A President's Call to Action

President Hester Klopper is the first non-North American to take the position of President within STTI. This is probably fitting since the 1st international site opened in her home country of South Africa. Listening to the new President speak you become quickly enticed by her accent to want to hear her. Then once you actually hear what it is she is saying you want even more to soak up every word.

In the President's Call to Action she asked three things of STTI as a community, Serve Locally, Transform Regionally, and Lead Globally. Some of these goals may feel lofty, but in hearing the President explain them it becomes apparent exactly what she means and just how easily this could be accomplished. I'm going to break it down much like the President did in her address to the delegation just to tease out a few other points.

Let's begin with the idea of Serve Locally. This seems like such an easy concept. Its something that nurses do everyday that they practice whether they realize it or not. To serve the community you come from almost seems unnecessary to say to such a accomplished room of individuals, but I think there was a reason this statement is so important. It is not just talking about serving your local community.

Its about serving the communities you do in a way that behooves you to understand their culture. As the organization becomes more global and more nurses begin working outside of the country it is important to never lose sight of meeting our patients where they are at. Its so simple and yet so impactful. Trying to provide people with services they don't need is one of the ways to quickly not only become an irrelevant volunteer, but its also a way to hinder global relationships. We must as nurses approach communities at home and abroad with our knowledge and determine how best we can help them based on what they say not based on what we think.

The next part of the Call to Action was Transform Regionally. I think this part of the call to action is specifically focused on the nurse members. As the nursing world changes, technology expands, treatments become more complicated, and the world diversifies we need to be able to transform ourselves. We need to as a chapter and a region identify the problems the nursing community is facing and determine the best way to change ourselves to suit those needs while maintaining the true spirit of nursing. It is by no means an easy task to examine what is not working with our practice, our chapter, or our region but it is a necessary step to elevating the nursing practice throughout the world.

The final part of the Call to Action was to Lead Globally. This seems pretty self-explanatory but once again I think there may be more than meets the eye. While it is important to be leaders throughout the globe and be a reputable source of care and information for people in need of help and knowledge, I think it is equally important to lead with a global focus. By this I mean that I think when we lead we need to be thinking about how whatever decisions we make are going to affect the world at large. Certain leadership decision that seem simple may have implications that we have not truly recognized. Leading globally we need to begin to be thoughtful and mindful about our decision making process and just how much one simple decision could change things for a group of people we had not considered.

Ultimately the Call to Action is a call to be and do better. The Call to Action is about embodying the values of being a nurse and being a Sigma Theta Tau (Love, Courage, and Honor) nurse specifically. We must Lead Courageously Throughout the Globe, Transform our Regions with Honor and pride, and we must Love the Service we provide to our Local Communities.

House of Delegates Part Deux

My taste of Indianapolis yesterday supplied me with just enough energy to go back to the hotel that night and pack so that I would be prepared to check out bright and early in the morning and head over to the convention. My plan of course was to head from the convention to the Indianapolis airport so that I could make my 7pm flight with no issues. Like many things in my life I may have been a little over zealous....none the less, better ready than a mess I always say.

I arrived bright and early at the second delegation meeting and stowed my one carry-on beneath my feet in case things ran long. However, much like the previous day things seemed to move at a good pace and we made great timing during the actual delegation procedures.



Mary and I happily cast our votes and helped amend 5 by-laws by an overwhelming majority! A lot of major changes didn't occur to the by-laws, most just clarifying some already existing procedures. However, one new thing that the by-laws created was a way to stagger the executive officer positions of the International organization to ensure that one member of the board from the existing biennium is still on the panel of executive officers. A nice change that will help with continuity of leadership.

The next order of business was the announcement of all of the new chapter officers and the ceremonial exchange of the Sigma chain, or as I like to call it the Passing of the Bling! Once again everything moved rather quickly. I think the most important of the election results was probably the election of Cathy Catrambone as the President-Elect for the next Biennium.

After thanking all of the outgoing officers and the installation of all of the incoming officers, we moved on to the new President Hester Klopper's Call to Action. I am going to go into this in more detail in a post all its own so I am going to move on for now. When all was said and done...we had amended the by laws, adopted the resolutions, sworn in our new officers, and it was finally time for our meeting to come to a close. As soon as the meeting was adjourned a group of women and men from the Tau Lambda-At-Large Chapter presented us with a fun and heartwarming dance. It was a celebration and what a way to end the Second Part of the House of Delegates and start a new Biennium!

FIELD TRIP!!

After finishing up a rather easy going day at the House of Delegates session Mary and I decided that it would be nice to have an afternoon out in Indianapolis. We had kept pretty busy with the convention the last few days and hadn't really had a chance to even explore the Downtown Indy area yet.

Mary had spoke with the concierge prior to the delegation and got the low down on exactly what we should be doing with our time away from the convention. The first stop had to be the Eiteljorg Museum!

The museum is advertised as a museum dedicated to the art and works of the American Southwest with a particular focus on the Native Americans. This sounded like it would be right up my alley and I was really quite excited about the opportunity to see some midwest Native American pieces.

After only a few minutes in the museum I realized I would not be getting the Midwest Native American experience that I thought I was going to but I would be exposed to the private collection of Southwestern Native American inspired art from businessman Eiteljorg. It was still a great time at the museum. 

We went through all of the artwork, visited the soon to be Jingle Rail exhibit, saw exhibits about the different Native American tribes throughout the US by region, saw a giant totem pole, and even got a picture of my fellow delegate riding in the back of an Old Western Horse and Buggy! 

Ultimately the museum was an excellent decision on how to spend our off time in Indianapolis since it is really getting a little to chilly to just be strolling about without the proper outerwear. One of the unfortunate events was that the museum closed at 5. We only got there around 3:30 so we didn't have much time to explore the museum in great depth. I do feel like we got a pretty good understanding of what the museum had to offer though and we definitely hit the main attractions. Plus I got this awesome picture of my co-delegate!

Following our trip to the museum we headed over to my hotel so that I could grab a phone charger and we could grab a quick drink. We actually still had a little bit of time to kill so why not have a glass of wine right? While we sat and just relaxed from the last few days I worked on making sure that the twitter account was up-to-date and I helped Mary get use to working with her brand new smartphone. Little things like setting up the voicemail, setting up her Twitter account, and even checking into the airline online the day before so she didn't have to print a boarding pass....the little things...

After relaxing for about an hour we headed down to Illinois St for our 6 o'clock reservation at St. Elmo's Steakhouse. It is apparently a staple restaurant here in Indianapolis and I can certainly see why. Once you walk in the whole restaurant actually appears quite small. I would liken it to one of the alley length bars in Boston. And then you get to the white light at the end of the bar, think street light from a 1930's detective show, and the hostess leads you into the recesses of the restaurant where rooms filled with diners suddenly appear. The place was PACKED!

We sat down and were immediately greeted pleasantly by our waiter with menus, glasses of water, a verbal list of the specials, and one of the most genuine Midwest smiles I had seen the entire time I was in Indianapolis. Looking over the menu everything sounded absolutely delicious. Unfortunately my Boston and New England snobbery got the better of me and I simply could not bring myself to order seafood from a place where I couldn't see the ocean. Is it me or is that weird to anyone else?

I ended up getting a steak which was absolutely FANTASTIC!! It was perfectly cooked and by the time I put my fork down I felt like I was going to either take a nap or explode from how much food I had eaten. Mary got Amish Chicken which basically ended up being a half chicken served over noodles. It looked equally as appetizing and Mary was in agreement about the tastiness of her food. 

With dinner over we exited the restaurant, which, if its even possible, was busier now than it had been when we arrive. Both of us headed back to our respective hotels completely satiated and ready for nap. We were determined to be ready for our House of Delegates Second Session and for our trip back to Boston.

House of Delegates Part 1

Today was the first day of the House of Delegates. I was really excited and nervous to see just how things were going to play out and what I would actually be required to do. When I walked in, the tables were set up from the front of the room all the way to the back of the giant ballroom with two chairs at each table.

The task of trying to find where myself and Mary Carney should be sitting seemed daunting to say the very least. There was clearly a method to the madness as their were charts explaining where a given number should be seated. However, I had no idea how exactly we were supposed to figure out what our corresponding number might be. Luckily, one of the STTI staff members, who had been following our twitter and therefore knew our chapter name (@GammaEpsilonNU if you haven't seen it yet yourself) pointed us in the right direction.

Apparently the chapters are seated in order of their induction into STTI. We were number 75! I had no idea. I was super excited to have such good seats though and was really proud to know that I came one of the first 100 chapters...

At every table there was also a set up with a few STTI mints, a voting machine with a card with the name of your chapter, and a little placard also displaying your chapter name. The yellow card that you can see if the "Golden Ticket" that gave every person who had one in their possession access to a ballot to vote in the 2013 delegation.

The machine, much like trying to find our place in the sea of tables and chairs seemed daunting, but after only a few seconds it became very self explanatory, 1= Yes and 2=No. Could it get any simpler really?

The meeting was called to order and things began to get real fast! We were quickly breezing through the agenda with very little discussion or questions about the candidates or the process. Before I knew it we were through the candidates and being handed a ballot to cast our votes via pencil and paper. Mary and I worked diligently to make the best decisions we could for the International part of the organization and were ultimately quite happy with the way our ballot turned out.

After lunch we returned back to the delegation room where we were introduced to the different resolutions and by-law amendments that would be discussed the next session. Nothing overly exciting happened here except for one rousing speaker who wanted a resolution to honor the male and female nurses who had served in the Civil War. The President, Suzanne Prevost, assured the speaker that a task force would be developed to look into the issue further and we were quickly moving through the agenda once again.

An introduction was then made to one of 30 credentialed Parliamentarians in the world who would be overseeing the next days discussions on the by-law amendments. We also got to have a little practice session with the electronic clickers. To be honest I was quickly transported back to my Anatomy & Physiology class where the professor use to use electronic clickers to determine if we were all paying attention. Fortunate for me I was paying attention more this time than I think I had been in A&P. Before I knew it we were heading out of the first session of the House of Delegates and preparing for a second field trip....more info to come!

An Unexpected and Exciting Shove in the Right Direction

Yesterday I decided to attend one of the workshops that was sort of outside of my traditional interests. It was all about adolescents. The first presenter talked about school based health center and teens access to reproductive health services at the centers and the second presenter spoke about the use on online social networking sites for teens to communicate and interact with each other and strangers. Even though I hadn't anticipated it both presenters spoke about topics that were 100% relevant to my practice.

I work for a mobile health program in Boston that does clinics throughout the Boston and MA area to offer people in the community free HIV/STI screenings, linkage to healthcare, and medical case management. In recent weeks my program in particular has seen a rather large increase in the numbers of adolescents that we are serving, mostly 15-18 year olds. Being able to hear some of the strategies these women employed through the health centers and through their online modeling was both interesting and though provoking for me.

I began asking questions about the teens use of others apps and things that were completely relevant to my practice. Tools my organization already uses to do outreach to the MSM population. It appeared according to both of my speakers that no one was doing that kind of research. Then something strange happened and they both wanted to speak with me afterwards.

Now this wasn't particularly unusual as a lot of the presenters wanted to speak with people after their presentations. However, what was unusual was one presenters willingness to speak with me for well over one hour.

I am not going to give a name as I want to respect people's privacy, I'm sure she had no idea she was talking to the guy keeping the blog. The woman however, spoke with me at great length about how to take my idea and make it into a full-fledged research proposal. She encouraged me to tease out the problems, determine funding sources, and pushed me to simply begin the research.

Then she continued to ask me questions and advise my education. She gently nudged me to go back to school for PhD in Nursing. This is by no means a new concept for me as many of my nursing professors and deans have told me that this is the path I should take. What was different this time is that this woman did not know who I was from a hole in the wall. Based on my questions, my brief conversation with her, and my enthusiasm/concern for the topic I was asking questions about she determined that I had no other choice than to go back to school as soon as possible because, "those kids need you."

The whole situation caused a temporary feeling of anxiety and being completely overwhelmed. Someone outside of my nursing world in Boston had just affirmed everything everyone else had been telling me for almost a year. And the only concern she left me with was, "Am I too young?" She and the other professors I have don't seem to think so but I can't help but feel this is still somewhat out of reach for someone like me. I just graduated and passed my boards in May. I have only been an RN for 7 months. I know this is a silly concern, but I wanted to be "just" a nurse for longer before I went back and started the process of getting my PhD.

There are still other things I want to do and research, but I realize that it would be much easier to do if I simply had the better degree. I did what all grown-ups do....and called my mother. I told her about the wonderful nurse I had met and how she had encouraged me to go back and my mother in her infinite wisdom was able to calm me down. "Well you just have to take it piece by piece you can't do everything all at once. I knew this was going to happen. These people have all been doing this for years...they did their nursing and now they do that along with the research. There is nothing wrong with taking your time." Thank God for our mothers sometimes.

I guess that this situation is one of the benefits of a big conference like this. The nurses with more experience mentor and encourage the nurses with less experience to go back to school, to continue to do research, and to continue to improve the profession. I am truly grateful to be here and I am truly thankful that I met that nurse yesterday because I definitely needed the outside affirmation that nursing and an eventual PhD were all things that should be on my radar screen!

A Pretty Purple Banner

Today was the day that we received our first Chapter Key Award!! It was an exciting day to say the least. Mary Carney, Gamma Epsilon Chapter President, and myself could not have been more excited or proud to accept this great honor from STTI today. To be one of the 78 AMAZING chapters to be accepting Key Awards was very cool to say the least.

The different accomplishments of each of the other chapters being read aloud gave me a great understanding about the kind of company we were actually privileged to be a part of this year. Mary and I discussed at length that I really do think that this could just be the beginning for our chapter. Being at the Biennial Convention this year I have acquired an understanding about the ways to properly communicate all that our chapter does to the STTI community at large. I think the biggest barrier in the past with our chapter is not necessarily making sure that we do amazing things, but being able to let others know about the amazing work that we are doing.

So the wheels are in motion to make sure that something similar to this happens again, but in the meantime I will most certainly enjoy the picture of the president and myself proudly holding onto our chapter's accomplishment.

Region 15---The North American Northeast---AKA The BEST!!

It doesn't look like much but that is a map of North America Region 15 of STTI. The region encompasses the states Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts(what?! what?!), New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Nova Scotia. We are a pretty interesting bunch to say the least. The best thing about having a meeting of just Region 15 folks is that I finally got to see some people who did not have a Southern Drawl! I know that might sound silly, but there are only so many colloquialisms about a rabbit that I can hear before I miss a good Southie Accent, or an Eh?

Our Region is currently presided over by Valerie Sauda who is a wonderful geriatric nurse from Maine. She is funny, kind, and knowledgeable. While in the regional meeting I felt good listening to her speak about the Region as a whole because she truly had a sense of the issues throughout the region and the wonderful accomplishments the different chapters in the region had achieved. 

Speaking of the accomplishments of Region 15....I was really impressed. I always knew that we had many great schools of nursing in the Northeast, but the idea that 6 of the 78 Chapter Key Awards were from our region (Gamma Epsilon included!!!) and one of those chapters was receiving a Chapter Key Award for the 10th time I could not believe it!! Everyone in the room was so impressive and it was nice to be amongst people who understood the shared issues in our geographic area; snowstorms, ice-covered highways, and freezing temperatures. 

Beyond the Chapter Key Awards I learned that there are three women running from Region 15 for some form of international leadership position. Not only do we have amazing chapters in Region 15, but the leaders from those chapters that we are able to produce are equally as fantastic. 

Another part of the Region 15 meeting was the review of some of the events that had gone on in the past 2 years. The highlight was our regional research conference held at Salve Regina University. Between the mansions, ocean, and nursing research how could you possibly beat our regional research conference??

One of the most fun parts of the Region 15 meeting for me was the sharing of ideas to increase chapter engagement with its members and the community at large. The creative ways some members were reaching their philanthropic goals including: bring a canned good to the meeting, do a clothing/emergency bag collection for DCF, or even help with fundraising efforts for other organizations were all impressive and simple. Learning about the video one chapter created to explain to potential new members exactly what STTI is and what its members do was an innovative way to get new students excited about their potential membership. 

Ending the meeting I took away a few ideas and desires. Primarily, my desire to become more involved in such an active region and be partners with some of the long term (is that better than old time?) Sigma Theta Tau members grew at least 10 fold just from the Region 15 meeting. I could not be happier to be from North America Region 15.. 

Even Tornadoes Can't Bring Us Down

Please enjoy the above video as read-along music for today's blog post. I was originally going to use the track Can't Hold Us Down by Christina, but I wasn't sure exactly who was reading and I thought Roar gave the same message without some of the crassness. I digress...Today's blog post is all about yesterday.

I hadn't watched the news in days so when someone first brought up the idea of using the basement of the JW Marriott as a tornado shelter you can imagine just how very confused I was. But I will get back to that.

I started my day at the poster presentations. Unfortunately, I was barely able to get through half of them. There were so many posters and so many nurses displaying their fantastic research, and I wanted to see them all. Rookie Mistake!! Next time I am definitely going to map out exactly which posters I want to go and see.

Still I was able to learn a lot and meet a bunch of different nurses. One of the best parts of the poster presentations for me was going around and meeting different nurses from various institutions and playing the degrees of separation game. Trying to figure out how they would know a similar person to me was both a challenge and a fun experience.

Coming from Northeastern University I have had the honor of working with some truly fantastic faculty, from the dean to a clinical instructor. Everyone seems to be at the top of their field somehow. In addition to my education at Northeastern I have also had the pleasure of working at Massachusetts General Hospital and meeting many of the nurses throughout that hospital who manage to provide such high quality patient care. Probably around the fourth or fifth person that this happened with I was beginning to understand what kind of company I kept in the Northeast in terms of nursing scholarship and I was quite proud.

One of the most fascinating parts of the poster presentations was the variety of research ideas that the nurses were presenting. Nurses from Ohio State University were presenting research on using Dance as an exercise methodology in Nursing Homes and next to them was a woman from Baylor University who had visited Panama to help educate local woman on baby dehydration prevention procedures. Everyone had such a unique area of study that it reinforces the idea that nurses truly can do anything.

After the poster presentation session I begrudgingly made my way upstairs to see the presentation of Tribute Awards. It was a nice event and it was impressive to see the accomplishments of such distinguished nurses. That's the one thing about seeing any awards events at the convention, everyone is SOOOO IMPRESSIVE!!

After the tribute awards I made my way downstairs once again to get a little info session on The Circle. The Circle is Sigma Theta Tau's very own social networking site. Since I am the webmaster for my Gamma Epsilon Chapter I figured an event entitled 7 Circle Skills Every Chapter Leader Needs To Know was probably something I should attend. And I was not alone. When the presentation started at least 15 people were standing around the group of seated participants waiting to hear the helpful tidbits from Michelle Lilly.

The session was great because some of the information was very basic and I probably could have figured out on my own, but some of it was not. From a coordination perspective The Circle provides chapter leaders with a few abilities and resources that I was not aware of at all. Being able to walk through those and figure out exactly what things would work for our chapter was very nice.

Following the Circle presentation I made my way to a workshop on ethical and moral dilemmas in healthcare. One of the presentations was on HIV and spirituality and one was on the transformation of new grad RNs in the workplace. Both of these were pretty important to me for a few reasons. One is because I have been working in HIV since I graduated and another because I just graduated in May....so I am still a new grad, who would have been an outlier in the presenters acute/chronic fatigue survey. All the same both presentations were very intriguing. Again I was in a situation where it was standing room only.

About an hour into the presentation a gentleman entered the room and informed our moderator of the tornado alarm and the safety plan if something should occur. This is when I began to worry a little bit. I had no idea anything was going on and I most certainly had no idea that there was even a tornado warning. I was a little disconcerted but managed to call my family and text with them after to get some more details about the situation and to assure them that I was safe.

My poor mother! My family generally worries about me when I go away for any extended period of time, as any normal family would. But, my mother and father just returned from their first trip to Ireland and I am sure that this situation was not helping to assuage their concerns about not having seen me onto my flight. Luckily, everything was fine but I'm sure it was still nerve wracking.

I continued on with my day and went to my Region 15 meeting after that. I would explain more about the Region 15 meeting now, but I think I would rather make that its own post so keep an eye out for that one.

The International Induction that followed the Regional Meetings was a truly unique and special event. Seeing such prominent figures in the world and how they have contributed to nursing and Sigma Theta Tau was amazing. Nursing is one of the few professions that no matter who you are at some point in your life you are bound to run into one of us. To know that there were people from the private sector and the public sector who recognized that unique fact and felt compelled to support the work of nurses and Sigma Theta Tau throughout the globe is inspiring. It gives any nursing researcher a little sparkle of hope that there are people out there besides nurses who simply put "Get It".

At the end of the International Induction I finally heard from my partner in crime delegate from Sigma Theta Tau, Mary Carney who had made it to Indy via plane, storm and all! Thank God! I met her for coffee and had an awesome evening just talking about everything that had happened so far and our plans for the rest of the week. Now that we are both on the same page I have buddy and could not be happier. I guess its probably time I headed down to the convention.

My Schedule

I have been trying to come up with a really cool way to show everyone my schedule, but I have FAILED....MISERABLY FAILED....several times now so you are all just getting a list by day...sorry bout it.

November 17th, 2013

I am going to start with the awards ceremony today since a great deal of these events have already happened and there is no point in me tell you what I have already done.

I am going to go to the Poster Session during the Concurrent B session today to see exactly what kinds of research some of the other members are doing.

12:30-1:45 I will be going to the Tribute Awards.
1:45-2:15 I'm going to get over to the Exhibit Hall to catch the 7 Circle Tips Everyone Needs to Know...I figure as a webmaster I should probably figure those out.
2:45-4 Concurrent Session C I am going to check out an HIV and Spirituality workshop.
4:15-5:15 I have my Region 15 meeting which will be nice to meet the other folks in my area.
5:30-6:15 The International Induction Ceremony

And then I think I am going to call it a day.

November 18th, 2013

8:30-9:45 The 3rd Opening Plenary
10:00-11:15 I am going to check out the workshop on substance abuse in rural hospitals
11:30-12:45 I am going to be at the Chapter Awards Recognition
1:45-3:00 There is a workshop on high school students and online relationships that sounds really interesting
3:15-4:00 There is a Chapter Leader Session
6:30-9:00 is the Founders Awards

I'm definitely going to go home and pass out after that one!

November 19th, 2013

8:30-9:45 A workshop in increasing male students experiences in nursing school...for obvious reasons I want to hear this one I think.
10:00-11:15 There is a workshop on Abuse in Women which looks pretty interesting

11:30-3:30 The first House of Delegates Session

And then I am taking the rest of the night off to have a nice dinner and sleep and blog.

November 20th (My last day)

8:00-2:00 Is the Final House of Delegates Session

Then I will be off to the airport.....So there it is folks...a look at my schedule for the week. Let me know if you think there is anything I am missing or anything that you want to hear more about.

The Opening Plenary

I wanted to explain a little bit more about the Opening Plenary yesterday by Suzanne Prevost (Who you can follow on Twitter @SuzannePrevost, fyi). The main topic of conversations during this welcome/opening/presidential address was the attitude of gratitude.

I am going to be completely honest, as soon as I saw this first slide I rolled my eyes and was immediately prepared to be asked for a check. I was waiting for the collection basket to come around. The whole thing seemed oddly reminiscent to me of a MegaChurch with a pastor who was looking to swindle his congregation out of their hard earned money. HOWEVER, in the next breath I was corrected, "Gratitude does not just mean your money, although it is helpful." A shift occurred in me because I understand that every organization needs money to run, but it was nice to know that was not going to be the only goal of this speech.

Suzanne went on to talk about a few different ways people can create legacy within their chapter and demonstrate their gratitude beyond the check that they may write. What I think was the best part of her speech was was we were provided with not only things our chapter could do for the larger organization, but for things we could do as a chapter to give back. SOOOOOooOoooOOo....In that light I am going to talk about a few of the organizations that you as an individual reading this, or another chapter who was not able to be here this weekend, can get involved in from the comfort of your own keyboard.

Arguably the most perilous condition facing the underdeveloped and developing world is access to clean water and appropriate sanitation. One of the organizations that is looking to combat this problem is simply called Water.Org. I would love to explain the organization and their main goals more myself, however there is a youtube video that absolutely puts my explanation to shame. So without further ado....check it out...

Yes that is Matt Damon in the video...so for my Boston chapters...."But I mean if you have a problem with that, I mean, we could just step outside--we could figure it out."

And if you are not from Boston please completely ignore my Good Will Hunting reference.

One of the other organizations that the opening plenary challenged the nurses in attendance to get involved with is helping to educate the nurses in Haiti. Currently there are 2 MDs per 10,000 people in Haiti. This means, in simple terms, nurses are the ones who are providing most of the medical care in a country like Haiti. During the devastating earthquake of 2010 the primary school of nursing on the island of Haiti was destroyed and many of the students inside also passed away. If all of these issues had been silo-ed perhaps Haiti would not be facing some of the challenges it is today, but the reality is all of this happened to the same small island nation.

While I was in my workshop session yesterday I had the great pleasure of sitting next to one of the two members of Sigma Theta Tau who is from Haiti herself. She and her colleague Dean Alcindor have begun a campaign to educate the nurses of Haiti. This of course means dollars but fortunately for them school throughout the United States are offering to help in the education process to make it more affordable for the people of Haiti who want to pursue nursing as a career.

Now that I have told you all of this I should direct you to the resource right. So check out the website http://promotinghealthinhaiti.org/ right now. The website makes it simple to donate money to Adopt-A-Nurse for Haiti and for the price of just $5,000 you can ensure that a Haitian nurse receives a quality education to help provide care to the many people who so desperately need it. Can you imagine if nursing school cost $5,000 in this country?? I think there would probably be a lot more people going into the profession...but that is just a guess.

The final thing that I am going to talk about here is a website called Sharecare.com This little website is basically the answer to the country's WebMD problem. The website connects specialty nurses and doctors directly with patients over the internet to help with different chronic medical conditions. The website provides tools that experts in their fields have either developed or sanctioned as appropriate and effective.

 I share this website for two reasons. If you are a hypochondriac or legitimately have a chronic medical condition I encourage you to connect with an expert on the topic and determine if there are any other resources on the website that may be helpful to you. If you are a medical professional and you have a significant amount of experience I challenge you to be one of the many providers who offers up their knowledge to help improve outcomes of patients with chronic diseases.

I left the opening plenary excited to teach everyone about the new organizations I had learned about. I look forward to being able to provide the names of these organizations the next time someone is looking for a charity to give their money to. And with that I am going to work on finishing up my schedule post so everyone knows exactly what my plan is.

My First Few Hours

I arrived at the convention around 11:30am after it was still not time for me to check into my hotel. I left my bag at the hotel and decided to walk over laptop in hand and at least register. Even though I was in jeans I figured registering for the conference in jeans wouldn't be such a faux pax. I was totally right. There are a lot of people who were dressed rather casually today so I decided to stay for the whole thing. I went and did my delegate certification and then I did my schedule.

I actually had to sit down and read through the entire program and decide exactly which workshops I was going to attend. I think if I tried to wing it everyday I probably would have royally mucked it up. So even thought it was hard having to pick through what seemed like a limitless supply of interesting workshops I think I have finally narrowed it down to exactly what I want to hear. I will probably change my mind, but for now I have booked my week.

After finishing my delegation certification and mapping out my schedule for the next few days I decided I would start to explore the different rooms that the convention had open on an ongoing basis. Coincidentally, this meant that I also got to participate in the Button Scavenger Hunt. There is a contest to collect 9 different buttons from 9 different events/locations of the convention. I am proud to say that after only 1 afternoon I already have 4. I got the purple orchid for signing in, a button that says I <3 Nurses for entering a raffle, and I got two others for going by the STTI Marketplace.

When I finished exploring I realized that it was almost time for the opening plenary session. I was really excited to see this as I had seen some of the flag bearers lining up prior to the actual plenary and they were all dressed in traditional garb from the country they represented. It just seemed like a really cool idea.

In addition to the awesome outfits I knew that President Suzanne Prevost would be speaking. I have only ever heard extraordinary things about Suzanne and to know that I would be able to sit in a room and finally listen to one of her talks in person was exciting.

I hurried my way into the Opening Plenary and was glued to everything that was going on from the parade of chapters, to the Mayor of Indianapolis, to Suzanne Prevost. Everyone was not only extremely well spoken, but they all seemed to speak as if they truly understood the reason I became a nurse. I am going to defer writing about the topics in the opening plenary for now as I think that some of the remarks made by Suzanne Prevost are significant enough that they deserve their own post.

When the plenary was finally over I moved onto the first Concurrent Session. I decided to attend a session about teaching disaster preparedness to nursing students. In  recent months, I have begun the American Red Cross Disaster Training Modules along with the Senior nursing student at Northeastern and one of their professors. I wanted to see how their model of disaster preparedness teaching compared to Northeastern. I think it is interesting to compare the different ways schools teach the same material and what schools of nursing deem to be material worth teaching.

The workshop was fascinating...for a few reasons. One the workshop helped me understand that it wasn't just Northeastern that struggled with how best to teach disaster preparedness as part of a community health curriculum. To hear the struggles of the other professors in the room trying to fit community health into a measly 45 hours seemed crazy to me and made me appreciate that I received such a quality nursing education. The other main reason why it was fascinating is because of what types of disaster preparedness different schools chose to teach. Some focused on natural disasters, while others looked to investigate man made disasters, and others still chose to hone in on terror disasters. Perhaps what was most interesting is how each nurse researcher/professor's geographic location dictated what kind of disaster preparedness training they chose to teach their pupils.

After my disaster workshop I decided I would take a peak around the exhibit room. However, as soon as I walked in and realized just how big the exhibit room was I decided it might be better if I went home and got myself settled in my hotel room before I entered the maze that was the presentations in the exhibit room.

And now I am sitting and enjoying a drink from the comfort of my own hotel room. Excited about the week to come and relieved that I definitely belong here. Being among fellow nurses today put all of my anxieties about this convention totally at ease. I can do this and I can't wait for tomorrow!

Take Off and Arriving

Well two planes and a bus later and I have finally arrived in Indianapolis. Honestly it wasn't that bad. I ended up sleeping a bit on the plane from Boston to Charlotte and I made it in plenty of time to catch my connecting flight from Charlotte to Indianapolis. Not much to report about the flight as my neighbors on the first one were both kind of grouchy but quiet and my neighbors on the second one were asleep.

One of the really cool things about my flight from Charlotte to Indianapolis was the fact that a lot of the people on the plane, men and women, were coming to the same conference as me. They all had posters, laptops with presentations, or even STTI gear (sweatshirts and t-shirts and stuff). I've never been in such close quarters with so many nurses at one time. I was confident that if someone started to die on the plane I could probably stay in my seat and one of the several other nurses on board the flight would jump into action.

Again on the bus from the airport to the hotel I was surrounded by nurses. One who was running for a leadership position, one who was a professor in Georgia, another who directed a hospice agency in North Carolina, and still another who was a brand new graduate in an ER in Atlanta. One of the coolest experiences so far is seeing just how many different nurses, from different fields and experience levels are here. The best part about the whole thing though is there is absolutely no sense of the lateral violence that you often hear about with nurses, its actually quite the contrary. Everyone is so nice and genuinely interested in what you do when you are not upending your life and heading to Indiana to meet some of the nursing leaders from around the globe.

I thought I was going to be really intimidated while I was sitting on the plane, but as soon as I started talking to other nurses on the bus all of that went away. Everyone here brings their own special set of skills and we all have something offer to the collective group.

I guess I should get going though because the opening plenary is about to start and I am sitting here drinking a Starbucks Iced Coffee and blogging instead of taking my seat and being social. I will put together another post later tonight about registration and my first few hours exploring the convention center. I’m also going to try and put together a mini schedule link so everyone knows what sessions I will be attending and when in case there is anyone out there interested in sharing some ideas. Well now I’m really running late so….Bye for now!!

Preparing for the Trip

How do you prepare to go to an international nursing convention? I got my brochure in the mail (pictures to follow) and its about 50 pages long and the pages are almost the size of a newspaper. It has all the information I am supposed to need as a delegate going to Indianapolis. However, the more I read about the amazing candidates for the leadership positions I am going to be voting the more nervous I am becoming.

I am not even in the same league as any of these folks. I just graduated in May and have been working as an RN since I passed my boards(also in May) but all of the people in this brochure have been nurses for a minimum of 10 years and have at least a Master's Degree. I guess that is why they are running for leadership positions though. I just hope that I am prepared to discern which one is going to be the best candidate for the job they are running for at this time. Thank goodness Mary is going to be arriving for the voting meetings so I have someone else who can help truly investigate who the best candidate for the position is based on both their experience and leadership capabilities.

More than just wanting to make the right choices while voting I have NO idea how I am supposed to be dressed for an event like this. Do I need to wear a shirt and tie every day? Is a nice sweater and a decent pair of pants enough? Are jeans acceptable attire for the break out sessions? I can't believe these are the things that I worry about, but there is not much worse than being selected as a delegate and representing your chapter looking like a schlub. My poor carry-on is stuffed to the brim with clothes of varying degrees of fanciness and I suppose I will determine how I should dress based upon my first assessment when I show up for registration tomorrow.

Then of course there are the general stressors of traveling: Will I be on time for my flight? Will I have to sit next to someone annoying on the plane? Will I make my connecting flight? Will I be able to navigate the shuttle from the airport to the hotel without totally mucking it up? Will the hotel have WiFi? Will the walk from the hotel to the convention center be manageable? Will the weather be okay? Have I packed clothes appropriate for bad weather? Where should I eat?

I swear the list of things to be concerned about grows exponentially every day. Luckily, I am excited enough about being able to attend such a big event that all of those stressors seem completely manageable.

I think my next post probably won't occur until I am actually in Indiana, but you never know....maybe I will get bored at the airport. I'm now off to get ready because I am leaving my place at 3AM to make it to the airport for my 5AM flight (hopefully I will sleep on the plane).

That's all for now and remember to find us on Twitter and Facebook!!

Why Indianapolis??

Well I guess I should start by introducing myself. My name is Justin Alves and I am the fairly new webmaster of the Gamma Epsilon Chapter of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. The Gamma Epsilon chapter calls Northeastern University its home and I was chosen as one of the two lucky delegates to represent the chapter at the 42nd Biennial Convention of the STTI Honor Society of Nursing in Indianapolis this year. 

I am very excited to attend my first INTERNATIONAL nursing conference and thought that a blog along with our twitter account @GammaEpsilonNU would be a good way to allow my fellow Gamma Epsilon chapter members the ability to spy on the goings on of the convention and get an inside look at what its like to be a delegate. I will be updating the blog at least daily so keep a look out for some of the different posts. I am going to try and focus on the events sponsored by STTI, but I will definitely be making a post or two about the trip in general including Indianapolis. 

I've actually never been to Indiana before and I am excited to get to experience not only my first big nursing convention, but to also see a new city in the US. If anyone has anything in particular that they want to see on the blog or a specific medium they would like me to use (pictures, videos, writing, or some random social networking site) please let me know. 

I look forward to keeping you all in the loop!!