Christa Rymal, RN, MSN
Registered Nurse, Founder & CEOI have worked in the healthcare industry for over 25 years in emergency medicine,
cardiac care, orthopedics, primary care, diabetes education and endocrinology. I
have a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, Master’s Degree in HealthCare Leadership,
Advanced training from the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine at Harvard Medical
School, Institute of Functional Medicine, and American Academy of Functional
Medicine.Early on in my career, I lost a young nursing colleague to suicide. It was
heartbreaking and eye opening. At the time, I was naive to the dangers of my own
profession. As the years went on, I had many more colleagues sharing their
experiences with secondary trauma, burnout, anxiety, addictions, depression, PTSD
and chronic disease. Truth be told, I thought I could be the “sorrow catcher” for all
my colleagues and teams’ pain and then I realized, I was suffering from the same
workplace insults and injuries. It took me years to reconcile that I could love being a
nurse and healthcare leader and still experience burnout from the challenges faced
when working in healthcare. Most days, you are holding someone’s worst day in
your hands and that never leaves you.Many days I did not feel like a true health champion as I was constantly surrounded
by sickness, had no time for normal work day breaks, working too many hours due
to being short staffed, and sacrificing my own wellbeing to care for others. Adding
to this turmoil was the lack of any selfcare or wellbeing education or training, along
with no tools or time to process the grief around the last hand I held in a patient’s
final moments. It was simply move on to the next illness, trauma and tragedy and
just pretend like my stethoscope was an emotional armor that only I seemed to
recognize had a thin and fragile veil of protection. It was a humbling moment when
I had to look at myself in the mirror and realize that I might be the hardest patient
that I would try to care for at the end of the day.It was during my time as Director of Diabetes Care and Endocrinology in a large
healthcare system, that I was motivated to be a change agent in the way we treat
and manage chronic disease and that included our 40,000 patients with diabetes
and our healthcare professionals. I was alarmed at the complex nature and cost of
managing most chronic diseases, including the ones that were plaguing my own
colleagues. I was determined to bring the science and practice of preventative and
lifestyle medicine to more people living with a chronic disease or aiming to preventone, along with sharing these new ways to whole person wellbeing with my
colleagues. I was determined to stop working in a reactive system and state and do
anything possible to move to a proactive model of care and yes, this meant re-
evaluating my own selfcare too. This was the starting point for my change in
personal health, passion for preventative, lifestyle and functional medicine, and the
turning point in my career in healthcare. I realize the important role that nurses
serve as they speak the language of medicine, healing, and health. This nurse is
now on a mission to care for our healthcare professionals because at the end of the
day, I need them and so do you!
