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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!