Nina Sanh originally aspired to run her own hair salon, but after her daughter spent a week in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), her career path changed. With a desire to care for others, Sanh already had experience working closely with people to meet their needs from her time in several customer service roles and felt that a career in nursing—another service-oriented position—would be a great fit.
While entering the nursing profession as an LPN, she knew she wanted to work with the University of Minnesota. Sanh applied for three disparate positions and, ultimately, chose a role in urology because of her positive shadowing experience with the department’s staff. Now, six years later, she is the lead Registered Nurse (RN) care coordinator and the acting Patient Care Supervisor in the Urology Clinic at the M Health Fairview Clinics and Surgery Center - Minneapolis.
Dissimilar to some other areas of medicine, the urology clinic is very procedural-based. RNs provide care coordination for each provider that they’re assigned to for procedures, such as cystoscopies, prostate biopsies, vasectomies, catheter changes and stent removals.
Some patients are very complex, so RNs also provide support to rooming staff if needed. When managing complex cases, with many of them being elderly people with cognitive impairments, it’s imperative that nurses like Sanh have strong communication skills.
“Communication to me is one of the most important aspects of healthcare in general, because everything starts there. We communicate when patients first come in, and we utilize MyChart as much as possible,” Sanh said.
Sanh hopes to advance in her Patient Care Supervisor role in the urology clinic and continue to work closely with the clinic and medical directors.
“I’ve been a nurse for about eight years, and I’ve got many years ahead of me. If I made a change, I don’t know what specialty I’d go into, to be honest, but I want the experience to learn different specialties in nursing,” Sanh said.