From Trauma to Triumph: Kathy Allan's Vision for Nursing

Keith Haney: 00:00:49

Today's guest is someone who's changing how we view trauma in healthcare.

Kathy Allen is a founder of Gussie Nurses, a multi level education program designed to help nurses remove traumatic stress from the healthcare system and restore healing.

led for release at the end of: 2025

And if it isn't enough, Kathy is also a member of the SAG AFTA RA and enjoys performing standup comedy demonstrating that healing and humor can go hand in hand. Kathy, welcome to the podcast.

Kathy Allan: 00:01:44

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Keith Haney: 00:01:47

So good to have you.

Kathy Allan: 00:01:48

Whatever I can with your audience.

Keith Haney: 00:01:50

Yeah, we always have a little bit of trauma when we had to go to the healthcare facility. So any help you can give us to navigate that, we would greatly appreciate it.

Kathy Allan: 00:02:00

Well, I just want you to know that your nurses really want to be able to give you good care and to help you feel safe.

Keith Haney: 00:02:08

Well, we appreciate the work that they do because we know we could not make it without the wonderful people who do that work for us. Us.

Kathy Allan: 00:02:15

So.

Keith Haney: 00:02:17

I'm going to ask you my favorite question, Kathy. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Kathy Allan: 00:02:23

The best piece of advice I've ever received. Wow, that's a good one.

Because I've done so many different things in my life, but I think the best piece of advice is to be yourself, be authentic, and develop whatever gifts you've been given in this life and to be able to share it with other people. We're not on this journey by ourselves in this world. We're on this journey with lots of other people.

And so being able to share your gifts with others can be extremely helpful, not only for yourself, but also for them.

Keith Haney: 00:02:58

That is so, so true. I'm also curious as you think about your journey and the people who have been important in you.

Who are some people in your life who served as a mentor along your journey?

Kathy Allan: 00:03:10

Well, I've had a lot of mentors.

First of all, to start out with my nursing school and the nurses and doctors in that experience was extremely helpful because I got to see what commitment to care really was like. And then throughout the years, I have been so blessed to have experiences with people who knew way more than me about lots of different topics.

And I have worked in Locked psychiatric units in open psychiatric units in chemical dependency in every area of nursing. But I was lucky to be exposed to the American Holistic Nurses Association. And that's an association who believes that we can help people heal.

Not necessarily with drugs and surgery only, but maybe in addition to drugs and surgery, there are things that people can do to help themselves heal. And then I was lucky enough to be able to study trauma, the latest, the latest interpretation of how to heal trauma.

I was very lucky to still with top notch. To study with top notch people.

Keith Haney: 00:04:29

That's awesome. Those experiences are invaluable.

Kathy Allan: 00:04:33

Yeah.

Keith Haney: 00:04:33

So tell us the story behind the gutsy nurses. What inspired you to create a program focused on trauma recovery?

Kathy Allan: 00:04:40

Well, it comes out of my own nursing experience at the hospital where I saw something that was very unethical that was going on and I couldn't stay working in that hospital. I could not work in an environment where I knew that there were unethical things going on.

And these are things that are a result of the for profit healthcare system.

So anyway, what happened when I saw this and then I interacted with an administrator who told me that she was going to have me removed from the hospital if I didn't stop asking people what department they worked in. And I asked everybody because everyone was in scrubs.

And that really gave patients the idea that they were being cared for by nurses when actually some of them were not being cared for by nurses.

So anyway, it triggered my own ptsd and so I thought, okay, well, I've got to heal this and I might as well learn as much as I can about it as I heal myself. So I've graduated from four different trauma program trauma treatment programs.

But all of these programs were designed for therapists who have an hour to spend in a nice quiet office with people who've been traumatized in the past. Nurses don't have that luxury. They don't have the time to spend with their patients.

They work in a lot of chaotic environments and they and also their patients may be being traumatized in the present. So I thought I've got to develop some something for them so that they can help themselves and help their patients.

Keith Haney: 00:06:26

So what does that look like? We always think about the patient dealing with trauma. What does it look like for the nurse that's dealing with working in those situations?

Kathy Allan: 00:06:34

Well, how it looks like for the nurse is that with this for profit healthcare system, nurses are now Instead of working eight hours a day, they're working 12 hours and sometimes many more hours than that.

So they're Right away set up into an isolation type situation where they're not having so much time to spend with their families and they're not having balance in their life. They're also working in conditions where they're very short staffed.

And so they know that something could happen to one of their patients if they don't get to them in time. Like I have a friend who was working at the hospital, she had five very seriously ill patients that she was responsible for.

One of them got into a lot of trouble. So she needed help with taking care of her patients. So she went to, she found the nursing assistant and asked the assistant to help her.

And the assistant could not help her because the assistant had 13 patients of her own to take care of. So that is so incredibly stressful. And nurses will say, well, oh, I'm burned out. But they don't know that there's two kinds of burnout.

There's a kind of burnout where you're just exhausted from having to work too much. And then there's a kind of burnout where you still have.

You're exhausted from having to work too much, but somebody could be seriously harmed or even die. And it's your responsibility to have taken care of them. So that's, that's very traumatic.

Keith Haney: 00:08:11

So with the work that you do, how do you help support nurses who are dealing with those kind of impacts from the work that they do?

Kathy Allan: 00:08:19

Well, what I do is help them to understand that there's a whole new approach to treating trauma. And there was in the past, people thought, oh, it's post traumatic stress disorder.

Once you get it, there's no healing from it, that you're have to deal with this for the rest of your life. And I let them know that the new thinking on trauma is that it's an imbalance in your nervous system.

Your nervous system goes from a period of place of being able to be relaxed to a place of sensing danger. And when it senses danger, your body instinctually prepares you for action, to move, to do something.

And if you cannot do that, if you're stopped from doing that, then that energy that was created to help you deal with the problem gets trapped in your body. And so I let them know that there is a very simple way of helping to release that energy from their body.

And they're not mentally ill, they just have a nervous system imbalance that can be treated very simply, very easily.

Keith Haney: 00:09:32

When we think of gutsy, we sometimes think of kind of plowing through the stuff. I don't think that's what you mean by gutsy? What do you mean by being a gutsy nurse?

Kathy Allan: 00:09:43

Well, most nurses are very, they come from a very heart centered place and they think everybody else does too, and they want the best for their patient. Most nurses are not real vocal. Their whole focus on helping the patient know that that patient has been seen by them.

Not necessarily that their patient sees them, but rather that they see the patient and offer some sense of safety and security. So to speak out is really very challenging for a lot of nurses.

Now there are nurses that belong to unions and they speak out and they are more activists, but there are a lot of nurses who don't belong to unions and who are shy about speaking out.

So to be gutsy means that you're able to speak your truth, not necessarily in a mean or nasty kind of way, but in an authentic kind of way and, and in a way that helps your patients. Now I know I'm going on and on. I hope this is helpful.

Keith Haney: 00:10:52

No, this is, this is very helpful.

Kathy Allan: 00:10:54

Oh, good. Well, the thing of it is is that when there's just.

If you don't speak out and try to add some positivity to the situation, then that really affects the nurse. This brings some, some shame and some guilt. But if you do speak out, sometimes what the person will do is speak out in a very angry way.

They're just so angry about the situation or they're so upset. And what that does is it causes them to be dismissed because the administration would say, oh, that's just an angry person.

Oh, that person is just way too emotional. So we don't have to listen to them.

But if there's a group that you are with that supports you, then it's easier to speak out and it's easier to say your truth and to say things that can help your patients. And that's the whole point of being gutsy.

Keith Haney: 00:11:55

Can you walk us through the structure of the gutsy nurse program? I'm curious how that.

Kathy Allan: 00:12:00

Yeah, well, what it is, is I've developed a five step program.

And the first step, of course, is to teach nurses how, how their nervous system reacts to what they call sympathetic adrenal stimulation, which is reacting to danger, what happens in your body. And I walk them through the fight flight freeze scenario. Now with people, most people understand the fight flight, but freeze is something different.

It's when you've had too much, too much trauma and you go into a free state. Now most nurses will say, I'm not in the free state, I'm just numbed out. Well numbed. Out is the free state. So I teach them how to recognize that.

And then there are things that they can do to come out of the free state. Then the next class is how to feel safe in an unsafe environment.

Now, we know that in today's healthcare system, there's a lot of violence that's caused going on in the hospitals. Violence from patients, from their families, and from other staff members, staff to staff.

And so I show them how, and I think through education, when people understand what goes on, then they can help prevent that.

And I show a really funny, funny video in that show in that class to help people really grasp the meaning of how you can settle your nervous system in an unsafe situation. Okay, the next class is how the system, how the healthcare system can find it so easily to exploit and abuse nurses.

And I bring in the fact that all of us, no matter who you are, has had some kind of overwhelming or traumatic experience at some point in their life, and that those experiences, if they haven't been resolved or healed, can set us up for more exploitation and abuse in the future. So I help them to understand that. Now, the fourth step is called the 12 steps of healing care.

Now, how I developed that was one morning I woke up and I felt something coming through. So I grabbed a pen and a paper and I started writing down. And this was the 12 steps of healing care.

Now, I have experience working with chemical dependency, so I understand the 12 steps of AA. And these 12 steps are an adaptation of the 12 steps of AA, only they have to do with healing care.

And instead of saying higher power, I was asked to write down, have nurses use the healing power of the universe as their higher power. So this is something that they can use. Because most of us know that the healthcare system today is addicted to profits.

Not just wanting profits, but really addicted to them. More and more and more, they can't get enough.

So following these steps, nurses can invite the healing power of the universe to be with them every moment of their working day, to help them to solve problems, help them to give better care, help them to say the right words at the right time. And then I also, as part of this, it's easy to talk about being able to do the 12 steps of healing care. It's a whole other thing to implement them.

Because what they have to do is they have to detach from a system that is profiting from lack of care. And so that's something that they need help doing. And so I address that.

Okay, and then the last step of my program is called looking in Speaking out, which is looking at our own shyness and our own, I guess you could sell our own habit of getting through our professional life with our roles, degrees, and titles. And in real life, it doesn't really. It's not very helpful if you're stuck in your role or in your degree or in your title.

And so sometimes it's easy to forget how to be authentic, how to be real. And so we go through. I teach them a little bit about that.

Tell them a funny story about one time when I had to do that and I was totally out of my league. And then I give them a choice of things that they can do to put their voice out into the world.

Something I ask them to choose something that they've never done before, because it's a real growth experience. And that's what we're looking for, is having a really a growth experience.

But the whole point of my program is to bring back nursing in a way that feeds the soul of the patient and feeds the soul of the nurse. Otherwise, you're just a data collector.

Keith Haney: 00:17:19

I love that. And you wrote a book to kind of, I think, help us to process that, especially nurses called Gussie Nurses Save Life. Tell us about this.

What inspired you to write this book?

Kathy Allan: 00:17:30

Well, I love teaching. I've taught a lot of classes, and I really love it, and I love the student interaction.

But if I was to teach every weekend forever, I would not reach all of the 4 million nurses in the United States. So I thought, I'll write a book and I'll put a lot of this information in the book, and then that will be available to people.

And I can continue to teach the individual classes. I can film my classes so people can download them. So that's the whole reason for doing the book, is to get the word out.

And it won't take as long to get the word out to people.

Keith Haney: 00:18:13

How is it being received by the nursing profession community?

Kathy Allan: 00:18:18

Yeah, well, they are. They're excited, but then also a little bit skeptical about can we really change this? But there is a wonderful book by the psychotherapist.

I can't think of the name of Healing Trauma. And what she talks about is how in the 70s, people were beginning to talk about abuse done to women.

And what happened is nobody was really listening to them. And so they joined forces with the veterans who were coming back from Vietnam and suffering abuse.

And so they joined forces with them, and they both found out that their symptoms were exactly the same. Trauma is trauma, and it affects the body the same way, no matter where you get it.

But she said that it's really good when you have a whole group to support you as you're making this change and, and as you're educating people. So that's my goal. And there are nurses who are very supportive and want to make this happen for themselves and for their patients.

Keith Haney: 00:19:38

So you also do some humor. Tell me how you use humor in your holistic healing. Because I love humor. I love to be a little funny. My kids think I'm not nearly as funny as I do.

But how do you.

Kathy Allan: 00:19:51

My kids feel the same way about me. As a matter of fact, they're really embarrassed by me.

But I'm a member of SAG aftra, which is the Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Actors. And I tried to be an actor one time and I thought, no, it's not for me. I'm not interested in that.

I love stand up comedy because you can make people laugh and, and it's in the moment and you can be authentic. Now it's very helpful for me personally because it brings a smile to my heart and I love it.

And also it's helpful for my students because anytime you teach a class or you talk about trauma, people will sit there and they'll start identifying their own traumas and they can get lost in that and they can get so stuck in that, especially when the trauma hasn't been resolved. So, you know, we talk about the nervous system, how that's on high alert when you've had trauma.

So what you want to do is bring the nervous system back into a state of feeling safe and more relaxed. And so trauma will help. I mean, excuse me. So humor will help balance that trauma feeling out and help people to feel more imbalanced.

Keith Haney: 00:21:11

That's helpful. So I can use humor to get my kids not to be so traumatic.

Kathy Allan: 00:21:17

Good luck.

Keith Haney: 00:21:20

As I think about what we're talking about, there's been so many complaints about the healthcare system, and I know how valuable nurses are in that system. How can the system better support the work that nurses do?

Kathy Allan: 00:21:36

Yeah, well, the system is set up to intentionally abuse nurses and exploit them. That's intentional, and that's because that's the fastest way to save money, is to cut your staff.

So when you cut your staff, then you don't have enough nurses to take care of people. So the first thing, and this is what the nurses unions are fighting for is better staffing.

And so that's the first thing that they can do is to give better staffing. And then they can change the nursing hours. Now 12 hours a day is a bit too much.

Some nurses like it, but most nurses don't because they are separated from their families. They're exhausted, they're isolated. And actually there's an increase in nurse suicides.

And there was an article written by one nurse who went over all the things that the system has them do that contribute to the isolation and feelings of hopelessness and feelings of separation from your family. So cutting back on the hours, going back to the eight hour shift I think would be really, really helpful.

Keith Haney: 00:22:52

Yeah. I was going to ask you what was the optimal number of hours that a nurse should work. I think 12 hours is just a lot they thinking about it.

Kathy Allan: 00:23:00

Well, I've worked 12 hours in the past and I've worked. I found it to be too much because you're responsible for people.

You've got to be thinking about them all the time and be aware of what their needs are, what the problems are. In the old days, sometimes you had to work a double shift because they, the nurse following you didn't come in.

But what they did in the old days is that you had the next day off so you could rest and recuperate. They don't do that today. They work them 12 hours. Sometimes they make them stay longer than 12 hours.

When they originally started doing it, they told them, okay, you can work 12 hours, just three days a week and then you've got four days off. Won't that be swell?

Well, it's not so swell because they're having them work sometimes more than the three days, sometimes even four or five days in a row. 12 hour shifts.

Keith Haney: 00:23:56

Wow.

Kathy Allan: 00:23:57

So I talked with a, I was on an airplane one time with a person. I was, what do you call them? Not a nurse, but a physician's assistant. And she said they had to work 12 hours and they have to work extra shifts.

And I said, well, can't you just refuse and say no, I can't do the extra shift. And. And she said no. She said if I refuse, what they'll do is they'll reduce my pay. So you get punished if you say you're not going to do this.

So I don't know if that's true everywhere, but it was true for this person at this hospital where they worked.

Keith Haney: 00:24:35

That's crazy.

Kathy Allan: 00:24:36

Isn't it crazy? It's totally crazy.

But what's happening is it's reached the point now where people, more and more people are aware of and we're working in a system that was created by people and systems can be changed.

And I think people who started out with this system probably had very good intentions, but then it got away from them and it developed into something that's extremely profit driven and not patient driven. So I do think that we're really ripe and we're ready for a change in the system.

And there are nurses everywhere who know that we are not going to change the system anytime soon. There's too many people making too much money off of it. But what we can do is we can dry up the market.

And there are nurses everywhere who are doing things. The latest thing is nurse coaching.

And so they're using their skills to work with patients, patients to help them stay healthy and stay out of the hospital. And there are lots of other programs that are out there too.

And there are a lot of doctors who are doing, who are adding integrative medicine techniques and practices to their practice.

And there's training programs for doctors who want to do that, who want to add to western medicine knowledge that they have, but also other ways, other forms of healing for their patients.

Keith Haney: 00:26:10

That's encouraging because, yeah, it gets really frustrating.

Kathy Allan: 00:26:15

It's very frustrating. Yeah.

Keith Haney: 00:26:17

What advice do you have for the young person who wants to go into nursing? Kind of a cautionary tale or things to look for or ways to navigate themselves through this system?

Kathy Allan: 00:26:29

Well, I tell them that I don't think there's any better job in the whole world than being a nurse.

And that being said, that they would be entering nurses now at a time of great stress, where the system needs to be changed, where the system is not focused on patient care.

And I would give them the reality of it and let them know about groups of nurses who are fighting this system and who are fighting for their patients so that I could connect them with people who could be supportive.

Keith Haney: 00:27:06

That's great. So I love to ask my guests this question. This is one of my favorite go to questions. What do you want your legacy to be?

Kathy Allan: 00:27:14

Well, you know, people talk about legacy. I really am not interested in a legacy for myself personally.

I mean, coming to reality is that once you die, people forget you, which is fine, which is the way it is. I'm not here on this earth for people to remember me forever. But what I would like is to make an impact on the work.

I hope that my work is meaningful and that continues, especially the 12 Steps of Healing care. I think I'm just so blessed to have been able to write those down and to share those with people. And I want to.

You know, my book is coming out toward the End of the year. And next year I'll be writing the 12 steps of healing Care up in a separate book. Book. So people can have that.

Keith Haney: 00:28:00

Oh, congratulations on that. So in season six of the podcast, we now have a surprise question. Pick a number between 1 and 5 for your surprise question.

Kathy Allan: 00:28:11

Okay, well, I'll pick a number in the middle. How about three?

Keith Haney: 00:28:15

All right, Your surprise question is if you got stuck in an elevator and were forced to listen to one song, what song would you pick? Oh.

Kathy Allan: 00:28:28

You know, I can't think of the name of it right now, but Puccini was an opera, a composer, and his. He has a very famous opera. I can't think of the name of it right now, but I would pick that. I would pick Puccini.

And I'll tell you a story about that. Ok. I don't know if we have time, but I was working hospice and my patient was actively dying.

And before she got to this stage, she would tell me how much she loved opera. So I would put opera CDs on for her to listen to.

Well, then later when she was actively dying and she wasn't responding anymore, I put Puccini on for her and she raised her arm up and she went along and with the music with her arm. It was so lovely. It was just. So that's what I would pick as Puccini.

Keith Haney: 00:29:27

What a neat picture.

Kathy Allan: 00:29:29

Yeah.

Keith Haney: 00:29:29

As we wrap this up, a couple things. What key takeaways do you want to leave with the audience who are hearing our episode here and gaining great value from what you've just said?

What key takeaway you want to leave with them?

Kathy Allan: 00:29:43

Well, support your nurses. And every state has a nursing union in it. So connect with them and see what you can do to support the nurses.

Call the hospitals and tell them you want more nurses or you want to be cared for by a nurse. Don't just accept that, you know, the system is the way it is and there's nothing you can do. So we need a ground movement.

We need people coming up from the ground. It's not going to be top down. It's going to be bottom up for changing this system.

But just know that there's a lot of people, a lot of doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists and other people who work in healthcare who really do want to help you. They've trained for it and they want, they not only want, but they need your help to be able to help you.

Keith Haney: 00:30:36

That's great. Where can people find your upcoming book and connect with you on social media?

Kathy Allan: 00:30:42

Well, the only social media. I'm new to all the social media stuff, so the only thing I have is a website. So you can go to my website called gutsy nurses.com.

on the website, there is a five minute video on the homepage that describes the difference between burnout and trauma. And it's very informational for you.

For anyone who watches it, then under resources I have five videos, just two minute videos on things that you can do to settle your nervous system when you're feeling overwhelmed.

Keith Haney: 00:31:20

Well, Kathy, thanks so much for what you do.

And thanks for writing this book and putting this information into a place where nurses can get access to it and we can help them navigate through their trauma. But thank you for what you do.

Kathy Allan: 00:31:32

Thank you so much for inviting me on your show. I really appreciate it.

Keith Haney: 00:31:36

My pleasure.