I started nursing as a New Graduate Resident in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, GA in 2007. The Residency Program left me with insights and knowledge that has stuck throughout my career. Through the following years, my curiosity pulled me to work in every unit I could and I always accepted requests to float. I expanded on that curiosity and decided to work as a travel nurse in northern California. This experience instilled a love of the area and a desire to explore more things that nursing has to offer. When my travel nursing experience came to an end, I found myself at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN where I gained invaluable experience in cardiac medicine and advanced heart failure treatment including mechanical assist devices. As a VAD coordinator, I rolled out multiple levels of training through the system and discovered a joy in teaching. Simultaneously, I decided to pursue a long-time interest in flight nursing. The additional development and training I discovered while in this pursuit led me to the pediatric emergency department at Monroe Carroll's Childrens' Hospital and multiple trauma and pre-hospital certifications and training courses and an EMT-B license. However, I wasn't feeling firmly planted where I was, so I decided to explore other air ambulance opportunities and stumbled upon CALSTAR in Sacramento. CALSTAR's not-for-profit status and employee-centered atmosphere drew me back across the country and provided a job where I could grow and have fun every day. While at CALSTAR, I revisited my joy of education and volunteered to revamp their Cardiac Emergencies course which I taught until the company closed as they were bought out by a competitor in 2016. Due to this change, I decided to return to pediatric nursing at UC Davis Hospital in Sacramento, CA in 2019 and really search for a job in nursing education. In April of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was ramping up and the world was closing down, I hit the ground running at Sutter Health University teaching surge nurses, where we trained 280 nurses in 30 days. Shortly after, as things reopened in mid 2020, I worked with new graduate residents and nurses transitioning into the ED and Critical Care areas. In early 2023, I completed my master's degree in nursing education and started as the lead for the Critical Care Transition in Practice program where I remain today. I am passionate about training nurses beyond what we learned in school and beyond what we can absorb at the bedside. I know from first-hand experience how important it is to prepare our new graduate and transitioning nurses so that they have the confidence and competence to take care of our patients, our communities, our families.