I went to school over 25 years ago and while I was a staff nurse I always heard the call to wash my hands—but I will admit that the call did not always translate into action. I was busy, there was always one more task to do, and after all, hadn't I just put on or removed some gloves? Didn't all of that count?
By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief. (She e-mailed Off the Charts this post at the end of the day yesterday.)
There were no surprise guests today at the American Nurses Association (ANA) House of Delegates meeting here in Washington, DC. Today the House got down to business—Rebecca Patton addressed the House, reminding attendees that current accomplishments were built on work that began long before her presidency. This segued nicely into the insightful panel presentation by past presidents of the ANA, from Jo Eleanor Eliot through to Barbara Blakeny (Beverly Malone was absent). These past presidents reviewed their accomplishments with candor, noting accomplishments as well as regrets. For instance, Eliot noted that in retrospect, she wished that the ANA had developed an implementation plan to go with the proposal for basic educational preparation at the baccalaureate level. Barbara Nichols noted that the “elephant in the room” was collective bargaining, and that the ANA’s work in this area, whether one agreed with it or not, “forced the discussion” on what role and rights and influence nurses should have in their workplaces.
The threads of basic nursing education and collective bargaining ran through all the presidencies. After the distinguished panel and the standing ovation accorded to them, the House turned to resolutions and bylaws changes and clarifications of procedure . . . and this reporter was very grateful for the chocolate distributed by some of the candidates for ANA president.
By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief (sent yesterday from her Iphone)
So it’s Wednesday afternoon, June 16, and I’m here in Washington, DC, attending the 2010 House of Delegates meeting of the American Nurses Association (ANA). It’s easy to find the sessions—one just has to follow all the middle-aged women walking in one direction through the lobby (full disclosure: that includes me).
ANA president Rebecca Patton opened the session and announced that there would be a “special surprise guest.” She got about halfway through announcements about parliamentary procedure, using the electronic voting machines, and the other housekeeping details when I noticed a rather large muscular young man with an earpiece slip in the door near me. I noticed several clones of him at each exit. Our “special guest” had arrived.
Patton introduced President Barack Obama and he received a rock star welcome from the approximately 800 attendees. He said he came because he promised he would if nurses supported his campaign and he won the presidential election. He proclaimed, “I love nurses.” (I wonder: when he goes to other groups, does he say, “I love physicians” or “I love auto workers”?) He retold the story of how nurses took care of his wife and daughters when his daughters were born and how the nurses “got him through” when one of his daughters had meningitis and how they gave her such good care.
Obama then spoke about the changes in health care brought about by the Patient […]
I wish I could make sense out of why these events unfold on days that start out completely ordinary. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that our lives and goodbyes are completely unpredictable. And it occurs to me that, regardless of the starting height, all falls are “long falls,” and they all happen way too fast.
Nurses can expect to see these patients in every kind of practice for many years to come.
