Healthcare has been part of my personal life for as long as I can remember. My brother is a Nurse Practitioner. I have watched him do this work up close, including supporting a close family friend through ALS and, eventually, through MAID. What stayed with me wasn’t just the clinical skill involved. It was watching him navigate his own feelings about it while staying present and professional for someone he cared about. That kind of quiet emotional weight is something nurses carry more often than most people realize and rarely talk about.
I’ve also been on the other side of it. Multiple knee surgeries taught me firsthand what it means to feel scared and out of control in a hospital setting, and how much it matters to have a nurse in the room who makes you feel safe and not alone. And I’ve watched my aunt, who has lived with MS for over twenty years, be kept going in large part by the nurses who have supported her throughout. I don’t take any of that lightly.
What I understand about nursing culture comes from all of this. I’ve seen how often nurses are expected to just keep going, no matter how exhausted or emotionally affected they are. I’ve heard, through the nurses in my own life, about the pressure to stay strong, not complain, and put everyone else first, even when struggling themselves. There isn’t always a lot of space to receive care when your whole role is built around giving it.
That’s a big part of why joining Dr. Kelly’s Nurse Wellness Program felt meaningful to me. Nurses spend their days attuned to everyone else’s needs and distress. I wanted to be someone who could sit with them in the opposite direction. A space where they don’t have to be the strong one. Where the hard, messy, heavy parts of this work are welcome and nothing has to be cleaned up before walking in.
People who work with me say it feels grounding and steady. I’m warm, but I’m also direct enough that things don’t stay vague for too long. We can gently get to what’s actually going on without it feeling jarring. I take hard things seriously, and I also make room for humour and moments to breathe. You don’t have to perform here. You don’t have to hold it together. Coming here is enough. Everything else we figure out together.
Specialties
- Burnout and compassion fatigue in nurses and healthcare professionals
- Moral distress and moral injury
- Grief, loss, and traumatic stress
- Anxiety and emotional exhaustion
- Workplace stress and team dynamics
- Supporting nurses through MAID and end-of-life care experiences
- Boundary setting and self-compassion
- Virtual therapy for nurses across Ontario