Advancing the profession

It was wonderful to see so many of you at the recent AACN Doctoral Conference in Coronado, California. I want to extend a special thanks to those of you who attended our hosted reception and round table discussion. So many fabulous ideas came from that session that I’d like to share my notes from the event.

One thing that was abundantly clear in our conversation was that as health care educators, there is much we agree on. 

We agree we can’t fear change - we need to be the ones advocating for it.  

We need to be a collective and vocal advocate when it comes to engaging professional nursing and higher education groups and organizations. 

We have to reimagine what innovation looks like - on an ongoing basis. 

We need to embrace the idea that good ideas for impactful change don’t need to be perfect before we give them a try. We sometimes learn more from failures than we do from successes - it’s about time we view failure as a tool of lifelong learning – sometimes we have to “fire, aim, ready.”

The most encouraging element of this gathering was the agreement that there is strength in numbers… in continuing the conversation, being honest and open, problem-solving, and even respectful disagreement. This is how real, positive, meaningful change happens. 

Moving forward, we, Edson-ASU, plan to host regular “salon” discussions at various events and venues across the country. I hope you will join us at a future event, or let us know when you are in the greater Phoenix metro area.  We must create a fellowship where we are advocates for our students, faculty, industry and one another.