Human Contact

The best part of this job is meeting people. Not to kiss up, but nurses are proving to be fascinating folks to talk to. Still, any reporter will tell you a “phoner” can save time and means you don’t need to wear a clean shirt and nice shoes. Sometimes, deadlines or distance rule out doing an article any other way. For this issue, it was a little of both.

Kerri Miller, DNP grad, was in Missouri and headed to Guadalajara, Mexico, to

check on a crop of agave plants, the fiber from which plays a key role in her attempts to save the world through rehydration therapy and a product called re:iimune (“DNP Trusts Her Gut”). Phoner for sure. Too bad. I’d bet Guadalajara is nice this time of year. Still, she offered, “Doing business in Mexico is a little bit different.”

And even though she’s probably told her story to a million interviewers, Paula Neira, a transgender nurse educator and ex-Navy officer at Johns Hopkins Hospital across the street, preferred to meet in person. (To be honest, I wasn’t 100 percent sure that her request to meet at “1500” meant “3 p.m.” until I saw Paula walking up the hall to meet me.) Forced to leave the military to be true to herself and a pledge she had made, she nonetheless tells a story of faith, pride, determination, and ultimately, peace (“A Fight for Gender Freedom in the Name of Patriotism”).

Both interviews went well, so who’s to say which approach is better? I do hope to meet Kerri Miller in person one day. She sounds like a kick, and a heck of an entrepreneur.

Paula Neira? Next time, phoner. “My gosh, that’s a beautiful answer,” I told her at one point. “Now knock it off! You’re making me cry too.” On a crowded patio. Geez.

Steve St. Angelo