A Healing Environment for Mental Health
Lauren Diocee, B.S.N., R.N., is interim nursing director at Texas Health Seay Behavioral Health Center Plano. Born in Canada, she came to Texas in 2018 because she was hired as a nurse supervisor at Seay Center and “for warmer weather. What’s not to love?” She said it’s been interesting and challenging navigating the U.S. health care system.
What did you want to be as a kid and how did you ultimately choose your career?
When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian because I loved animals so much. I grew up in a small town in Alberta, Canada, with a mostly senior population. I loved helping people and worked in a senior home on weekends between high school sports, so I thought I would move to the city and go into nursing. I got my bachelor of science in nursing from Mount Royal University in Calgary and went right into psychiatry because I loved helping individuals with their mental health. I stayed in psych because I have a passion for decreasing the stigma in mental health and reaching out to people in the community. Working with this patient population, you’re exposed to different cultures, background, age groups.
What’s a typical work day like?
As interim nursing director at Seay Center I’m involved with scheduling. I check in with the transfer center and let them know what our availability is and check with the charge nurse to see what happened through the night. I make sure we have appropriate and safe staffing to manage the day. I oversee the patient admission process. Working in the U.S. has been a very rewarding journey but very challenging. I had to adapt quickly to the U.S. health care system, as there were a lot of differences, making it a steep learning curve.
What’s your favorite part of your job and your biggest challenge?
My favorite part is the relationships that I have with our staff members —we all want to make sure our patients feel this is a safe place to heal. We see the challenging parts of their illnesses, and not all of them are here because they want to be. But they want to get better, and I love having that team behind me to lead us in that positive direction, to make sure people safe and are able to recover in a safe, caring environment.
The biggest challenge is making sure I support staff when it’s busy here. There are so many moving parts we have to make sure the patient is at the center, knowing that this is someone’s life
What’s something people would be surprised to know about you?
I ran my first marathon, the Disney marathon, a few weeks ago. I’ve taken on a new role, which had its challenges, but I stayed committed to my race. I was training for over a year to get there. I had some tears running through, but it’s not about the race, it’s about the journey that brought you here. And running through the Magic Kingdom was awesome.
How do you do your life’s best work at Texas Health?
Within the organization I’ve felt that where we’re situated in Plano we’re able to reach a certain aspect of the community – I’m so happy we have Texas Health Plano right next to us, we’re able to collaborate.
By Judy Wiley • Posted February 18, 2020
