Trigger note: This episode includes honest discussion bringing up COVID, mental health care, healthcare burnout, and systemic gaps. Please take care of yourself as you listen.

In today’s episode, we’re having one of those conversations that healthcare workers often have quietly—if at all.

After more than 20 years working across EMS, emergency medicine, and inpatient care, we’re unpacking what it feels like to work inside a system that often prioritizes algorithms, throughput, and crisis management over root-cause healing.

We talk candidly about:

1. What happens when patients cycle through the system without real change
2. The heartbreaking gaps in mental health care and crisis response
3. “Treat ’em and street ’em” culture—and how it impacts patients and providers
4. Why prevention and education so often get sidelined
5. The tension between protocol, liability, and human-centered care
6. How burnout grows when you know there has to be a better way

This is not medical advice. This is lived experience—from the back of an ambulance, the ER hallway, and the quiet moments where providers wrestle with what they wish healthcare looked like.

If you’ve ever felt disillusioned, conflicted, or burned out by the system—this conversation is for you. This isn’t about blaming providers or patients—it’s about naming the cracks in a system that leaves too many people unheard, untreated, and exhausted.

Thanks for hanging out with us on The Debrief with Staci & Ruthie. 🤍

If today’s episode brought up something heavy, please don’t carry it alone:

Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7). If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest ER.

Want to support first responders and their mental health? Check out Beyond the Sirens https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61582416343581

And if you’re in a season of burnout recovery, healing, or rebuilding your life from the inside out, Staci offers 1:1 coaching for women who want practical tools and compassionate support. https://www.stacikilecoaching.com/

1. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Call or text 988 (U.S.)
2. NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) – Education & advocacy
3. https://www.nami.org

1. American College of Lifestyle Medicine
2. https://lifestylemedicine.org

Marriage.

For a lot of us, the word alone brings up fairy-tale expectations—thanks to movies like The Princess Bride and the idea that love should be effortless once you find “the one.”

But real marriage?

It’s built over time. In conversations. In hard seasons. In choosing each other again and again.

In this episode, Staci and Ruthie talk honestly about what long-term marriage really looks like—from growing up together, learning (the hard way) that your spouse cannot read your mind, and navigating careers, deployments, kids, burnout, and changing seasons of life.

They share why marrying your best friend matters, how expectations can quietly sabotage connection, and why it’s okay—and necessary—to say no to good things so you can say yes to your spouse.

This conversation is for anyone who:

1. Loves their spouse but feels stretched thin
2. Is navigating a demanding season of work, parenting, or service
3. Wonders if marriage can still feel safe, connected, and worth it
4. Is single and questioning what actually matters in choosing a partner

Marriage isn’t about perfection.

It’s about choosing each other... especially when it’s messy.

Thanks for hanging out with us on The Debrief with Staci & Ruthie. 🤍

1. The Princess Bride – Because “mawwiage” shaped a generation https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0FKT4YT9W/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
2. The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands – A mindset-shifting read on expectations in marriage https://a.co/d/hnDOiWa
3. Love & Respect – Referenced concept of the “crazy cycle” https://a.co/d/h1sSdma

If today’s episode brought up something heavy, please don’t carry it alone:

Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7). If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest ER.

Want to support first responders and their mental health? Check out Beyond the Sirens 👉https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61582416343581

And if you’re in a season of burnout recovery, healing, or rebuilding your life from the inside out, Staci offers 1:1 coaching for women navigating burnout, identity shifts, and nervous system regulation who want practical tools and compassionate support.

👉https://www.stacikilecoaching.com

Motherhood changes everything... including friendship.

In this episode of The Debrief, we’re talking about the moms who come into our lives later… the ones who meet us in the trenches, hold our babies so we can pee, bring meals we didn’t ask for, and quietly save us in ways we never forget.

We talk about:

1. Why mom friendships hit differently than any other season of friendship
2. How groups like MomCo (formerly MOPS) create life-changing community for moms of all ages and stages
3. The power of tangible love: meal trains, freezer meals, childcare swaps, and showing up without being asked
4. The concept of “grief groceries” and why they might be the most loving gift you can give
5. Letting go of perfection, control, and unrealistic expectations of “doing it all”
6. Learning to receive help... and how healing it is to finally pay it forward

We also share real stories from the thick of motherhood: public restroom survival, noisy houses, messy kitchens, military life, homeschooling burnout, and the women who stepped in at exactly the right time.

If motherhood has ever knocked the wind out of you and someone showed up anyway — this one’s for you.

You don’t need more pressure.

You need community.

And sometimes the smallest act of showing up changes everything.

1. MomCo (formerly MOPS) – Local mom groups for all ages & stages
2. 👉 https://www.themom.co
3. Meal Train – Organize meals, support, or help for families
4. 👉 https://www.mealtrain.com
5. SignUpGenius – Great for freezer-meal prep days & group help
6. 👉 https://www.signupgenius.com

1. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Call or text 988 (US, 24/7)
2. If you’re in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest ER

Staci Kile Coaching – 1:1 Support for Women in Burnout Recovery

1. 👉 https://www.stacikilecoaching.com

Staci shares her journey from working as a bedside nurse to navigating burnout, leaving the ER, and following a calling into holistic nurse coaching. Along the way, she opens up about faith, motherhood, boundaries, guilt, growth, and the slow work of becoming more grounded and intentional.

This isn’t a highlight reel... it’s an honest conversation about learning who you are beyond your roles, letting go of the pressure to have it all together, and choosing a different pace when the old one stops working.

If you’ve ever loved serving others but felt exhausted by it…

If you’ve questioned your calling, your pace, or yourself…

If you’re learning how to care for yourself without guilt…

This episode is for you.

Learn more about Staci’s holistic nurse coaching work at https://www.stacikilecoaching.com/

In today’s episode, we sit down with Ruthie: wife, mama, EMS specialist, firefighter and one of the realest humans you’ll ever meet. She opens up about her story (and the redemption only God can write), what first responder PTSD actually looks like in real life, why burnout comes in cycles, and how she’s learning to regulate her nervous system when life is still chaotic. Also… let’s talk about the 911 call for itchy elbows.

Thanks for hanging out with us on The Debrief with Staci & Ruthie.

If today’s episode brought up something heavy, please don’t carry it alone:

Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7). If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest ER.

Want to support first responders and their mental health? Check out Beyond the Sirens https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61582416343581

And if you’re in a season of burnout recovery, healing, or rebuilding your life from the inside out, Staci offers 1:1 coaching for women who want practical tools and compassionate support. https://www.stacikilecoaching.com/

Welcome to the very first episode of The Debrief with Staci & Ruthie — where faith, friendship, and real life collide.

After months of talking about starting this podcast, we finally hit record. Between technology struggles, self-doubt, sick kids, work schedules, and “life happening,” the enemy definitely tried it… but we’re here anyway. (Not today, Satan.)

In this kickoff episode, we share:

1. how we met on an inpatient psych unit (not as patients—promise)
2. why Ruthie secretly called Staci “Pollyanna” behind her back (LOL)
3. how life and God brought us back together years later
4. why this podcast is more than entertainment — it’s connection, encouragement, and honestly… ministry

If you’ve ever felt alone, overwhelmed, misunderstood, or like you’re carrying too much… friend, pull up a chair. This space is for you.

So grab your coffee and whatever sanity you’ve got left — and let’s debrief this beautiful life together.