Is there anything better than a week at the beach?

Answer – YES! I am spending a week at the beach with a #newthingnurse & my nurse mentor - Allison Shuttleworth - and the crew of ExpeditionEd - a tropical destination continuing education company for nurses - in beautiful Mazatlan, MX. We have an incredible group of passionate nurses here with us who are learning, networking & taking time for self-care during a week at the beach.

I am here as an instructor with my bestie and nurse gal pal, Sarah Goss (same name = no one forgets what to call the teacher), and we are having a blast teaching in a casual and relaxing atmosphere for a few hours each morning as we all sip our coffee and gaze out at the waves. Our curriculum includes topics such as Pediatric Triage, Cultural Considerations for the Emergent Patient, Peds Mock Codes, Essential Spanish for the ER, How to Tell When a Psych Patient isn’t a Psych Patient, Self-Care for the ER RN and much more. I am learning. I am teaching. I am loving this program.

And if all of this wasn’t enough, our program participants are teaching Sarah and me as much as we are teaching them! These strong and inspiring nurses come from a variety of nursing backgrounds, but have all had ER experience which has brought us close together as only a common nursing unit can. We have almost 100 years of nursing experience between us. Let me tell y’all - the stories have been soooooo good.

The best part of this week, besides our amazing group of new nursey friends, has been all the encouragement of self-care activities. Allison does an amazing job of balancing our class time with play time. Yoga, hula-hooping and tourist-ing are a huge part of the ExpeditionEd’s curriculum. Allison believes in holistically treating the nursey soul to build a strong personal foundation to enhance your nurse practice as well as fostering a stronger sense of self. Allison wants each of us to be happy, balanced and successful as a person and a nurse.

I personally believe that travel, professional development and collaboration with others make each of us a better nurse, colleague, friend, family and community member. By putting yourself in new environments, you expand your personal perspective and ability to understand the world. Without discomfort, there is no growth.

This week ExpeditionEd and New Thing Nurse have both grown along with our fantastic group of new nurse friends.

- Sarah @ New Thing Nurse

You can follow Allison, husband Dave & pup Chacho on their sailing adventures -

Instagram - @sailepifania