Jim DeMaria, RN, BSN, vice president of Renal Care Registered Nursing Services in Nanuet, N.Y., is host of The Nurse’s Station, a weekly audio podcast that discusses current events and issues that affect the nursing community. The show also features guest interviews with fellow nurses and answers questions from listeners who write in to the show. The show, which has about 15,000 subscribers and more than 15,000 weekly downloads, is available as a free download on iTunes and on Renal Care’s website at www.RenalCareRNs.com.

The Nurses Station came out of an idea that the company could use a social medium, such as podcasts, to reach a large portion of the nursing community while at the same time bringing brand recognition to Renal Care, the sole sponsor of the show.

Renal Care is a nurse-owned, nurse-run company that was started by DeMaria’s mother, Valerie Millerick, RN, who had to slow down her nursing career after being diagnosed with MS. Because of her experience, area physicians would call on her to provide renal services for their patients. The company grew from there.

“Our company provides acute services to 12 different community hospitals in the Hudson Valley region,” DeMaria said. “Our competitors typically cater to the larger hospitals and facilities. We serve small community hospitals and have become the go-to company for their dialysis services. Our representative at Bullseye Public Relations came up with the idea for the show as a way to advertise our services and also create brand recognition, and it just took off.”

DeMaria said the show started out as a monthly broadcast and then went to twice a month. “After about a year, we started to go weekly,” he said. Topics include meditation for stress in nursing and the healthcare reform debate. All the shows are prerecorded, and DeMaria usually does about five interviews each Friday. He recorded more than 20 shows in February alone, he says.

“I do a little background on my guests first and then just have a conversation,” DeMaria said. “The more free flowing the better. It makes for a much more informative interview.”

Each interview lasts about 30 minutes, although some may be as short as 10 to 15 minutes depending on how engaging the guest is. Past interviews have included Karyn Buxman, RN, editor of The Journal of Nursing Jocularity, a frequent guest of the show. “There should be humor in nursing,” DeMaria said. “We’re surrounded by misery and it’s good for diffusing tension.”

DeMaria recently expanded the show to include video podcasts, shooting at least two a month at area facilities. The first one was at Beth Abraham Adult Day Care in the Bronx. Another included Lt. Mike Wilson, RN, a trauma nurse at Bellevue Hospital in New York City who served in Iraq. “We go to the hospital and interview some of the administrators and nurses regarding their services,” DeMaria said. “It’s at no cost to the facility, and during the broadcast we’ll say ‘This episode is brought to you by’ whatever facility we’re filming from. It promotes our client, the show and Renal Care.”

Because nurses can send topics for broadcast, DeMaria said the show works because there are real nurses listening to real nursing topics. “We can talk about what we want when we want,” he said.

DeMaria believes The Nurse’s Station can be a way for nurses to come together. “We can really form a very big voting block to get things done that are pro-nursing and pro-patient, instead of pro-profit,” he said. “Social media is the new outlet. There are people who have become stars via YouTube that the major networks won’t touch. Everybody has a voice with social media.”