Meet Ersilia Pompilio RN,MSN,PNP

I can’t wait to introduce Ersilia Pompilio to everyone at allnurses! As her subtitle reads, she is a nurse innovator and entrepreneur, that has found a niche using many of her talents, interests and strengths combined with her passion for nursing. Nurses Entrepreneurs Article

Meet Ersilia Pompilio RN,MSN,PNP

Ersilia Pompilio RN, MSN, PNPStoryteller, Educator, Producer, Nurse, and Super Cool Lady!

I can't wait to introduce Ersilia Pompilio to everyone at allnurses! As her subtitle reads, she is a nurse innovator and entrepreneur, that has found a niche using many of her talents, interests and strengths combined with her passion for nursing.

Ersilia Pompilio is the Creator and CEO of Rogue Nurse Media 501c3 whose mission is to empower nurses to tell their stories. "I teach and develop innovative educational tools focussed on healthcare that are in alignment with current trends in social media, mainstream media, art and technology. The goal is to abolish fake news in healthcare and change the stigma around how people see nurses and patients in the media. My goal is also to encourage nursing schools to change their curriculum and bring them more into the mainstream technology using social media."

Ersilia has several tools and productions that are moving her mission forward:

  • The Well Written Nurse: Writing workshops that teach nurses storytelling, screen/ TV writing, journalistic writing, memoir writing, blogging, and how to get published. Ersilia and her team are set to launch a screen/ TV writing workshop in November of 2017 called Mapping the Story of Genome, A Screenwriting Workshop for Healthcare Professionals. The workshop will focus on the character developement of the healthcare professional...nurses and patients.
  • Nurses and Hypochondriacs Storytelling Show: a storytelling show where real Nurses, Patients, and Hypochondriacs take the stage and tell true, unscripted comedic stories.
  • Nurses and Hypochondriac Podcast: Nurse experts, patients, and hypochondriacs come together to discuss hot topics in healthcare.

Since Ersilia has a teaching background, she was able to get her courses approved by the California BRN for CE's!

How this all got started!?!

Ersilia admits that she loves to tell stories. "When I was working as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner on a busy pre surgery unit, I often had many nurse friends from around the hospital that I knew stop by to ask: 'Got any new dating stories?' They loved my perils of being single in Los Angeles and dating wacky men. I attracted a certain type of guy in my dating world. My HIPPA attorney friend and fellow writing buddy affirmed in the middle of a story one day: 'You sure do date a lot of hypochondriacs!'" So it was born!

Due to "burnout" from teaching nursing and working as a nurse practitioner, in 2008, Ersilia started taking writing classes at a boutique writing school in downtown Los Angeles' Art District. She found writing healing and cathartic, and soon published her first short story, "Our Little Hospital Ghost".

This opened a creative portal, and Ersilia started to gather a team of creative writers to help her produce her one woman show The Nurse and the Hypochondriacs. After 3 runs of the show, she "put it to bed", feeling deflated and defeated, until a few audience members told her how much they learned through the show.

Ersilia "resurrected" the show in 2015 and made a few changes, turning it into a storytelling show called Nurses and Hypochondriacs. She produced 5 productions for the Hollywood Fringe Festival with 20 storytellers. The show was a slow hit, but once again the audience affirmed how much they learned through the show.

At the end of 2015, Ersilia had one of Oprah's "ah-ha moments" and she got to work developing Rogue Nurse Media 501c3. While writing an article for Working Nurse Magazine on Nurses in the media, it all came together, the only way to change the stigma of nursing is to teach and empower nurses to write and change it for themselves!

Barriers

Moving from the Health Care Nurse Practitioner world into the creative unknown was very intimidating to Ersilia. She learned that she needed to listen to the voice inside and trust that her intuition was leading in the right direction! Her motto (from Field of Dreams) was "Build it and they will come!"

So, Ersilia jumped in head first creating websites, working with graphic artists, hiring and firing people, working with ensues for shows, directing and coaching storytellers, and now learning to podcast!

Advice to Give Aspiring Nurse Entrepreneurs

The best advice that Ersilia would give to aspiring nurse entrepreneurs is "not to listen to your co-workers and the naysayers! Follow your gut and create. Spend lots of time outside of your 'Nurse' box! Do fun stuff like go to museums, take art classes, watch stage shows etc....do something that makes your soul sing and dance! Read books that teach and inspire you! Journal, meditate, and write!".

When asked what the best way to prepare and nurture dynamic innovators for the future of healthcare practice, Ersilia offered that nursing schools need to start offering creative classes for innovative nurses. "Your career needs to be malleable to what your personal needs are! Nursing schools need to start teaching that!"

Career Role Models and Inspirational Persons

"I recently attended a one act play at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2017 called Mary's Medicine. It was an adaption of Mary Seacole's autobiography. Mary Seacole was a Scottish-Jamaican Nurse who invented ginger beer. She married a Scottish man who was sickly. She too was a hypochondriac magnet. Mary was a great inventor, entrepreneur, nurse, and pioneer. I related with her character and her story in the play. I have faced and currently still do face many of the same challenges she did. Creating something unique and empowering nurses and patients to tell their stories through storytelling and podcasting has brought about much scrutiny from people in the profession who are used to runnings on the same treadmill of life and are afraid of getting off and doing something different!"

The Single Most Important Issue For Nurses to Address in the next 2 years

Ersilia feels that most important issue that the profession of nursing needs to address is the image of the profession itself. "We have nurses getting their Ph.D.'s and DNP's yet the mass population still sees us as the bedside nurse. Nurses are great innovators and educators. The public needs to understand that...the only way to do that is by telling and educating the public about what we do as nurses through our stories!"

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Sarah Matacale

About Sarah Matacale, BSN, RN

My name is Sarah Matacale RN, BSN, CCS. I have been blessed to interview many innovators in the field of nursing and love sharing their stories with you!

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Specializes in Anesthesia, Trauma, Palliative, Tele.

Hi Ersilia! What a great story and message you have created. I am a CRNA now and am just beginning a side business of writing and so many of my topics are about nursing. I will definitely keep your courses in mind and thank you so much for what you do!

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