Clinical Practice
Where care meets leadership.
I'm a Registered Nurse at Detroit Receiving Hospital — a Level I Trauma Center — where I've grown from bedside staff nurse to Charge RN and clinical preceptor. My practice is grounded in benevolence-first care and trauma-informed thinking.
Current Role
Where I work today
Detroit Receiving Hospital is one of Michigan's busiest Level I Trauma Centers — the unit runs fast, and the margin for error is small. As Charge RN, I carry clinical decision authority for the shift: resource allocation, staffing adjustments, escalation calls, and the operational rhythm of the floor. As a preceptor, I guide newly licensed nurses through unit orientation — not just skills, but judgment, communication, and what it actually means to be responsible for another person's care.
- Charge RN responsibilities: clinical decision authority, resource coordination, and staffing management across the shift
- Preceptor: onboarding newly licensed nurses through unit orientation, clinical skill development, and professional judgment formation
- High-acuity trauma care in a Level I environment — rapid assessment, multidisciplinary coordination, and crisis stabilization
- Cerner EHR documentation; ACLS and BLS certified and current
- Michigan RN License #4422078844
Certifications & Training
Clinical credentials
A combination of life-saving clinical certifications, health informatics proficiencies, patient safety training, and research ethics credentials — built over time, kept current.
Philosophy
Psychology & Patient-Centered Care
Nursing is often framed as a technical discipline — protocols, assessments, interventions. That framework is necessary, but it's not sufficient. I came into clinical practice with deep exposure to psychology, and it changed how I see the work. Every patient in a Level I trauma environment is experiencing something that goes beyond their chief complaint. Fear, trauma, distrust, and loss don't disappear because someone is lying in a hospital bed — they shape everything.
Trauma-informed care isn't a checkbox in my practice; it's a lens I apply before I walk into a room. Understanding how stress, fear, and prior experiences shape behavior makes me a better clinician — not softer, but more accurate. Empathy, applied with clinical precision, is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools I have.
Empathy isn't a soft skill — it's a clinical one.— Joshua Stadler, RN
Relevant Coursework
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Psychology Foundational framework for understanding behavior, cognition, and human response to stress and illness.
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Health Psychology The intersection of psychological factors and physical health — directly applicable at the bedside.
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Life-Span Development Understanding patient context across the full developmental spectrum — from pediatric to geriatric care.
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Research Design in Psychology Foundations of evidence appraisal and research literacy that inform evidence-based clinical practice.
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NRS 3016 — Nursing Care of Individuals: Behavioral & Mental Health Dean's List semester · Grade: A Psychiatric and behavioral health nursing with a focus on therapeutic communication, mental status assessment, and psychopharmacology.
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Trauma-Informed Care for Healthcare Evidence-based framework for delivering care that accounts for prior trauma, reduces re-traumatization risk, and builds therapeutic trust.
Looking Forward
Where I'm headed.
My current practice is grounding — and it's pointing me toward what comes next. Two directions are pulling at me, and they're not as separate as they might seem.
Psychiatric Nursing & NP Pathway
My psychology background and clinical experience with behavioral health patients in a trauma setting have made clear that psychiatric nursing is where I want to go deeper. The Nurse Practitioner pathway — especially psychiatric-mental health NP — is the natural next chapter. I want to prescribe, diagnose, and build longer-term therapeutic relationships than bedside nursing allows.
Nursing Informatics
I maintain enterprise-grade IT infrastructure as a side practice — not as a hobby, but because I understand systems thinking at a technical level that most nurses don't. Nursing informatics sits at the intersection of clinical workflow and technology design. EHR implementation, clinical decision support, and health data systems are areas where my background gives me a rare vantage point, and I intend to use it.