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.
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