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Welcome to NurseCafe, the newsletter serving up nursing insights as refreshing as your first sip of coffee before a 12-hour shift.

In today’s email:

• The bead jar: Nurse Jayuanna Thomas and her memory jar.

• Prune hack: Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.

• Arena Labs: A startup that aims to support healthcare workers.

• Around the web: Quick links about interesting things.

• By the numbers: Rates for LVNs in California are higher than some states’ RN pay.

P.S: If you want to read any previous editions of NurseCafe, you can on our website, and if you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe here.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Making everything count

This Nurse’s Bead Jar is Going Viral (and making us cry): Meet Jayuanna Thomas, the 25-year-old nurse whose glass memory jar just broke TikTok (5.7M views and counting).

Her genius hack? A bead for every baby she delivers:

Pink = standard deliveries Yellow = angel babies who didn't make it home Green = patients whose stories hit different Purple = that one time she channeled her inner superhero and delivered solo. "There's a lot the textbooks don't teach," Thomas says.

While healthcare obsesses over efficiency, this Gen Z nurse is proving that sometimes, the most clinical thing you can do is care.

Fellow L&D nurses: your move.

Per Diem VS Part-Time Nursing: Nurses seeking work-life balance face a critical choice: per diem or part-time? Per diem nurses are healthcare's ultimate gig workers – picking shifts, facilities, and contracts ranging from single days to 13 weeks. The upside? Maximum flexibility, diverse experience, and sometimes full benefits through agencies like Nursefinders. Meanwhile, part-timers lock in consistent 20-30 weekly hours with a single employer, trading flexibility for stability. The decision boils down to your priorities: Want schedule predictability with limited variety? Go part-time. Craving freedom and diverse experience? Per diem's your move.

The Hot Butter Prune Hack: Travel nurses are buzzing about the "ultimate poop hack" - a simple two-ingredient mocktail called the Hot Buttered Prune (aka Texas Tornado). The combo of heated prune juice and butter is helping hospital patients achieve that crucial pre-discharge bowel movement. Nurse Brooke Saprito claims it works when conventional medications fail, with searches for "prune juice and butter" skyrocketing 2,300% this quarter.

While prunes contain sorbitol (a natural laxative), experts warn this viral remedy shouldn't replace proper treatment for chronic constipation, which can stem from dehydration, medication side effects, or serious health conditions.

Dietitian Mei Wan cautions that regular use could cause discomfort and long-term digestive damage.

AGENCY MATCH

ONE BIG THING

"The Doctor Will Check You Now": Arena Labs Gets SBIR Funding to Help Healthcare Workers Thrive

Nashville-based Arena Labs just scored SBIR funding (plus LaunchTN matching funds) to expand its healthcare worker wellness platform. CEO Brian Ferguson is turning emergency room burnout into a data science problem worth solving.

Their flagship product, Arena Strive, combines wearable biometrics with personal coaching to guide medical pros through an 8-week wellness journey. The company then aggregates this stress data to help hospitals better manage their most valuable resource: humans in scrubs.

What's fascinating: Arena Labs pivoted hard during COVID. Originally a boutique training service, they rebuilt as a tech platform when hospitals banned "non-essential personnel" — right as healthcare worker stress hit record highs.

Ferguson, who founded the company in 2017, sees their mission differently than most healthcare startups: "There's an obsessive focus on the patient, often at the cost of the person providing care." Arena Labs flips the script by focusing on the caregivers themselves.

Why Tennessee? Ferguson relocated the company to Nashville in 2021, seeking a talent pool spanning healthcare, creative arts, and human performance. The city's energy has delivered "exceptional talent" for both their engineering team and exposure to other innovators.

His biggest lesson learned? "The larger the societal problem you're trying to solve, the more time it takes to build a compelling narrative and gain momentum for scalable impact."

When he's not saving our healthcare heroes, Ferguson wants you to join him paddle boarding on Nashville's waterways. As a Navy vet who's lived in California and Hawaii, he's working to build a stronger SUP community in Music City.

AROUND THE WEB

🏥 Beautiful Hospital: Royal Children’s Hospital

🥗 Good Eats: Som Tom 

🧑‍✈️ In History: Walt Whitman (the nurse?)

🐶 Cute: Puppy

BY THE NUMBERS

$68,597

The median yearly salary for an LVN in California (as of March 2025)

The median California Licensed Vocational Nurse salary is $68,597 as of March 19, 2025. The pay range varies widely, with the highest 10% of LVNs making $99,185 and the lowest 10% making $33,555. Compare that to Alabama's median RN salary of $65,900, but with a cost-of-living index of 87.8, the purchasing power is better than the raw number suggests.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it." - Katherine Whitehorn

That’s it for this week’s newsletter. If you have any feedback or story you would like covered, reply to this email. We read every response. 🤓 

See you next Monday! ☕️