Today we’d like to introduce you to Allen Lavarias.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started nursing school in 2021. The first year was really hard. I was 34 years old, with a one year old child. I never went to college due to not really being a good student.
After a year of struggling in school, Some of the other students would comment that I was really good at explaining and teaching the information. It made me feel good that I was able to help people understand that knowledge. As time went by, I started to realize that the best way that I learned was actually by teaching it. So I became a tutor for my university to help other students but also by helping me solidify my foundation of nursing knowledge. In that time, majority of the students I helped, would tell me how good of a tutor I was and that I would be a really great professor.
After perseverating on that, it really opened up my eyes to what could be. If I became a professor later in life, I could really help the future of nursing. I knew that I would later have to get my Master’s degree, but what could I do in the meantime to help build my confidence as a future professor? That is when I decided to create a social media page and create videos to help the many nursing students. I honestly only thought that it would be just a couple people who would see my videos but I knew it would help me while in nursing school.
In October 2022, I posted my first two videos on the same day. I woke up that following morning and saw that my videos had a respectable amount of views and I had already over 100 people following me. I posted a couple more videos and saw that my engagement and following were starting to go off the charts. I had already over 1000 followers on my second day.
I continued tutoring and started creating more content so that I could keep posting on my page. Within two weeks, I had accumulated a following of over 5000 people. I was making videos about easy tips and tricks to remember certain information and even made a couple of raps about certain diseases. My videos were gaining a lot of traction with multiple surpassing over 100K views. The comments that were also pouring in support of what I was doing, It really made me feel good that I was helping people. I guess it makes sense why I was becoming a nurse, to help people.
In a month, I had gained over 10K followers. By the time I finished nursing school, I had gained over 40K followers on TikTok. I was hired as a content creator for a very large and well known NCLEX prep program. I graduated at the top of my class with Cum Laude honors, a mentorship award, and a leadership award.
I passed my NCLEX in September 2024 and was hired and started working as nurse within a week. As of today, with more than six months of bed side nursing, I find myself very confident in my nursing knowledge and always helpful with my coworkers. I pride myself that I take the opportunity to give nursing students the opportunity to learn hands on practical skills during clinicals and I still post videos, as much as I can, to help the future nurses.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I would say that it was a pretty smooth road. I strongly believe that when you are destined to do something in life, that your skills and natural ability to do greatness, at whatever it is, it will be challenging with obstacles but ultimately smooth because you know that that is what you are good at and meant to do. I fully believe that I am suppose to help the future nurses of the world by educating and advocating for better and higher standards for nurses and the change necessary for better treatment of nurses. Change is the struggle, but the educating and advocating aspect, is what I was born to do.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am currently a registered nurse that works on a medical surgical and telemetry unit that deals with a lot of psychiatric patients. As I mentioned earlier, I have been a nurse for just over six months. I’ve had the opportunity to work as the detox nurse, which I utilized myself to be a resource nurse during the downtime to help build my experience and help my team on the floor.
I currently am in the process of cross-training in the ICU to gain more experience to help build my confidence and resume. I really enjoy learning as much as I can and have as many tools available to me on my utility belt. This will also help me in the future, as I build my “street cred” when I become a professor with real hands on experience.
What makes me the most proud is that I know what I was destined to do in life. Thought it be living the male Filipino stereotype, I am proud of it and pride myself at doing the best job that I can, everyday.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
One of my favorite quotes, specifically about risk taking, is that when it comes to asking for or wanting something, the worst thing that can be said, is no.
I generally like to take risks if I believe that I have a higher chance at succeeding than not. The caveat to that, is that it generally speaks to me personally.
I did not see me starting my social media page as a risk. I only saw it as a benefit, for myself. The worst thing that could have happened was that I was the only person watching my videos, but even that was a reward because it was helping me learn.
As a nurse, patient safety is always the priority and would never risk or jeopardize that. In a hospital setting, the risks that I do take is about advancing my career and knowledge, like asking to be trained in the ICU.
I am where I am today and who I am today because of all the risks, or you could say opportunities, I had to make myself a better person.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/ThatNurseAllen
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatnurse.allen/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thatnurseallen
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@thatnurse.allen
Image Credits
all photos in blue scrubs are from Steven Hong Photography
