On missing nursing conferences during the pandemic.

Almost each year since it began, I would fly to wherever the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) was holding its annual National Teaching Institute (NTI). At first, I attended because I was a critical care nurse, working in the emergency shock trauma area of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, and found the content invaluable. I had also joined the local chapter and knew others going to the meeting. I remember my first NTI in New Orleans—so many sessions, and meeting other nurses from around the country who were doing such amazing work gave me a sense of pride in my profession.

As my career progressed and I moved away from direct patient care into staff development, I would still attend to keep up with new information that I needed to incorporate into educational offerings. When I began working with AJN, first in CE and then as news director, I still attended to keep up to date and to network.

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted life and conferences—while virtual conferences at least offered content updates, they lacked the opportunity for personal networking that I find so important. This year there was an in-person NTI, but I opted not to attend because of the highly contagious COVID-19 variants in circulation.

But what I did do was what something that has become an AJN-AACN tradition—I interviewed the outgoing […]