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!
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