You want to know how I started Jurex Center for Legal Nurse Consultants? Here’s my story:
I have always enjoyed working and earning money. Since childhood, I have held various jobs. You could almost say I have been a serial entrepreneur. When I was ten years old, I started a beauty salon. Later, I had my own babysitting service, the traditional lemonade stand, and even made and sold crafts.
My jobs were not all for money. Some were volunteer positions. Giving back has always been in my blood. The one volunteer job I remember most was feeding the patients at a nursing home. I would ride my bicycle to the nursing home with a friend, until she stopped going, then I continued to do it myself. I loved helping the nurses with the patients, playing piano for the residents, delivering meals to their patient rooms, and feeding those who could not feed themselves. I suppose it is no surprise that I later pursued a career in and related to nursing.
My mother died in an accident when I was only fifteen. My oldest sister had just married, and my next oldest sister was in college. I was the youngest and still in high school.
Despite this tragedy, I went on to finish high school in three years by taking summer classes. From there, I went to Vanderbilt University and majored in nursing.
After receiving my Bachelor of Science in Nursing, I worked the night shift in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, then switched to a day shift position in a community mental health center, also in Nashville. I went back to school to obtain my Master of Science in Nursing, while I worked as a Registered Nurse.
From there, I was fortunate to join the faculty at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and taught Pediatric Nursing. The love of teaching was part of what ultimately lead me to the career I now enjoy.
I went on to Vanderbilt University Law School as the study of law suited my analytical nature. Unbeknownst to me, everything was falling into place for my later founding of Jurex Center for Legal Nurse Consultants (JurexNurse.com), an education company providing training to nurses to be expert witnesses.
At Vanderbilt University School of Law, I met my future husband, obtained my Juris Doctor degree, we married, and moved to his hometown of Memphis. Then, we had four beautiful sons.
I worked for several years as an attorney for a large firm representing nurses and doctors who had been sued for malpractice. This would be another crucial part of my entrepreneurial journey, though I did not know it at the time.
But I have had that entrepreneurial spirit for a long time. During this time, I began accepting opportunities to speak to nurses and nursing groups on reducing their liability. This morphed into providing more than two thousand presentations at conferences, seminars, and workshops for nursing and medical organizations, hospitals, long term care facilities, schools and the like on a plethora of legal issues in health care, business development, and self-improvement.
In my own legal practice, I saw a need for nurses to be properly trained to be expert witnesses in cases. A seed was being planted that grew into something special.
I joined Johnnie Cochran’s law firm and litigated more medical malpractice cases. Still, that need for properly trained legal nurse consultants persisted. Programs were out there, but they required significant time and money commitment that just were not realistic for the working nurse. This was especially true if the nurse was also juggling family responsibilities on top of full-time work.
It was then that I decided to open my own training program to certify nurses as legal nurse consultants. I launched Jurex Center for Legal Nurse Consultants in 2006 and have been training nurses to be Professional Legal Nurse Consultants (PLNC) ever since.
The Jurex Professional Legal Nurse Consultant Certification Course was founded on three guiding principles:
1. It must be affordable.
2. It must be able to be completed in two days.
3. It must be open to all nurses.
These principles still guide Jurex today.
Part of my mission continues to be to help educate health care professionals on legal issues in practice. I provide presentations to nursing and medical organizations, hospitals, long term care facilities, schools, and other groups on legal issues in nursing, medicine, and health care.
I also give back to the nursing community by volunteering my time providing presentations to nursing students at nursing schools.
Not only do I want to help others less fortunate through my work, but I want to help nurses hone their skills and, if they have that same entrepreneurial spark, I want to fan it into the same fire that has driven me to where I am today.
P.S. You can advance your nursing career here.
