Transcript Video Barbara McLean - TTM Testimonial/Celebrate Nursing May 19th,2025 Barbara McLean - TTM Testimonial/Celebrate Nursing May 19th,2025 Hello there, I'm Barbara McLean. I'm a clinical nurse specialist and a nurse practitioner, and I am currently the critical care program specialist at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Now if you don't know anything about Grady, it's a 1000 bed level one program that is fantastic because we offer care to everyone regardless of ability to pay. We see between 450 and 550 patients a day in our emergency department. And we who work there are exposed to things that you thought you would never see way beyond what you see on the pit, 10 times more than what you see on the pit. That's what we see every day and similar to you, I've had a journey in critical care. My journey began in 1976 and similar to you today, I had struggles that were extraordinary. And most particularly my struggles were that I was really a very smart nurse and I never knew my place. I always thought my place was to say what was necessary to say to do the right thing for my patients, to support my team, to evolve evidence and to ensure excellence and practice. Boy did I learn that not everyone felt that way. I often say every day I woke up thinking I was equal and every night I went to bed knowing I wasn't, but I never allowed that to dim my spirit. We have to all gather together not to be lemmings to follow a cattle call, but to really process the importance of this. Incredible gift that we have of the ability to be present in the moments of joy and sorrow of birth and death and to actually feel these things, share them with each other, being together in something that no one else really can ever understand. My journey has taken me so many places. I've been on every continent except for two. I was actually the program director and instigator for at that time therapeutic hypothermia at my hospital, I was the program director. I still am. Now we don't call it that, we call it TTM. And again the evolution of that and understanding the evidence and trying to assure that what we were doing was in the patient's best interest. I've had such an incredible possibility and opportunity again, all these opportunities fall into my lap. I don't actually necessarily seek them out, but what I learned early on was to feel my incredible passion for doing the right thing. In the best possible way using current evidence but always assuring that I was the voice of the patient and the voice of the family and bringing that into my clinical practice every day and that's what you do every day don't lose that passion. Don't let them crush your spirit be as smart as you can. Always speak up and speak out. We want to do it in a way that is collegial, but we must always speak up and speak out and sometimes you're going to be in conflicts that don't resolve the way you wish they did, but you still can go to sleep at night knowing you did the very best that you could in this incredible journey incredible. Care. I'm here 45 years. I'll be here another 45 if time allows and if anybody thinks I have something of value, I'm never going to leave this profession until I no longer can take a breath. So I wish for you all of the joy and all of the sorrow and everything in between that comes along with being a critical care nurse. Thank you for listening to me. Created by
