47 episodes listed below
Nursing careers explained by the nurses living them.
Nurses describe the routes that carried them from patient care into midwifery, executive work and company founding, and one guest recounts failing out of a nursing program. The host is just as frank, recalling a hard first month as a new supervisor spent learning insurance rules and prior authorizations.
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TobiTalks- A Nursing Career Guide For Millennials is a nursing career show told through first-hand accounts of how particular nurses reached the work they do now. In one episode the host lays out the reasoning: the nursing field should be as transparent as possible, and showing its many roles is meant to help ease burnout. The same episode jokes that 2020's Year of the Nurse needed an S on the end, and admits that stepping away from the mic was deliberate and returning was hard. The guests bring specifics. Krystal Brown, a certified nurse midwife, recalls that the midwifery program at the time wanted two years of experience, preferably in labor and delivery, and that a job at a large Dallas hospital was supposed to be the gateway to clinical sites. Being a first-generation college student comes up, as does choosing Texas Tech partly for its reputation. That episode also carries a first-person account of pregnancy as a Black woman in America: fear of becoming another maternal health statistic, and the homework it took to advocate for a safe birth. The conversation with Cara Lunsford, CEO and founder of Holliblu, covers home infusion work, MS and enzyme replacement patients, and lifelong friendships with patients. It then follows a move into administration, made on the hope that problems could be fixed from above, a notion the speaker now questions. Dr. Bonnie Clipper's episode is framed by the host's conviction that healthcare cannot transform without nurses, and an admission that the host once doubted nurses could shape healthcare at all. That conversation covers clinicians who leave rather than sit at a computer typing notes, younger nurses at ease with technology, and the argument for letting them in by acting on their ideas. Setbacks get airtime too. 'The 10 Year Tenacious Journey to Becoming a Nurse' starts with a Harriet Tubman quote about every great dream beginning with a dreamer, then introduces a guest described as one of the host's greatest friends. She recalls failing out of her nursing program, thinking she would have to go home, and being told her GPA was fine and a change of major could build on the science courses already taken. Another conversation names what nursing school lacked: mentorship, money for costly textbooks, and attention to mental health, at a time when exams meant missing friends' weddings and family holidays. For someone about to change roles, 'What They Don't Tell You about Transitioning Careers in Nursing' is the practical place to start. In it the host describes moving from the bedside into a supervisory role and spending a hard first month reading up on laws, Medicaid, Medicare and prior authorizations. It ends with a pep talk urging nurses in transition to drop old habits and remember that someone's life depends on them being great. The register is warm and plain-spoken, closer to a friend's encouragement than a lecture. Several episodes close by pointing to ttnfoundation.org, which the host describes as raising scholarship money for students in financial need.
Made for: Suits a nursing student or working nurse who is weighing roles like midwifery, supervision or executive work and wants plain accounts of what those moves required. Also suits someone recovering from an academic setback who wants to hear others talk openly about failing out and deciding what comes next.
What sets it apart: Its stated aim is transparency about the full range of nursing roles, so the talk gets specific: admission requirements for midwifery, clinical placements, the insurance and prior authorization rules a new supervisor has to learn. The encouragement, from a Harriet Tubman quote to a closing pep talk, comes attached to that practical detail.
Tobi Talks offers engaging dialogues for nurses and aspiring nurses who are looking for advice, in-depth nursing career reviews and encouragement on being a bold millennial in the vast changing world of health care.
That bedside-to-supervisor leap has homework nobody assigned you: Medicaid and prior authorizations.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Crystal Brown's path into midwifery connects maternal-health fear with informed self-advocacy.
Crystal Brown's pregnancy gives the episode its clearest shape: a familiar maternal-health concern becomes an immediate question of safety, fear, and self-advocacy.
A candid return links nursing school burnout to the support and career flexibility nurses need to keep going.
The host's return works best as a reflective reset, tying time away from the mic to a larger question of what nursing asks of people and what the profession can still offer them.
A nurse's move from oncology and home health toward an app built around what comes next.
Kara Lungsford's path from oncology and home health into administration and entrepreneurship gives this single-episode review a clear career-change spine.
A nursing leader makes the case for nurses as active shapers of healthcare innovation.
Healthcare innovation gets a grounded reset here, with nurses framed as people who bring ideas, influence, community knowledge, and practical authority to change, not just as implementers of someone else's plan.
Cultural careers, traced through the turns that shaped them.
Seniors, counselors and founders on what comes after graduation.
TobiTalks centers Crystal Brown's path from bedside nursing to certified nurse midwife and owner of Lovers Lane Birth Center in Dallas, Texas.
TobiTalks episode 39 tracks Shakira Briscoe's 10-year nursing route, beginning with a UT Southwestern internship in Dallas and ending with a return to school in 2019.
TobiTalks: A Nursing Career Guide For Millennials returns with the host saying 2020 was not just the Year of the Nurse, but the start of "the years of the nurse." She explains that a 2019 ectopic rupture, a 2020 pregnancy, and months of isolation pushed her to step away from the mic, social media, and the news to protect her health.
Toby Talks episode 37 follows Kara Lungsford, the founder of Holly blue, as she traces her path from sign language interpreter to pediatric oncology nurse and home-health director.
Deanna Cooper Gillingham, a case manager who never earned a bachelor's degree, tells host Toby that case managers act as patient advocates handling discharge planning, transitions of care, and DME coordination.
Toby Talks episode 35 centers on Dr.
Toby Todd explains how moving between nursing roles affected her preparation, schedule, finances, and workplace behavior after transitions involving Dallas, Texas Children's, mother-baby nursing, and managed care.
TobiTalks interviews Aisha and Angie Ohanu of the Ohanu and Allen Foundation about entering nurse anesthesia and creating scholarships for students.
Toby Talks features Keiston Monkhouse, creator of Patient Orator, discussing how patient stories can humanize healthcare.
Nurse Georgie discusses diversity and inclusion in nursing and her organization addressing these issues.
A special edition of TobiTalks featuring a conversation with President Barack Obama at the Diversity and Leadership Conference.
Host Tobi shares her own NCLEX failure story and interviews Nurse Chioma about helping nurses who failed the exam, offering encouragement and strategies to pass.
The host reads from her journal about failing nursing school twice and how she overcame it, offering encouragement to aspiring nurses.