By
Jennifer Larson, NurseZone feature
writer
Nearly
6,000 nurses attended the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’s
National Teaching Institute and Critical Care Exposition May 4-9 in Atlanta,
Georgia.
At the
closing ceremony, outgoing association president Michael L. Williams, RN, MSN,
turned over the reins of AACN to the new president, Connie Barden, RN, MSN,
telling the assembled nurses that he had enjoyed his tenure as president but
also looked forward to hearing Barden’s “bold and fearless voice” this
coming year.
Williams
touched upon an important theme addressed in the conference by journalist
Suzanne Gordon, who spoke during the May 7 morning general session on the need
for nurses to speak up.
Gordon is
co-author of From Silence to
Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public, a book about the
need for nurses to share their nursing experiences and advance their messages to
the general public. During her keynote address, Gordon reminded the critical
care nurses that nurses need and deserve the “3 Rs for RNs”: respect,
recognition, and rewards.
To achieve
these things, however, nurses must make their voices heard, she said. Nurses
must tell people what they do every day, whether it’s sharing their duties in
a positive way with family members or convincing hospital public relations
departments to promote nursing in the community. And they must take credit for
the work they do, she added.
“Paint
yourself into the picture” when talking about work, Gordon said.
She
continued, “You need to tell people: ‘I made the dinner. The dinner didn’t
make itself. I evaluated the patient. The patient didn’t evaluate himself. I
weaned the patient from the ventilator. The patient didn’t wean himself.’”
Barden
echoed Williams’ words in her own speech during the closing ceremony. She
called on “the responsibility of nurses to start using our voices.”
“I
submit to you that the time is now,” Barden said to the assembled nurses, all
of whom were given small red megaphones inscribed with the words, “Your voice
creates change.”
She
promised that, under her leadership, AACN would continue to speak out on issues
important to critical care nurses, such as mandatory overtime and providing
appropriate end-of-life care.
“We must
stop waiting for others to respond to our issues and dictate our [own] fate,”
Barden said.
Barden
also announced the new AACN board members: Suzanne Burns, RN, Jamie Heath, RN,
Deborah Laughan, RN and Carol Ann Puz, RN, BSN. Dorrie Fontaine, RN, DNSc, is
the new president-elect of AACN.
Many other
nurses were recognized by AACN for their contributions to critical care nursing
during the conference. Karen K. Giuliano, RN, MSN, and Roberta Kaplow, RN,
Ph.D., both received the Excellent Clinical Nurse Specialist Award.
Recipients
of the Excellence in Caring Practices Awards included Megan Rehwoldt, RN, BSN;
Cindy Damboise, RN, BSN; Karen N. Hamilton, RN; Maureen A. Seckel, RN, MSN;
Michele J. Young, RN; Capt. Erica Spillane, RN; Steven Savant, RN, BSN; Debra
Prontis-Ruotolo, RN, BSN; Kate McCarthy, RN, BSN and Dea Ann Martin, RN, BSN.
Community Service Awards were given to the ICU Education Team at Southern Ohio
Medical Center in Portsmouth, Ohio, and to Elizabeth Hupp, RN, and Mark R.
Kurland, RN, BSN.
Also,
nurses learned about cutting edge technology and visited the three-day Critical
Care Exposition held in the Georgia World Congress Center and attended a wide
variety of educational sessions.
The
sessions ranged in focus from clinical topics such as the benefits of
hemodynamic monitoring or managing Hepatitis C in the critical care environment
to public policy discussions of Congress’s stand on health policy in a
post-Sept. 11 world.
Read other AACN conference stories:
Arkansas Nurse Wins SUV at AACN Conference
Technological Advances and World Events Dictate NTI Sessions
May
17, 2002. © 2002. NurseZone.com. All Rights Reserved.