The recent ANA HOD and the preceding ICN meetings afforded a number of proud moments for Georgia. Despite this hectic world of competing demands that we all live with today, there are currently a record number of Georgia nurse leaders who are giving service to the nursing profession on a national and international level.

Georgia Leads…

Early this summer, GNA Board Secretary Kay Gatins (Gray, GA) was invited to give a poster presentation at the International Council of Nurses’ (ICN) meeting.  Her presentation was on “Death and Dying.” She received numerous compliments from attendees and from other poster presenters about how interesting the advanced technology she utilized made her poster!

Becky Wheeler (Atlanta, GA) currently serves as President of NSNA and really wowed the ANA House of Delegates with her address to them this summer. Nursing is Becky’s second career.  She was a high school Spanish teacher for a few years before she decided she wanted more direct and interpersonal contact with people and choose nursing.  Marilyn Bowcutt (Augusta/Grovetown, GA) currently serves as President of AONE and at the same time helped lead University Hospital in its recent receipt of the Magnet Excellence in Nursing Award. University Hospital is Georgia’s third hospital with Magnet designation. Joyce Murray (Atlanta/Powder Springs, GA) currently serves as President of NLN and has been instrumental in addressing that organizations new knowledge based governance model and restructure. Jean Bartels, another Georgia leader, is the current President of AACN. In addition to serving as GNA’s Chief Programs Officer, Debbie Hatmaker is the first elected President of the national Center for American Nurses, an affiliated organizational member of ANA and in that, capacity serves on the ANA Board of Directors. As The Center’s President Dr. Hatmaker also hosted a revolutionary conference with the AARP to develop workplace recommendations surrounding issues of the mature nurse to share with the 2005 White House Conference on Aging. Just prior to the start of the ANA HOD, Linda Easterly, GNA President, was elected this summer to a two-year term on the Board of the ANA Constituent Assembly as a Director. Deanna Cross, GNA District 1 member, recently concluded two stellar terms as ANA’s National Chair of the Bylaws Committee. GNA was also recognized during this summer’s ANA HOD as a site for two recently completed ANA national projects. There was no denying at the ANA or ICN meetings that Georgia is a goldmine for leadership!

Congratulations are also in order for the Medical Center of Central Georgia who also achieved Magnet designation for nursing excellence joining St. Joseph Atlanta and St. Joseph Savannah/Candler and University Hospital and bringing Georgia’s total to four Magnet facilities!

Additional GNA members have received special leadership recognition recently.  Shelby Lacy received TWO! The Girl Scouts of Northeast Georgia awarded Shelby their highest honor as their 2005 “Woman of Distinction” and then the MCG/SON Alumni Association recently honored Shelby with their “E. Louise Grant Award” for nursing excellence! We always knew Shelby was a very special person and deserving of much more recognition than she will allow… 

Long time GNA member, Mary Long was recently honored by the Atlanta Women’s Foundation with a Lifetime Achievement Award given at their Promoting Women’s Health reception.

GNA member Maranah Sauter was recently appointed to the Board of Nursing Home Administrators.

GNA District 11 was featured in the recent American Nurse (TAN) May/June issue speaking about their 15-year history in supporting the community by establishing and running a health clinic for the homeless, the working poor, unemployed and uninsured. Today the clinic is open six hours a day, three days a week and has a paid part-time staff of five nurse practitioners and an RN as well as a clinic manager.  In 2004, the clinic staff provided primary care services at no charge to 3,600 adults and 250 children. 2005 has already seen a 20% increase in patient population.

GNA was also recently profiled in the National ASAE Journal “Association Management” (June 2005 issue) gaining national recognition as an association that is offering insights within the association community about remaining relevant and responsive to members in a changing environment. As a member of the Georgia Society of Association Executives, I was recently invited by the newly elected President of GSAE to Chair their new task force on “Advancing the Profession.” I have also been asked to speak this summer at a South Carolina Nursing Summit about GNF/GNA’s partnership with the Department of Human Resources, Red Cross and Board of Nursing that created the Georgia Nurse Alert System for disaster preparedness.  Georgia was the first in the country to create this system post 911, which has since gone on to be a national model for other states.       

Additional opportunities for GNA to demonstrate leadership will take place this fall at GNA’s 2005 HOD in Columbus, GA October 19-21. The theme is “Fostering Community Among Nurses.” GNA’s Executive Committee and GNA’s Director of Strategic Planning (a task force referred to as the Hedgehog Task Force) along with the GNA Board and District Assembly and GNA staff have taken on the tough but thorough task of recommending ways of modernizing GNA’s structure to better meet the organizations objectives and priorities while at the same time preserving what member’s think is MOST important.  Delegates at GNA’s HOD in October will dialogue and process how these recommendations can position the association to meet the modern day and future expectations of members. Change will not only take leadership but courage.

I had the opportunity recently to hear a “futurist” speak about the exponential growth in rapid change and how incredibly quickly things and operations are becoming irrelevant – including associations if we are not innovative enough.  He explained for example how when most of us went to college our half-life for what we learned was 15-20 years. In other words, half of what we learned in school was still relevant after 20 years.  Today a student’s half-life is 36 months.  So what does that mean?  It means we all need to commit to being life-long learners. I think that is what all of the leaders described in this article have in common. That is what better enables them to lead. They are still willing to be active learners.

What have you learned in the last two years that you never thought you would have to? Have you bought something online even though you swore you would never do that? Too risky you said. Have you swapped your 35MM camera for a digital camera perhaps? Ever notice how your grandchildren want to see the picture the second after you take it? They know they can now see it instantaneously inside the camera for heaven’s sake! Whatever happened to waiting until the entire role of film was utilized (which could take months and several family gatherings); than taking it to the drug store to develop; then waiting a week; picking them up and sharing them at the next family gathering.  If you told your grandchildren that is the way we always did it, they would not think it was charming; they would think it was absurd.  The emerging workforce’s expectations are completely different than ours were just a short time ago…  Their telephone takes the picture now and they send it over the airwaves instantaneously! How is our current system of things ever going to compete with that level of expectation?  

An association’s role in this environment is no longer about being the central hub of information like it use to be.  Information abounds and is free over the internet. The expectation for associations will be to cut through the clutter of information to bring KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM not just information. Enriched knowledge and wisdom is found among peers - not a monolithic structure where everything has to bubble up to one central location to be collated, approved and disseminated or perhaps wait until the next face-to-face which could be months away.  GNA leadership is attempting to innovate a modern system for better enabling our members today to continue to engage each other peer-to-peer and to share their knowledge and wisdom…respond to each other’s urgent professional questions…on their own timeline (even if that is in the middle of the night.). Does that mean that face-to-face gatherings will be extinct?  No. There will still be a longing for peers to “go deeper” into subjects and issues than the spurts of instant communication sent electronically.

Our challenge is intergenerational. Our organization’s issue is how to preserve what the mature member (who may be retiring in a few years) likes about “the way we’ve always done it” with developing modern day, instantaneous, 24-7, technology driven solutions based on the expectations of the emerging workforce.  There is a need for us to be very creative in the way we as an organization blend intergenerational needs together and thus enable a stronger future. I recently learned that NASA in thinking about going to the moon again, realized that there was no one left that was there during the first era of moon exploration.  The brain trust was gone. If the emerging workforce can not or will not travel distances and take the time to attend face-to-face meetings on a regular basis, how then might we encourage the retiring nurse to stay engaged within the profession and perhaps mentor and model electronically? Can virtual communities of practice perhaps be the place where both the emerging workforce and the mature nurse converge?  I am convinced there is a desire on both ends of the spectrum of age and diversity for the blending of styles to work.  There are ideas like “virtual communities of practice” that other professions are beginning to use that could work for nursing also.  Will GNA be on the front end leading that inevitability or on the back end trying to catch up years later with what everyone else has been doing? Will we be enriching our members with instantaneous expectations or still looking through our 35MM cameras?  

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