This month you’ll meet nurse Trista Nelson, who comes highly praised. “I have never heard or seen her shy away from a difficult patient,” says Loida Leal, RN. “She reminds me of a duck paddling through water. Calm and collected above water, but underneath the surface, she’s going at 100mph. Through the most difficult of codes, she maintains her chill all while completing all her tasks in a efficient manner.”
Hi Trista, thanks for talking to us. How long have you been with Tribal Health?
You’re in South Dakota, right?
I started in the fall of 2019. Yes, I’m in South Dakota.
So you’re a Tribal Health veteran at this point. How did you come to work with us?
One of my friends actually had started work there. We worked in the ER in Rapid City together for years. She lives close to Rosebud and just said, “Come and work.” So I ended up coming down there and I went to Rosebud first and then did a year in Pine Ridge, then came back to Rosebud. It’s a little bit closer.
Are you from that area originally?
I’m from Montana, up by Canada pretty much. But my husband is from around here, so I live an hour north of Wall. It’s about a two-hour commute to Rosebud.
That’s a long commute. Where did you work before Tribal?
I worked a couple years in the emergency room in Billings, Montana. Then I worked for 15 years in Monument in Rapid City.
Would you ever be interested in going back to Montana and working in one of our facilities there?
Probably not right now. My family still lives there, but I have 4 little kids so it’s hard to go anywhere else right now. I have four girls: a 15-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 9-year-old, and a 3-year old. So it’s hard to get anywhere anymore.
What sparked your interest in working on Indigenous lands?
I grew up in between two reservations as a kid, so I’m quite familiar with it and I knew a lot of my friends were from the reservation as a kid and as an adult.
I worked at a big hospital in Rapid City for a long time and it was kind of nice to see the other side of things instead of receiving the patients. You’re the ones who’s starting and sending them. So it helps you get the idea of all-around medicine. Not just the big hospital experience, I mean.
Since you’ve been there so long, do you mentor anyone or have any additional responsibilities?
Yeah. I do charge every now and then, whenever they need it. I think we all mentor people. There’s a lot of new people coming in and out just traveling, so I think everybody is kind of mentoring, let’s say.
We have a really good crew in Rosebud. Most of the nurses have been there quite a while, so we worked together for a long time.
Is there anything special you like about working there that’s different, say, from working at a tier-one hospital or big health network?
Like I say, you really have to use your brain for critical thinking. You don’t just have everything given to you; you know, you have to mix your own stuff.
And I do like challenging myself a bit. It’s a close group of friends. I feel like I definitely know each and every employee much better than I did at Rapid, where you have 20 nurses at a time.
Any advice for new nurses?
Take each day one at a time and always keep an open mind. I feel like the longer I’ve been in nursing, the less I feel I know. Looking at a long time ago, you really realize how much you didn’t know.
You learn something new every day. You don’t know everything, that’s for sure.
That’s great advice. What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
Well, I don’t have many hobbies anymore, ’cause I usually just go to my children’s events, but I have a garden. I do like to use my Peloton; I exercise. I take the kids out for activities. My children are in rodeo, so we spend most of our summer at rodeos and then they do volleyball, basketball and track during the year.
So mostly children’s activities. But I do like to go have coffee with friends. I’m very serious about my coffee. You can ask my friends.
That’s a pretty busy life, working and taking care of 4 active little girls. And it sounds like your family has horses?
I don’t even know how many we have now. Each kid has probably three horses, and then my husband has a few. We probably have twenty horses.
And we have two miniature ponies that my kids like to ride. We have a little bit of a funny farm – chickens, goats, ponies, Wiener dogs.
That sounds beautiful. Thank you, Trista!
