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I Thought I Was Here to Help: Unveiling the Healthcare System, Unleashing the Nurse Advocate
In this book for nurses, experienced clinician Maggie Runyon takes a close look at her healthcare career journey, highlighting the expectations that draw students to nursing . . . and the exhaustion and medical burnout that can drive them away.
When healthcare focuses on power and not people, practitioners and patients get left behind.
Maggie Runyon’s path toward nursing began with a love for ER and a desire to help people. As she began her career, though, she realized how little she was prepared for the mental health challenges and the administrative demands that face modern-day registered nurses.
Now, she extends a compassionate call to young and early-career nurses to understand the systemic challenges facing their chosen profession. With an emphasis on the power of nurse leadership and the necessity of mindfulness and intentional self-care, she highlights how becoming an advocate for one’s patients and oneself is a path toward improved health outcomes.
A perfect gift for nurses, I Thought I Was Here to Help provides . . .Thoughtful questions to guide and support a healthcare career path,A personal look at medical burnout,Strategies for strengthening nurse mental health, andA rallying call to transform healthcare administrations and patient outcomes.
For those just starting their careers or the dedicated nurses trying to push through a slump, I Thought I Was Here to Help starts a gentle conversation and challenges readers to rethink the “handmaiden” and “hero” archetypes.
Through vivid clinical vignettes and research-backed insights, Maggie shows nurses they are not alone in grappling with the harsh realities of their profession. This nurse memoir invites you to find more than just a cozy spot to read. It’s about finding your true place in healthcare power structures and patient journeys.
When healthcare focuses on power and not people, practitioners and patients get left behind.
Maggie Runyon’s path toward nursing began with a love for ER and a desire to help people. As she began her career, though, she realized how little she was prepared for the mental health challenges and the administrative demands that face modern-day registered nurses.
Now, she extends a compassionate call to young and early-career nurses to understand the systemic challenges facing their chosen profession. With an emphasis on the power of nurse leadership and the necessity of mindfulness and intentional self-care, she highlights how becoming an advocate for one’s patients and oneself is a path toward improved health outcomes.
A perfect gift for nurses, I Thought I Was Here to Help provides . . .Thoughtful questions to guide and support a healthcare career path,A personal look at medical burnout,Strategies for strengthening nurse mental health, andA rallying call to transform healthcare administrations and patient outcomes.
For those just starting their careers or the dedicated nurses trying to push through a slump, I Thought I Was Here to Help starts a gentle conversation and challenges readers to rethink the “handmaiden” and “hero” archetypes.
Through vivid clinical vignettes and research-backed insights, Maggie shows nurses they are not alone in grappling with the harsh realities of their profession. This nurse memoir invites you to find more than just a cozy spot to read. It’s about finding your true place in healthcare power structures and patient journeys.
200 pages, Paperback
Published July 29, 2025
18 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 29, 2025
Thought I Was Here to Help is an empowering read for nurses who want to interrogate their motivations, reclaim agency, and lean into advocacy—from self upholding to system reform. It balances personal storytelling with reflective and research‑infused tools to foster resilience, mindfulness, and collective healing in a system long overdue for change.
Whether you're beginning your nursing journey or leading others through it, Runyon's debut provides a clear-eyed, compassionate blueprint for transforming trauma‑aware care into everyday practice—and for nurturing nurse identity along the way.
Whether you're beginning your nursing journey or leading others through it, Runyon's debut provides a clear-eyed, compassionate blueprint for transforming trauma‑aware care into everyday practice—and for nurturing nurse identity along the way.
July 27, 2025
This book is not just for nurses (and their family members). This was the final book I read while on maternity break with my first little one, and it hit home. As a new mom, this book shed light on what challenges the nurses I interacted with may go through and the advocacy they can provide parents before, during, and post labor. I will be sharing this with the local breastfeeding support groups.
When reading Maggie Runyon’s lessons, I recalled the self-help book ‘Your Oxygen Mask First.’ Maggie explores the challenges and tribulations within healthcare academia and its built environment while also sprinkling in reflection and meditation moments after each chapter. As a supply chain professional, I will be sharing this with my Syracuse and MIT classmates. Professionals in many industries would benefit from hearing Maggie’s stories, they can take a step back and reflect on how their own industry, company, and working team may impact their approach to executing a job and how they can be an advocate for others. No one is ‘just a nurse,’ and in other industries, no one is just an employee.
As a millennial, it feels like I was just reading ‘The Defining Decade’ as a 22-year old and, ‘I Thought I was Here to Help’ is a great next chapter for us now in the 30-40 age range. Maggie takes real life examples from her undergrad education, the military training, the hospital’s pandemic protocols, and conversations around family balancing to show how an individual can deconstruct the built environment around them so they are able to be present, intentional, and mindful. I will be sharing this with my circle of friends as we tackle what gives us purpose outside the 9-5 job.
When reading Maggie Runyon’s lessons, I recalled the self-help book ‘Your Oxygen Mask First.’ Maggie explores the challenges and tribulations within healthcare academia and its built environment while also sprinkling in reflection and meditation moments after each chapter. As a supply chain professional, I will be sharing this with my Syracuse and MIT classmates. Professionals in many industries would benefit from hearing Maggie’s stories, they can take a step back and reflect on how their own industry, company, and working team may impact their approach to executing a job and how they can be an advocate for others. No one is ‘just a nurse,’ and in other industries, no one is just an employee.
As a millennial, it feels like I was just reading ‘The Defining Decade’ as a 22-year old and, ‘I Thought I was Here to Help’ is a great next chapter for us now in the 30-40 age range. Maggie takes real life examples from her undergrad education, the military training, the hospital’s pandemic protocols, and conversations around family balancing to show how an individual can deconstruct the built environment around them so they are able to be present, intentional, and mindful. I will be sharing this with my circle of friends as we tackle what gives us purpose outside the 9-5 job.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews