Dionne Martin, RN, helps patient Vivian Schumer celebrate Passover during her hospital stay. Schumer was in the hospital for more than a month after contracting COVID-19. “They were just so wonderful,” Schumer said of her nurses. “I can’t sing their praises enough because they are just out of this world. I can’t believe they were so good.”

In spring 2020, Dionne Martin, a registered nurse at UT Health Tyler’s Cardiovascular ICU, dived into the hospital’s COVID-19 ICU unit to help patients in need. She and her coworkers assisted those who were deeply ill from the virus and found ways for isolated patients to communicate with loved ones.

Since then, she has served as a travel nurse going to places like Washington D.C., Montana, Wyoming, South Carolina, Florida and Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to treat the COVID-19 patients who are critically ill in the ICUs and emergency rooms.

Continuing with her nursing career, Martin, who was born in Longview and raised in Tyler, has established her own business and become a certified legal nurse consultant, in which she works with attorneys to screen their medical-related cases to determine if it’s worth going to court.

“I educate the attorney on the legalities of the medical nursing part of it,” Martin said. “They come together and providing them with authoritative research helps back up their case.”

Martin explained she determines whether or not there is a legitimate issue through research. She also prepares questions to ask the attorney’s clients in the form of discovery and interrogatories as well as for the prosecution and defense.

Her consulting work spans across the country and most of her work is done online.

“Because I’m a travel nurse, I practice wherever,” Martin said.

Martin has a website for her consulting business, dionnemartinlnc.com, and she’s a part of the Certified Nurse Consulting Registry.

As a consultant, she retrieves, analyzes and organizes medical records. She also locates nursing and medical testifying expert witnesses and researches literature for both plaintiff and defense cases.

Martin called the opportunity to provide consulting “fabulous because there needs to be less frivolous cases in the court system.”

“I take care of the medical portion so the attorney can focus on the legal portion of the case,” she said.

Some of the case subjects include medical malpractice, worker’s compensation, toxic tort (a personal injury case where a person claims a toxic substance caused their injury), and criminal cases dealing with the body or physical well-being of an individual.

“It is a unique and honoring experience to get to see and do both sides of it,” Martin said. “You get to help the patient from beginning to end to all sides of it.”

Along with other positions, Martin has accepted a job as an associate professor in nursing and the clinical coordinator at the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas.

Martin said she has a passion for educating students and laying a solid foundation to maintain their interest in nursing. This fall, she’ll teach emergency and intensive care.

“A month ago, they offered me a job. I’ve wanted to teach nurses, especially new nurses because they need someone to encourage them to stay,” she said.

She hopes to encourage nurses to preserve and remember why they love their jobs.

“They’re there with that patient 12 hours a day, not everybody can do that,” Martin said. “We will always have a nursing shortage which can and does sometimes affect patient care. We need more nurses to be confident, proud and excited about the profession they have chosen. We as nurses help influence whether a patient will continue their current treatment and whether or not they will return to health care for further treatment in the future. No one can influence patient care like a nurse.”