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So really this is one of the talks I kind of do out to the community, but really one of the big things that I’ve noticed is nurses trying to find their identities again. So they’re faced with this huge pandemic where they kind of lost their identities and they were faced with burnout. They were faced mental health issues, anxiety, depression. They were seeing people pass away every day, some of these specialty nurses. And then they are told, “It’s over.” The pandemics “over” and now it’s just like, “How are we supposed to live life now?”
Clint Patty:
Right.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
How are we supposed to be nurses taking care of a community?
Clint Patty:
And particularly a new nurse like you. You came in really with, we’re all going to knock on wood and hope that’s the worst public health crisis in our lifetimes. Probably will be. That’s a heck of a way to start.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Right. And I really think it’s just now finding the identity of a nurse. What is our purpose? What are we here for now? And yes, this comes back to taking care of the patients, but who are we as nurses, right?
Clint Patty:
I’ve always wondered who does take care of the nurses. I have had an unfortunate experience of being up with some critical care folks years ago at Children’s Mercy and I was on the floor with these amazing nurses and they lost a child while they were there who’d been in their care. And I saw this half dozen women all look at each other. They went into the room with the lights down, they silently prayed for about 20 seconds, then they went back to work. And I thought to myself then and I think now that’s a mental health strain that they’re seeing all the time. I saw it one time and it had a tremendous impact on me. How do nurses deal with that? How are you able to keep away the depression and anxiety that would naturally creep in from being around suffering that much?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
I honestly think it depends on the person and the specialty that they work in and really what organization. So the local organization that I work at, we have opportunities with our benefits to have mental health counseling, EAP, focus groups to help with that well-being and mental health, which is great, which is phenomenal. And then really it’s just I’ve learned that some nurses that were working through the pandemic, they had to go on medication, they had to go on anti-anxiety-
Clint Patty:
Sure.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Antidepressant just to get through it. I know nurses now are, I know some of them who are in therapy now, just trying to relive through that PTSD of what just happened. And again, focusing on that, but also trying to find themselves again in this profession. But really it’s just, I think it depends on the person. Some of us can just go to work, do our shift, and be fine. Some of us can go to work and do that and then have a mental breakdown in the car ride home. And then some of us are just like, “Okay. I need to do better as a well-being. I need to maybe not pick up an extra shift this week. Just hang out with my family, relax, read a good book.” But really it’s funny because nurses are workaholics. We love to work, right? We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t like what we were doing.
Clint Patty:
Sure.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So I think it’s just us trying to find a way to take better care of ourselves and I think it depends on how we cope with that.
Clint Patty:
I always thought during the pandemic, it’s not really irony, but it was an unfortunate reality for most nurses. There were people that did not like restrictions even while they were in the hospital being treated. And I felt like a lot of the nurses that I talked to and a lot of the hospital staff felt like they were being blamed even though they weren’t the ones instituting that. And then they were seeing many of these people pass away on top of it. Unlike other times in our history, I can’t think of a single time when hospitals have experienced so much death that they were backing up refrigerator trucks to the building. So it was a singular crisis to be sure. Just talk a little bit about your experience during that time period. Did you feel that, the anger? Did you feel the resentment? How were people here locally to our nurses during COVID?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
I think as a community, Topeka, I think they were very supportive of nurses. I remember seeing signs, nurses are healthcare heroes or they would place that outside the hospitals. I think to really understand the full picture of what nurses went through as a profession, you had to have been a nurse. You had to have worked through it, seen it all to understand and grasp the severity of what we went through. I would say as a new nurse coming in, I always say it takes a new nurse about a year to figure themselves out. And I say that because it takes a year to learn the hands-on skills of being a nurse, right. How to give medications, how to assess someone, how to talk to patients. Some of these nurses come in and have never had any healthcare experience at all. So on top of a pandemic, you had these new nurses who were trying to figure out how to be a nurse.
And so that kind of sped up the skills that they were supposed to learn maybe in a year’s time, they had to learn pretty fast how to be a nurse. So I think some nurses who graduated during that time maybe have lost that, I would say, time it takes to actually learn how to be a nurse because they had to learn things so fast. So I think I don’t regret anything about graduating when I did. I think it was definitely an experience. And when I really think about it now five years later, it was just very sad.
Clint Patty:
Yeah.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Sad.
Clint Patty:
One of the professors or one of the instructors at Baker School of Nursing told me about a year ago that after seeing a pretty severe decline in the student class, was telling them, “Folks, this is the worst of it.”
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah.
Clint Patty:
“The profession is a lot better than this and we’re past this now so please don’t leave.”
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah.
Clint Patty:
But I think a number did just seeing that and thinking, “No. I don’t want any part of that.”
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. And during the time, the nurses who were in it or students, we worked through it, we got through it, we’re here now. Like you said, some of us left, most of us stayed though, but it comes back to, okay, it’s five years later, now we have time to actually grasp and think about what had happened. We have research studies coming out about what had happened during COVID. Now we have time to gather that data, figure it out, seeing the numbers, especially with nurse burnout, nurse well-being, nurse mental health. If you start looking that stuff up you’re starting to get these new studies that are coming out because they had those years of collecting data to figure it out. So you have that and then you just have, again, it goes back to us just figuring out us, figuring out our identities. What are we supposed to do now? Yes it is about taking care of the patients and the community, but it’s just like who are we as nurses?
Clint Patty:
So if someone posts to Nurses Topeka, they can do that anonymously?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
They can.
Clint Patty:
And give me a couple of examples, without naming names, of just some folks who have posted and been able to get some help through Nurses Topeka.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
The anonymous post just vary. Like I said, recently there was an anonymous post about the blizzard conditions and people asking about what organizations are doing when it comes to hazard pay, what are they doing about as far as transportation goes for nurses to get to work. And there was really good responses from people in the community, just being honest and blunt about the pay and then honest and blunt about what organizations were offering. For instance, my local organization was using security guards to go pick up nurses at their homes and bringing them to work, which I thought was fabulous to get them there. But that’s just one example of someone posting anonymously. There’s another anonymous post about unions, which there’s not really unions here in Topeka. That’s more of a Kansas City. Some organizations do that in Kansas City, but just a nurse wanting more information about unionization here in town as well.
Clint Patty:
When we talk about mental health and well-being for nurses, how does the apparatus of Nurses Topeka, how can that help support nurses mental well-being and mental health?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Well I think, like I said before, it’s just a safe space for people to have these conversations. So I think that kind of helps right there, knowing that they have a place to go if they want to ask a question. And then I’m always posting about mental health trainings here in town, mental health opportunities, and just kind of what I also think is cool is people also have posted about meeting up and getting coffee together or having lunch or doing those type of things and I think that’s pretty cool. Another thing that me and some of my administrator moderators do is we do giveaways in the holiday and nurses week just because we know that organizations try to do their best to give nurses what they can during those times of the year, but when you have so many nurses working for you, you can only do so much.
Clint Patty:
Right.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So my page, what we usually do is we reach out to local businesses that support nurses and they always tend to donate something for us to give away. So that’s always been really neat. The nurses really love it, they enjoy it. And I always ask quirky, fun questions, something that sometimes doesn’t have to do with nursing like what’s your favorite color? Or if you could be a different specialty nurse, what would it be? So that’s always been fun too and I think that kind of helps the morale as well of the people in the group.
Clint Patty:
As far as the future of nursing in Kansas, what do you see as some of the trends? I mean, we know there’s some unfriendly trends as far as numbers, but what other trends do you see affecting the profession of nursing here in Kansas?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
I know a number one thing, so I know I haven’t mentioned, but I’m a board member for a couple of state and national organizations for nursing.
Clint Patty:
Tell me about that.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
So I’m a board member for the Missouri-Kansas Perianesthesia Nurses Association and then I’ve been on councils and committees for Kansas State Nurses Association and the American Society of Perianesthesia Nurses. And during my work with the Kansas State Nurses Association, I know a big thing is nurse ratios. What is the safest nurse ratios for specialized nurses? So one thing right now is medical surgical nurses. The ratio, and what we mean by ratio is how many nurses to patients. And so right now the ratio is one nurse to six patients and I know that’s something that Kansas State Nurses Association is fighting for is to decrease that number to kind of help, again-
Clint Patty:
That seems high. I mean one nurse covering six patients at once.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
It depends on the acuity of the patient.
Clint Patty:
Of course.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
All of that. But I know that’s a big thing that they’re working on is how can we decrease that maybe to one to five for these nurses who work on these medical surgical floors. So that’s just one thing because we’re trying to market the profession and we’re trying to create, again, a safe space and culture for these nurses to work at so they’re not burnt out, so they don’t have mental health issues because working one to six for instance three 12’s a week, that can be really draining. Some nurses, they do it, they love it, they’ll do it every day. And some nurses it’s just like, “Okay. I’m done after two years.” They want to go to another specialized area and that’s the beauty of nursing, right? You can go to different specialized areas if one place isn’t working out.
Clint Patty:
Tell our audience how they find your Facebook page so that they can join Nurses Topeka.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Really, you just go to Facebook and search Nurses Topeka and it’s the only one named that.
Clint Patty:
It’ll pop up and then I assume you go through the normal, join this group, and then-
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yep. And we ask them to answer some questions and join this page and that’s how they join and like I said, the plan is to create a website so it’s more accessible for the whole community.
Clint Patty:
But they can start on the Facebook page and I assume as you develop a website that notice will go out over the Facebook page.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Correct.
Clint Patty:
All right. Technology, how is technology going to impact the future of nursing going forward? I was amazed the last time I was in, someone brought in a machine that actually identified where your blood vessel was to get a blood draw.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah.
Clint Patty:
And I thought, “That’s nice.” It certainly made it much, much easier, but what trends are coming up? I mean there’s all this talk now that artificial intelligence is going to revolutionize various industries. What impact does either that or any other technology advances or what’s that going to have on the nursing profession?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
I think AI is coming. It’s just a matter of when we’re going to accept it in the profession. I think it could do some very good things for our patients, for us as nurses. I think it’s just a matter of when we accept it, when we acknowledge it, when we’re able to learn from it. As far as technology wise, I know for instance Mayo Clinic, they’re starting to use robots on their floors to kind of help nurses as an aid and what I mean by that is for instance a patient does a call light, the robot goes to the room-
Clint Patty:
Right.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Check the call light, get the information down, and let the nurses know. I think that’s pretty cool, pretty neat what that technology can do. I think people should embrace it. I know it can be scary to some people that technological advancement, but I think it could do good for the profession as well.
Clint Patty:
Well you’re talking about these problems with the ratios. I mean, that might be one way to get at it. If you can remove some of the tasks that nurses have to do, that will obviously make them able to better serve more people.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. And I think people or individuals who are in those leadership positions in these organizations, they’re trying to figure out these puzzles all the time. How can we better technology to better our patients? I work in a surgical area so it’s just like what technology can we use to better our patients? For instance, we use a robot for our general cases. The recovery, what I’ve seen for patients, it seems to do really well. Less pain for patients, not big incisions, little incisions. So it’s just kind of those type of things, just trying to accept what’s coming and what’s happening and trying to learn from it and really that’s where research comes in and quality improvement and just trying to see is this the best thing that we can do?
Clint Patty:
You talked about the importance earlier of you giving back to Topeka. Talk a little bit about where that comes from. Not everyone has the same commitment to community. Is that a family thing? Is that something you were brought up with or was it intuitive?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Honestly I think it’s just me. So like I said, I am from a different country. Came here when I was three years old. Moved to Topeka right off the bat, was accepted by the community. I went to school here. I went to high school here. I went to Washburn and got my nursing degree here. So Topeka is really all I’ve known. And I’ve had so many great mentors, great guides that have helped me. And I just know that I can do more and I’m able to do more. And so when I think about it, I’m very happy to have a community that accepted me and my family coming here and then realizing that I wanted to do more for this community that accepted this three-year-old from Sao Paulo, Brazil, right.
Clint Patty:
That’s wonderful. You’ve mentioned mentorship and having great mentors here. We typically will hear older people like me talk about why mentors are important, but I don’t hear a lot of younger people receiving the mentor’s advice talking about it. Talk about the importance of mentors to you and what it’s meant to you, how it’s shaped you.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. So I think, like you said, a lot of younger people don’t talk about it because I don’t think a lot of people have gotten the experiences and the opportunities that I’ve had. I’ve had so far in my career two great mentors, two great mentors, one’s not even a nurse, and another one is, and they’re both in leadership positions and they just kind of just teaching me what it is to be human. It’s not even just being a nurse, it’s just being like, how can we be better humans? And so I appreciate that because they opened my eyes to let me know there’s more. There’s more to just being a nurse. You’re a human work-life balance. You need to focus on yourself because how can you focus on yourself and you can’t not take care of people, but you need to take care of yourself too.
And so it’s kind of cool because the two mentors I’ve gotten lucky with is I could have these one-on-one conversations with them, but we can just be ourselves. It’s no, “You work for this organization and I work for this organization.” It’s just, “I’m Thaina and your Clint,” and we can just have these human interactions. And I think sometimes that’s what we forget when we work in healthcare is that we’re all humans. We can all have these conversations. And it goes back to people want authenticity and people want human connection. That’s what it comes down to. And I think the better job we can do with that, the better we can do for ourselves and the better we can do for our community.
Clint Patty:
Anything else you’d like to say about Nurses Topeka?
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
You know, if you’re a nurse out in the community and you haven’t heard of this atmosphere, this environment, I really do hope you join. We really do try to make this a safe place for us to have conversations, job postings, volunteer opportunities. I have bigger goals than just a Facebook page. I have bigger dreams for the nursing profession here in town. Like I said before, this is a big place where nurses are and I think we could be better at supporting them.
Clint Patty:
Well supporting nurses is what Nurses Topeka is all about. Check it out on Facebook. Thaina, thank you.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Clint Patty:
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen, one of Topeka’s 20 under 40, our guest this week on Investing in Good. Thank you so much.
Thaina Dos Santos Jensen:
Thank you.
Clint Patty:
You’ve been listening to another episode of Investing in Good. Today’s episode was brought to you by Clayton Wealth Partners. We are more than just individual wealth managers and financial planners. If you’re an individual seeking to increase your impact through thoughtful charitable giving or if you represent an endowment, a foundation, or a nonprofit that’s looking to safeguard and grow your financial assets, please consider partnering with Clayton Wealth Partners. You can visit us at claytonwealthpartners.com and discover how we can help guide and empower you in your mission to make a difference. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and join us next time as we delve into more stories of inspiration right in the heart of our community. On behalf of Clayton Wealth Partners, I’m Clint Patty. I thank you for listening and we will see you soon.