Work and Play: An Interview With Nurse Izaak

This article was originally published in the July/August 2023 issue of Med-Surg Nurse Life Magazine.

Izaak Van Horn, RN, CMSRN
Age: 47
Years RN: 16
Nursing School: Rogue Community College
Degrees: ADN, BS in Exercise and Sports Science (OSU ‘99)
Favorite Food: Pho
Family: Married, Son and Daughter
First Nursing Job: “Still Doing it!” — 2 East Med-Surg

There’s a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in May, and it’s a lovely evening to talk nursing and life at a local brewery. I sat down with Izaak Van Horn, RN, CMSRN, to discuss his approach to life, family, and nursing. He has an affable personality and seemingly endless energy for outdoor adventures. He does it all working full time nights and raising a family. Nurses appreciate when he’s working, not just for his charm but for his expertise and leadership style.

On finding the energy to for outdoor adventure, work-life balance, and developing high-level skills.
In previous jobs as a snowboard instructor or working the bike store, work was play, which eventually burned him out. That was one reason he became a nurse: to separate the two.

The three 12-hour night shifts are the abnormal part of his week, he says. He naps before the first shift, then pushes through the work and sleep cycle. When his first day off arrives, he’s hungry for adventure.

Now the normal part begins: snowboarding with friends, skiing with his daughter, and mountain biking with his son or wife or some combination. He rides moto with advanced riders. “I like to be good at stuff, so I’m gonna go all the time,” he says. This makes work-life balance pretty easy for him.

You can tell Izaak likes to be good at sports like mountain biking when you watch him casually jump off a boulder into a berm from several feet up and speed off. “A big part of it is knowing that we have a fixed number of years where I can physically do the stuff that I love to do at the level I want to do it,” he says.

On raising kids.
Izaak tries to explain to his kids that the world is a potential roller coaster, and you can be a passenger or a pilot. “I tell them all those mountains and hills and skate parks and BMX tracks and ski areas and terrain parks, those are roller coasters. But the better pilot you are, the more exciting it is,” he says.

Some parents struggle to connect with their kids, but Izaak is frequently laughing, talking, and riding with his. “My parenting style is definitely to show the kids how great the world can be,” he says. He likes to have a good time, and you have to set yourself up for that. “If you’re passionate about anything, what do you have to do in our society to make that happen?”

On med-surg and working during COVID-19.
“I guarantee every nurse has been asked: Do you like being a nurse? I tell my patients, ‘most of the time,’” he says. “Most nurses hop, hop, hop multiple times in their career. I’m in the same place. I’ve always said I’ll leave med-surg when something doesn’t work anymore.”

When people ask him when he’ll move to a specialty, he says: “Med-surg is a specialty. We’re certified; I’m trained in it.”

When COVID-19 hit, the veterans left nights. “I was left there holding the bag with all these rookie RNs, with this impending worldwide pandemic. I don’t know if these nurses knew how sick their patients were,” he says. “Morale was down, staffing was short, acuity was up, and we had to adapt.”

How did he deal with it? Candy. Grab-and-go style, he says. Also, through teamwork and support. He made clear his team should speak up and he would help. “Now it’s great because all my rookie nurses are good nurses. The work I put it in, it I helped them grow,” he says.

On leadership and pride in the unit.
“I’ve had many nurses arrive and say ‘Oh good, you’re charge tonight.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘It’s just more calm when you’re in charge,’” he says. Nurses provide better care when things are organized and they’re supported.

He’s thankful management promotes autonomy and conflict resolution within the team. They say “We trust you 100%.” That removes a barrier to providing quality care, he says.

Izaak’s often limping into work with some fresh scabs from a bike crash. The nurses will tell him, “Hey you’ve got to go say hi to this patient, he wrecked his dirt bike and has a chest tube! Didn’t you wreck too?”

I ask him if he thinks his fellow nurses will be impressed with the interview. “Absolutely. They’ll be very impressed.” He laughs. “It’ll be fun. Our unit’s well respected in our hospital, and my unit’s great because of our nurses, including the charges.” They’re a major reason he likes nursing “most of the time.”