I’m Kevin Ross. I’ve been the nurse who stayed, the nurse who left, and the nurse who came back on his own terms.
My first job out of critical care training was the cardiovascular surgical ICU at Johns Hopkins — transplants, VADs, balloon pumps, the deep end. It was elite training and brutal hours, and it taught me two things: nurses are capable of far more than their job descriptions, and nobody hands you a career. You build one.
So in 2007 I took the risk they warn you about: I founded a nurse-owned consultancy serving an underserved population across Colorado. No playbook, no safety net — just a license, a niche, and the willingness to bet on myself. I ran it for 15 years, grew it to a team of 100+, and exited successfully in 2022.
Here’s the part that matters: after the exit, I went back to clinical practice, because I wanted to. Today I work as a nurse consultant in pediatric population health, operating at the intersection of healthcare, education law, and policy. Same license as day one. Completely different leverage.
Along the way I started Innovative Nurse (2011) — back when a nurse with a podcast and a business plan was considered slightly unhinged. The site drifted for a few years. What brought me back is a statistic I can’t leave alone:
Nearly half of nurses want to leave the bedside, and the #1 reason they stay is they can’t afford to leave. The most trusted profession in America, held together by financial trapped-ness instead of choice.
I don’t accept that. Not for you, anyway.
Innovative Nurse is where nurses build leverage — the pay data hospitals would rather keep fuzzy, the negotiation scripts nobody teaches in nursing school, the money foundations that turn “I can’t afford to leave” into “I stay because I want to,” and the pivots and side bets that put your license to work for you.
What I believe
Your license is leverage — most nurses just never learn to use it. Calculated risks beat quiet resentment, every time. Money isn’t the point; options are. And nursing is still worth it, on your terms.
If you’re a nursing student, a new grad staring at your first offer letter, or a 15-year vet wondering what’s next: you’re who I’m writing for.
Start with the newsletter, run your numbers on the calculator, and let’s change what a nursing career gets to look like.
— Kevin Ross, RN