Nurse Blake and Stephanee Beggs take a selfie in front of the audience of FTCC Nursing students. [Photo by Brad Losh]
FTCC Nursing students were treated to a visit from social media star Blake Lynch on Tuesday.
Lynch, known as Nurse Blake to his millions of followers across social media, and touring partner Stephanee Beggs made FTCC a stop on the pair’s Beyond the Books tour. The tour, dubbed a 1-day Nursing Boot Camp, offers encouragement and success tips to Nursing students and recent graduates at colleges and universities.
FTCC landed a coveted spot on the tour through an online voting contest.
Students and instructors from FTCC’s Associate Degree Nursing and Practical Nursing programs, as well as students from Methodist University’s Nursing school, attended the event in person in FTCC’s Cumberland Hall Auditorium.
Lynch and Beggs shared personal stories of their time in Nursing school and in various nursing roles at hospitals before hitting on meatier topics like a pharmacology review, job interviewing tips, a NCLEX review and mock simulation.
“Nursing school is more than a grade. It’s more than passing the NCLEX,” Lynch said. “If you study to save a life one day, that is so much better than studying to get a 94 on an exam.”
Prior to the day’s official start, the pair toured FTCC’s Nursing Education Simulation Center, which opened to classes in January.
Lynch voiced his awe of the state-of-the-art facility compared to his own experiences as a student.
“I think our sim lab had a Macy’s mannequin,” he said.
Lynch graduated from Nursing school in 2014 before working in a variety of nursing jobs at level 1 trauma centers. He rose to fame through a series of viral social media videos and helped advocate for the abolishment of the ban on gay donors from donating blood through his Banned4Life online movement.
As his popularity and influence online skyrocketed, Lynch transitioned into a fulltime nursing-focused comedian and speaker, launching his PTO Comedy Tour in 2021.
His upcoming North American tour, the Shock Advised Tour, begins later this month.
Beggs, a viral sensation in her own right, is the CEO of an education content platform called RNExplained. The platform grew out of Beggs’ hit teaching videos that she posted while studying for nursing exams during the height of the pandemic. In addition to her videos and her day job as a nurse, she’s generated millions in revenue selling handwritten study guides in sheets or bundles and merchandise on Etsy.
Her success landed her a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 – Education list and features in Business Insider and Medscape.
