All About Nursing - 05/27/25

Welcome to All About Nursing with your host, Joyce Bachelor. All About Nursing is an engaging and informative show dedicated to exploring the diverse world of nursing. Each episode delves into various aspects of nursing, featuring insightful interviews with experienced nurses and other healthcare professionals. Listeners can expect to learn about the latest trends in healthcare, advancements in nursing practices and personal stories that highlight nurses, challenges and triumphs.

So please welcome the host of All About Nursing, Joyce Bachelor. Welcome to All About Nursing. I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor.

We are live on Bullgrave TV. And we can also be found on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast and other streaming platforms. And so the show is in fact recorded and it will be available. So if you have somebody that is not able to attend today, you can let them know about this because I have an amazing guest with me this evening I'd like to introduce and have her tell you a little bit about some of the work that she's helping to lead.

And so with that, I have Dr. Jennifer Mensick Kennedy who is serving as the 38th. But that was pretty impressive. The 38th President of the American Nurses Association.

And in this role, she has a huge amount of respect to Billy at the national level, but really advocating very boldly for the nation's 5.5 million registered nurses. So how you really know what nurses want, what they expect, what the issues are, what they're hoping for can be challenging. She's been doing a phenomenal job and named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2024 and then named one of the 50 most influential clinical executives. And so she's got just a lot of experience, many different publications.

And it's actually where I think I met Jennifer initially was when she was working on some of the publications around nurse managers and she's got several different publications out there. One of the books is Lead Drive and Thrive in the System, Second Edition. So I think if you typed in her name on Amazon, they'd all pop up and you could see how she's done an incredible job with all of those publications. She's held other leadership roles in most recently.

She's also served as the treasurer of the American Nurses Association, Vice President and Director at large. She was also very active in her state association in Arizona. She received her PhD at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, the focus on health systems and minor in public administration from the Elder College of Management. She also holds an MBA and is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and many other accolades.

So with that, I would really like to have us begin to hear from her because I think that's where the most learning can come and be able to really understand more about what she is leading in her current role, where the association's trying to go, what helped her to get to this role. Because I think as listeners have been hearing all about nursing is just the number of places that nurses are leading from the different roles, different settings and just how qualified and smart and specialized and dedicated nurses are. So with that, welcome Jennifer and glad to have you with us this evening. Thank you, Joyce.

Thank you for having me and you know, thank you for all the work that you have done on many national associations and you are the prior president of the Texas Nurses Association and everyone is so much better off from the work that you have done and continue to do. Thank you. I keep trying to remind them of that that my past president role ends at the end of June and they're already roping me into some additional stuff. So thank you.

So let's start with, because I think that when you look at the number of nurses that we have, how is it and what the American Nurses Association is really able to then prioritize and figure out how do you figure out what are the tough things to work on that nurses are really concerned about? And that's a great question and we are diverse. Nursing, there's millions of us and we really are a reflection of the greater society which we're coming from. And so this particular Congress, the 119th Congress, not unlike other congresses, but we're focused on issues around workforce, work environment, access to care, nursing education and protecting Medicare.

And we do have conversations with our members and states and really look at what is kind of rising to the top. And you never kind of know until the new Congress settles in or particularly the president settles in on what those priorities, how those kind of bubble to the top. And so depending on who the players are, for instance, now protecting Medicaid is gonna be really first and foremost for us this year based on what we knew was coming with budget cuts. And so those are some of that's kind of initially how we then go from there.

And then I'm happy to talk about all the different bills and some of the legislation they're kind of circling. Yeah, so I think when you're discussing that, I think that it shows again that nurses are in every part of the continuum of care. And I always say, if you really wanna know how to change healthcare and improve it, just ask nurses because they do sit and they see what works, what doesn't work. And I know that the workforce issues and staffing and how to address the kind of environments people are working with and it's just really pivotal and that nursing association's been taking the lead role in that.

So maybe you could share a little bit about, what is it that the association is leading and how can we also figure out how to help? Absolutely, I know those are great questions. And one of the things we do too, and one of the more favorite parts of my role is I reach out to every state president and our territory presidents and have conversations with them, learn where they're at, what's going on, because not everyone, as you can imagine, agrees 100% with everything, but when you're in such a large organization, you won't always have 100% agreement, but we have good consensus. And we all know that we need to move forward.

So we're working on things such, we're helping work work such as the Precept Act. And this is a really exciting one where it would actually provide federal tax credits at $2,000 to those nurses and advanced practice nurses who precept new graduates within the first six months. We're looking at ways to encourage preceptors, and not every organization can be at Ford to pay preceptors. This is another avenue that I think I'm really excited about, particularly when you look at this, I think goes in partnership, when you look at who's in office and what their priorities are, and they like to reduce taxes and do this.

So this is one of those things that benefits nicely with the administration. Also looking at the Nurse Corps Tax Parity Act, unfortunately, some of our below-and-for-giveness is within their nurses are actually taxed, and unlike other professionals. So we just want to be on even par with other health professionals, not being taxed on some of that low-and-for-giveness. Then of course, looking at nursing faculty with Shortage Reduction Act, we know that when you become a faculty member, you're gonna take a pay cut and you shouldn't.

And so how do we work with schools of nursing and get those wages and salaries up? So this is a potential grant program to help over a five-year period with where schools of nursing would raise the salaries to be equivalent of that of the acute care setting, which I really think will increase of course our faculty, because I think that's where the bottleneck is, is we have people who want to go into nursing school, who don't have enough faculty. And so this is one avenue. Of course, Title 8.

Title 8 was not in the last budget. So this last time when the budget came out, they took Title 8 out completely. And Title 8 is like the linchpin of nursing workforce development, really. Education, faculty support, a lot of diversity components.

And so to have all of that money taken out is detrimental to being able to grow our workforce. And the time we all know we have a shortage. However, we've currently been working with by Partisans Ford and the Senate, and we have the nursing workforce, the Title 8 nursing workforce, the authorization act of 2025, already submitted to get it put back into that budget. So that's always something, right?

And so then of course, I can. It's improving care and access to nursing care. So it's reducing those regulatory barriers that don't make sense. And again, the administration likes reducing regulations.

So we're here to point out, although those regulations that are preventing nurse practitioners and other advanced practice nurses from fully doing what they need to do. And then we've got a couple of other ones, such as the workplace violence prevention, for healthcare and social service workers, which is asking OSHA to put in some standards for healthcare organizations to help let's look at preventing these issues. This is a major, major issue. The Nurse Over Time and Patient Safety Act, so that we can get rid of some mandatory overtime.

A lot of states have this, but not every state has it. And then of course, the Mental Health, the Doctor of Learning Brain, Healthcare Provider Protection Reauthorization Act. When something gets put in place, it doesn't necessarily get money forever. So we're looking to make sure that's reauthorized as well.

So there's a lot going on. And lots of stuff going on regardless of what, whether the news is saying, there's a lot going on that we're trying to move forward and see what we can do. You know, I think things that you're raising are so important because when you look at nursing today, the acuity, the complexity, the specialization is so different than when I first started in the profession and needing to have the best and brightest people coming in to the profession. I think sometimes people don't understand just how important the ability to really critically think in the assessment and there's a lot more autonomy, especially when you move into different roles.

But even, I mean, bedside nurses in acute care hospitals have a lot of autonomy as well, especially since it's 24-7 and not everybody hangs around 24-7 in leadership, et cetera. And so I think that's the piece that's been a little bit challenging is how do we also be sure that we've got incentives for nurses that are experienced to stay in the profession a little bit longer and help really role model and nurture and be preceptors for nurses coming in? So I applaud that you've got a lot of different things going on there and I think that's really, really important for the audience to understand just why we're so adamant about needing to have these kind of funding. Absolutely, absolutely.

And oftentimes, as we all know, it takes a while to get things fast. And so the workplace finance bill has been passed by the house, two prior congresses in a row. And so it never makes it through the Senate. So oftentimes, we push and push and push.

And hopefully, we get through the finish line every once in a while, but we can never let up. Regardless of what's going on, we still need to try to move things through and have those conversations. You mentioned that I've been in the teenage president role and that we did some listening towards the road shows and went to various parts of the state, because Texas is huge. Connecticut originally, and Connecticut was been in this state a lot.

But the thing that was so heartbreaking sometimes is when I would have nurses look at me and say, I just want to know that it's going to be safe to go to work tomorrow. And I think when you hear that, for me, it's like I've always advocated that we needed to be working on this. But I think it's become so much more acute in terms of needing attention. And so maybe you could say a little bit more about even having the people who are listening, understanding just how big an issue this is for us as we're really trying to address the nursing profession.

No, absolutely. We statistics show that a nurse is more likely to be assaulted than a police officer or a correction officer. And that's highly unacceptable. And so when we look at that and see what happens in the emergency room, what happens on the med search, we're in home care in our clinics.

I was a home health nurse. And I remember doing training because there's some safety issues when you go into people's homes. But that's so much more now. My husband is a registered nurse.

And he was hurt severely in the ICU, which led to him not being able to actually practice at the bedside any longer. And so it's so multifaceted that we want people to stay. People are worried that if they stay, they're going to get hurt. And we do need to look at prevention.

And it expends. I've known organizations and hospitals to put metal detectors up in all the areas, limit the number of access points. But I really want to make sure what I hear when listening to us, what I hear from nurses oftentimes, is that nurses will say that they don't know if they should record anything. Because the last time they recorded something, their manager asked what they could have done differently to prevent the virus.

And that's not a culture of safety when that happens. And so I think there's a lot of learning we can do to help support our staff and not blame the victim in these situations. And then make sure our staff have the tools that they need, whether it happens to be a mentally-techter, I don't know, or happens to be some type of resource locally for them. Yeah.

Thank you so much. This is a great time. We're going to need to do a sponsored break. So it's a great time to transition.

I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Batchelor. This is all about nursing. And you're watching us on BoldRave TV.

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Help hope and support for caregivers is here on the Carrying Generation and PamelaD Wilson.com. Welcome back to All About Nursing. This is Dr. Joyce Bachel, I'm the host of the show, and you are seeing us live on BullGrave TV.

It is being recorded and it will be available in case you want to share this with others afterwards, because I have an amazing guest this evening who's sharing a lot of the phenomenal work that's being led at the national level from, and this is Dr. Jennifer Mensick Kennedy, who's the 38th president of the American Nursing Association. So before the break, Jennifer was talking about the safety issues in the violence in the workplace and metal detectors, and I cannot forget the gentleman that we had on a panel to talk about violence who had put the metal detectors in hospitals in New Mexico. And he told us that we probably would be shocked at the number of guns, but the part that really shocked me were swords and the shuttings.

I'm just sitting there going, oh my word. And so I think the piece that we're concerned about with our healthcare providers, but also we want to heal the environment for our patients and families. And it's hard to balance all of that. So this goes along with the advocacy efforts that ANA is involved in.

So how do you really help to influence the policy and really address some of these things? Because as you said, when you got this number of nurses, we're not always going to be on agreement. There are a lot of issues that I think have some commonalities. So maybe you can share a little bit more about what you all are doing for advocacy.

No, thank you. And when we're kind of all on a different page, we look towards the code of ethics to help us guide us. And even then, it may not. I think we all want the same outcome.

We disagree on how to get to those outcomes. And so we're going to be a little bit differently. And so it's really about having those conversations and bringing stakeholders together and getting nurses' voices heard and getting your stories out. And so for instance, with Medicaid, I think that's powerful.

So as soon as we knew it was coming, we knew that you couldn't have a giant budget cut federally without cutting Medicaid. And so as soon as it came out, we mobilized nurses through our RN action. We actually created a new website, particularly to explain what Medicaid and SHIPs are. Because I don't think people understand what it covers, how much it covers, even from a state to state perspective.

And what that looks like in the detriments to the cuts. And I appreciate wanting to get fraud out. I am all for fraud. But I think you need to be coming with a scalpel and be much more thoughtful about looking at ways to get the fraud out versus whole host cuts.

Because when you cut across the board, you're going to cut vital services to long-term care, to children, to elderly. It's devastating. So one of the things is telling your story. So as nurses, how has you interacted with Medicaid?

And what have you seen as a positive impact? I know the Hospital Association recently told, or we mentioned a research study that actually showed in the states with Medicaid expansion, there's been an economic increase to the wages and salaries in those states. And so I think the more we have from a research perspective, we get that message out. And so it's our message in our stories, because nurses advocate, right?

And as advocate, we're a leader. And so only we see what happens in the system. Because we're with patients 24-7. We see how patients move through the system.

Out of one-on-one, we're with that patient as they go through. We see the barriers they hit. We see the issues. And so having those conversations and saying, here's what regulations we need to drop.

Here's what's the barrier, right? We need more advanced practice nurses, but you're stopping them from doing X-Yancy. So let's go remove those barriers. And with the voices, particularly, a recent success, and it's a state level one, is in Tennessee, there was House Bill 644, instead of Bill 333, that was going to severely restrict nurse practitioner practice.

And so within 24 hours, we were able to mobilize nurses and help produce over 8,000 emails and phone calls into that state office, where they decided to build on it. So part of it is hearing from us, particularly in mobilizing voices related to this. So that was a big win at a state level, because we can't afford to go backwards and advance practice for anybody. That's a good example.

Well, and I think you're bringing up an important point, especially with access to care. It's always been tricky in the rural areas, which tends to news. But I have to share with you, I think that the access to care in the cities is also a big issue. But we're not necessarily wanting to talk about that.

But when I hear people, friends and colleagues who talk about, I needed to get an appointment, but I can't get into this specialist for eight weeks. Or you hear, and I've had this sit to me, is that a patient decided that they would just tell somebody they were planning to commit suicide, because they knew they needed some assistance, but they were being told that the first appointment was nine weeks away. And they didn't think they could do anything in the nine weeks. They were really, really scared.

So the delays in care is the other concern that you've seen as well as I have seen when people don't come in at the beginning of something. And so when they do come in, the disease process has advanced so much further. And those are the heartbreaking things, because they will still show up the doors of hospitals. And they will have to be treated.

And if you don't get any reimbursement, it's going to make it very hard to keep those doors open. So there's lots of things that are connected that you're describing tonight that I think are important for people to see the dominoes that can start pulling. So now we all have that. I remember a patient coming into the ED who had waited and waited and waited.

She had breast cancer and waited until it also raded through her skin before she showed up. And at that point, it was too late. And so how do we get more prevention into your appointment, at a child who needed to see a pediatric on endocrinologist? Six months, it took for the first available appointment.

And that's in an urban area. So to your point, access to care is across the board. Yeah, that's heartbreaking to hear. You've been describing a lot of things that are very exciting in terms of how nurses can impact all of these different issues.

And I think it might be a good time for you to also share why should nurses get involved in the professional nursing associations? What would you want to make sure that people that are listening who are nurses, who are thinking about becoming nurses, have family members who have loved one that's in theirs? Why should you get engaged? What difference does it make?

The difference. So democracy is not a spectator sport. And I liken this back to Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote a book in 1830, came to the United States in 1830. My date might be off, and wrote Democracy in America.

He came from France, and he wanted to know what the difference was with our governance and government here as compared to France and in Europe. And there's a lot of things he found out, but one of the things he found out that was a key importance for the United States and why our democracy was being successful was our associations. It were people forming associations who had like thoughts and like beliefs to help advance the agenda. And of course, he called it fight against the tyranny, right?

It's being the counterbalance to just like what we do. We say here are the issues. We're concerned about access to care, and you want to cut, medicate, but we're going to really mobilize to try to counteract that. And so at the base level belonging to an association and being involved is getting your voice heard and supporting the mission of that organization, which is supporting democracy.

And I think first and foremost, that's the most important thing, particularly now it is to be active. So that's the main thing that pops out to me. And it starts small, right? So you've been very involved in our associations as well.

Yes, you brought up earlier the Code of Ethics. And I think that, and it's just been recently updated and is available on the American Nurses Association's website. I think that one of the key things is how do we really have, not just nurses, but others understanding what's in that code of ethics that nurses are really held to a different standard. It's been my experience.

It's going to be 50 years from me in June of this year as a registered nurse, Jennifer. So it's been around for a little while. And we are held to a higher standard. And that's part of what comes into causing, I think sometimes a lot of conflict.

And people getting really, having moral dilemmas because they're seeing things that they just really wish they didn't have to be involved in or things that are really difficult for them to manage. And so how do we really have people understanding better what nurses are being held to? Because there's a lot in there. If you really look at the Code of Ethics.

Absolutely. And from a nursing perspective, of course, anyone can go on to the American Nurses Association website and look at the provisions and read the provisions and learn more about what those provisions are. You don't have to be a member of it. You should join to understand.

And I think it doesn't give you all the answers, but it gives you that guidance. Because at the end of the day, that's why we're the most trusted profession year after year after year. Because people know within our interaction like that they can trust us and that they're going to be safe. And people will ask me like, what's the one thing that keeps you up at night?

And I'll say it's thinking about what if next year we're not rated the most trusted? What did we do? Or what did we not do as nurses to discern that number one spot of trust? And so I would want everyone to reflect on that because we are here and we're non-judgmental and we're going to advocate for you to help get you where you need because that's who we are from a nurse perspective.

It doesn't matter what you've done or who you are. We're going to take care of you. The Code of Ethics, the new one, the first time in history, we actually mentioned the word racism. And we speak to the fact that racism is a public health emergency.

And I know there's always a few people who don't like the word, don't like DEI, but we've really stuck it out and said, diversity, equity, inclusion are important. And this is a lot of things. It is not just a skin color. And I know people get concerned and say, you know, I can't say this at work or they're dismantling these offices and buildings and I remind people that they can embody and live it without an office or a policy.

So nothing can stop you from doing this on your own. And if we all just did it, we would be perfectly fine. And so I would offer that when you're like, well, we don't have an office at diversity or diversity office or left. Be that person yourself with everything that you do.

It is absolutely important. Yeah, I think that when you also bring it back to like why they joined, why you're not such a joint professional organization, I think it's so that you can be involved with individuals that can help you learn how to have some of these difficult conversations because you don't always have to agree on issues, but it's to help be able to understand how do I have more empathy and compassion and assisting people where they are, whoever they are, and whatever point they're at in their life cycle. I think, you know, as you said, nurses see people when they're most vulnerable along with their families and friends and others. And so the other piece is finding mentors and, you know, I have had the most phenomenal opportunity to find mentors along the way.

I still find people that I need to have it be a mentor for me because I get myself in trouble on something. And so, you know, it's how do you grow and how do you also start to meet people so you build a network of colleagues? Because I always say to people, you should never be starting with a blank piece of paper. There's just too many resources out there and too many colleagues to call upon.

And I remember meeting you years ago when you were doing your books and you were looking at some additional content that I've contributed. And so I just think people need to understand you want to build those relationships because that's how you really grow and you really can help influence what's needed to enhance the profession. Absolutely. And I think when people say, I don't know where to start join your professional organization.

Because right there, you're going to get connected to people who have very similar interests and like interests to you and start to engage and you'll find those mentors. You'll find people to learn from. I know I've had a lot of formal mentors, but I've also had a lot of informal mentors, people who I've watched from afar and watched them go through situations and talk to them afterwards about what they might have been thinking, you know, just to learn from them. And I know it's been a joy having conversations with you in the past too because we don't agree on everything, but we have really good conversations and I don't know everything.

And I love learning your perspective. And then how do we figure it out together? And having, you know, if we were in associations, we may have never connected and learned from it each other. And you know, our profession is so important that we having us come together and move this to get forward is absolutely vital.

And so, you know, that's the first step. You don't know to find a mentor, join your professional organization, join the American Nurses Association. We've got communities who are every type of group and you can connect with your state level. And you find others at your state level with similar interests.

And you can, I think that's where people get excited sometimes the most is because it's a lot more local and they have much more local impact and can really move nursing forward at a local level. So it's vitally important to protect your Nurse Practice Act at the state level. I think a lot of people take that for granted and don't realize that that needs to be, you know, someone nurses need to be watching a Nurse Practice Act in every state. I always had this little rule that when some kind of report would come out and read it and I think who are these people that came up with this report that I could either accept it or get engaged and find out who was engaged and what were they thinking, not in a negative way, but in a learning sort of way.

And better understand than like where they were coming from because I think there's such a value and being able to hear from academia, practice, community health, industry, that's where the wealth of the knowledge and the ability to really impact comms. So it's a good time for us to segue to our next commercial break. So this is all about nursing. You're host Dr.

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This is all about nursing. We are live on a bull-rape TV and other streaming platforms like YouTube and Spotify. And again, if you know somebody that really should hear more about the messages that you're hearing from our guests this evening, Dr. Jennifer M.

Kennedy, it is being recorded. It will be available for you to share with others. And so prior to the last commercial break, we were talking about the importance of being involved in a professional organization, mentoring, the networking, the ability to learn what's open, what jobs are out there that someone says, Jennifer, you should really plug for this because sometimes it's who you know and how you get connected. And there's just such value with all of that.

So I thought maybe that would be a great way to transition into how did you get to what you're doing today? What's been your pathway? I mean, did you work up and became a nurse? Did you say I want to be the 38th president of ANA someday?

So what did you do and how did you get here? That's a great question. And I think that's always important to start with. And I went to my local community college because that's my pathway.

And the nursing was as an LPN, as an ADN, I knew I was going to go get my bachelor's degree in nursing. And I got really fascinated in my RN to be a senior with management leadership and system stuff. I thought about being a nurse practitioner, but decided that was much more interesting for me. So did my MBA in healthcare management.

I was one of two nurses. But during that time, someone said, I thought about getting my PhD and I had a C in S. I was working with the hospital who looked at me one day and she goes, you should go get a PhD. And so from that informal mentorship, like she saw something, you have to listen to those moments, right?

It's a reaffirmation of the universe trying to tell you something. So I applied to the University of Arizona and I had grown in Washington State, was in Arizona for a couple of years. And I started my PhD program. And in my cohort was Marla Weston.

And Marla at the time was the executive director of the Arizona Nurses Association. And she went to all of us in the room and said, are you members of the American Nurses Association? Well, not everyone was, but you can be sure by time that next class happened with her and we were our members. And so that really started everything, right?

That really started, you know, I loved leadership. And so I got involved with the State Association, with the PAC and the legislative committee and then decided I was gonna be president of the State Association. And associations are very different entities, right? They're voluntary.

And you're really looking at it from a good bulk of it as membership services and advocacy, which is a different type of product is not tangible. And a lot of people nowadays like to touch something or feel something. So it's a lot about communication and helping people understand what the work is that you're doing. So from that I got involved nationally and I did not wake up anytime early in my career so I wanted to be the president of ANA.

But as I got to national, I thought well I can run for a director at large or that intrigued me and I wanted to be more involved nationally. And so that's what led me on my journey to running for my first position. Then I was second vice president. And I think people see a lot of people see that you're the president.

And so they see all the successes, but what you don't put on your resume or CV are all your failures. Yes, yes. And that's so important because the first time I ran for president in 2014, I lost. And so I came back the next time, okay, I'm gonna come back as vice president.

Well, I lost that election. And it's really hard to lose nationally in front of a lot of people. It's a tough one. And so I thought, okay, I wasn't gonna run a third time and lose a third time.

Because it's a lot of emotional. Yep, absolutely. And so at the last moment, I decided to run for treasure. I'm like, I really believe in our mission and I really believe that I need to help guide that.

And one my treasure and I served as a treasure for four years and then ran for president one. So that's kind of my trajectory. But it's really been about, I wanna make change happen. I know where we need to go and it's slow, but I'm gonna help do my part and be that part in there.

Well, you've also had the experience of seeing change in the executive leaders of ANA. I mean, key leaders, two major leaders and maybe you could talk a bit about the transition that's been happening and some of the different angles of what people wanted you to look at doing and everybody was happy or not happy and how we've gotten to where we are today. So maybe you could show them about that. No, absolutely.

This has been, I've had a lot of great experience. I've hired an executive director for a state association. I've been involved with hiring and executive searches in hospital. So I had some of that experience, but it's very different when you now are in charge of hiring the CEO for a very large organization.

And so spent more time with the board and research and our search firms and really understanding where we needed to go. And at first, we required a nurse. We thought we need, for sure can find a nurse who can do what we wanted them to do. And we got a lot of good candidates the first time around and we got some CNOs.

And I think might take away from the very first search because as you know, as you know, the first search kind of, I don't wanna say failed, but we didn't produce a final candidate. We didn't hire some of that for a surgeon. And so we started, we kind of went through the process again and we ended up hiring someone very different who was not a nurse. And so for those who know Angela, they love her and they understand why we hired her.

And you know, she's the right person at the right time. But one of the reflections I had when I was interviewing some of our CNO candidates who were external to the organization and who were applying for the CEO role was, it's a big step between CNO and CEO. And you know, helping them to get prepared. So if a nurse is looking to go from CNO to CEO or to go to a CEO position from wherever they're at, what does that role entail?

And how is it different than a CNO? So we had candidates when we talked about our strategic plan and wanted to engage them with our strategic plan, admitted they hadn't looked at the strategic plan. And here they were interviewing for the CEO position. And so you like, it was heartbreaking to think that that's your main role as CEO, that's what, and didn't do any homework into what our strategic plan was and that they were gonna look at it in the first 60 or 90 days.

Like, oh my goodness. And so, you know, when Angela came in, for instance, she had done all of her homework. She had read many annual reports. She looked at the 990s.

She looked at her strategic plan. And she had way more questions about it than we had for her. So I think, you know, it's the prep and the readiness and recognizing when you have the right candidate in front of you is they're asking the right questions and they're ready to step into that role. Yeah, I think that a lot of it is that you're also now really highlighting and communicating the successes that ANA is having and the changes and now finding a CNO replacement as well.

So that's a lot of change then also your board changes. So, yeah, so I've been curious too, like, because you just talked about your own journey. How we could potentially do a better job of getting nurses ready to serve on these different boards and understanding what an association does and the way you need to now think. Because I've always described it as you're standing on a different bridge.

And so the new you have is different in an association that it's been in a hospital or a community center or a co-incare or academia. So how do you help people put on those different glasses to be able to see a different picture so that they're able to come in and go, okay, I get this. Absolutely. And I think important too to that point is when people come in to an association as a board member, they have their employment, they have their operational hat on.

They come in and they don't recognize the role of a board versus the staff. And oftentimes it's about educating yourself. And there are so many great books out there. I'm thinking of a relevance.

I'm thinking about the nursing on boards coalition who can really help nurses understand what the role of a board is and then what the role of the staff are. And it is very different. And it's so important to continue that learning and that education because you're really partners. And so and oftentimes I've to remind ourselves and our board too, in myself, not to step into operations, right?

And it's a fine line about where that is and where the strategy and the direction come from. So having those conversations, I would love to see more graduate programs incorporate the role of boards into leadership roles as a 5% of nurses or 5% of health care boards have a nurse on them. We have so much work there because that's where a lot of strategy and decisions and questions come from. And so if we aren't represented, and I know some people will say, well, there's a C&O who goes, again, that role of the C&O is very different than the role of a board member.

And having nurses on both sides, on the board and in operation will only be successful. So I encourage everyone, I think part of the barrier for people is it's free, right? You don't get paid. And it's more volunteer, we're all busy, but I think it goes back to my common democracy.

I have six kids, it's a blended family. I'm very busy too. And yet I figure out how to make areas where I can get involved and do things. And that's really important because I've told people before, it would be selfish for me to not try to fix the future and expect my children to be able to fix the future.

And so being involved in our associations, engaging in that volunteerism is going to make the future better for our children. And that's the important part. Yeah, no, I think that was excellent points. And it goes back to, again, it's part of being a professional nurse in the Code of Ethics.

And like I always say, people, one of my competencies is that I was a really good irritant. And so I could stir things up, but it was also with ideas on how to fix things because you're good at unleashing talent in others and listening. And so I'll kudos to all of the changes that you've been able to lead through as the president of NAICS. There are a lot of stakeholders.

And a lot of it is political stakeholders and a lot of best friends. And I'm sure you have tried to have and continue to try to have in the role to be successful. I want to thank you, Jennifer, for being on the show this evening. We're coming to the close of the show.

And I hope those of you who have been watching have really been able to learn something from this discussion. And hopefully you've also gotten energized and want to engage if you don't along to a professional organization and get involved in NA local, your state association. There's a lot of ways to be able to really make a difference. So thank you so much.

And again, the show has been recorded, so it will be available. You can share this with others. And I hope that all of you will tune in again next week. And again, I'm your host, Dr.

Joyce Bachelors. This is, you've been watching all about nursing on VollBrave TV. And thank you so much, Jennifer, for being here today. Thank you for having me.

Been wonderful, thanks. This has been all about nursing with host Joyce Bachelors, all about nursing aims to inspire current and future nurses while providing valuable resources for healthcare professionals and the public. Tune in and discover the vital role nursing plays in our healthcare system and the passion behind this noble profession. Tuesday, 6 p.m.

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