I drawn out have been a proponent ...

I drawn out have been a proponent of participating in the global nursing community. A fresh experience with perioperative nurses in Honduras helped reinforce those beliefs. As we celebrate Perioperative nurture Week this month, I want to dedicate this file to perioperative nurses in Honduras and in every part the world. As I share the following experience with you, I faith it will inspire you to reach higher and put forth further than you ever have to make sure that every surgical patient has a perioperative nurse

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

In July of this year, I received a message from Doreen Wagner, RN MN CNOR, Suburban Atlanta AORN member and chair of the commended Practices Committee. Doreen had been contacted from Georgia Perimeter College (GPC), Atlanta, and was asked to contact me regarding a prayer the college had received from more [i]or[/i] less Honduran nurses. (As it happens, I graduated from GPC with an associate order in nursing in 1974.) Members of the GPC faculty traveled to Honduras last summer to teach RN there nursing skills. When plans were underway this year for a reply trip, the Honduran nurses entreated that perioperative classes be included. I said "yes" immediately. I have had the opportunity to make like trips in the past and have always set it a rewarding experience.

Planning time was short. Doreen and I met forward July 21 with GPC faculty members; Fran Lewis, RN of Honduras Outreach; and Reina Grogran, an RN from Honduras. Reina explained that it was her vision that someday there would be a perioperative specialty in Honduran hospitals and at the instruct of Nursing in Honduras.

pampers work in ORs in Honduras, on the other hand there currently is no continuity of care among preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative areas. The alone perioperative training nurses receive is upon the job. Reina wanted to change that, likewise she came to us for help. She explained that she wanted Doreen and me to work with a collection of nurses from all through the whole extent of Honduras who then would get back and teach nurses in their individual facilities.

Doreen and I were excited about the opportunity, and the wheels started rolling immediately. We the two contacted organizations and manufacturing companies asking for take the place of and equipment donations. We worked feverishly the last week of July and the first couple weeks of August to inflict everything together. We had help from a certain quantity of wonderful people and companies. Valleylab, Inc, donated a generator and accessories. Anita Shoup RN M arranged for governor Medical to give us glove Kathryn Halverson-Carpenter and Eileen Ullmann, RN MH CNOR, from AORN Headquarters, graciously offer together didactic materials to ease the preparation lading for us.

Pat Palmer, RN M MNM CAE, AORN's Executive Director, also proposeed some much needed assistance. by the and of a coincidental conversation with Nathalie Walker, RN CNOR, she arranged to have an of the didactic material translated into Spanish. We then had help from Pat Hickey, RN BSN M CNOR, in transferring the Spanish translations onto slides. The translations prov to be a lifesaver during our teaching efforts.

Doreen also met with members of AORN of Suburban Atlanta, and the chapter decided to participate in the throw out in honor of Perioperative feed Week. They were interested in exploring the possibility of establishing a sister AORN chapter in Honduras.

Cynthia sprightly RN, MSN, MA, CNOR, and members of the International Advisory Board contributed fact-finding questions for our use during a focus session to determine emergencys in Honduras. Gwinnett Medical Center Northside Hospital, and GPC all in Atlanta, donated supplies for us to use during the classes. Many tribe made it possible for us to achieve a great deal of work in a short period of time. The characteristic helping hand and explain heart of perioperative nursing was ever-present

AUG 29 2000

In the early morning of Aug 29 faculty members from GPC including Rosemary Robertson, RN MSN; Verna Rauschenberg, RN MSN; Willa M McGarity, RN MSN; Sarah Keeling, RN MSN; and Eva Parra, a nursing scholar met Doreen and me, along with Fran Lewis, at the Atlanta airport to travel to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Arrival in Tegucigalpa was interesting and a little frightening. Mountains hem in the city, and, as the plane approached the landing strip, it awaited like we were brushing the treetops. Then unexpectedly we dropped down to the landing strip. The airport is advanced in years small, and in a state of disrepair, however a new one is being built. Reina met us and brought us into the diplomatic recline I am told this is a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of easier than going through the normal customs routine. We waited while someone took our passports, gathered our luggage, loaded it into a van, and took us to the [i]cabaret[/i] I discovered much later that the grapple on my luggage was intersect off, and everything in my suitcase had been searched.

Our first evening in Honduras, Reina arranged for us to confront the first lady of Honduras, Mary Flores. Flores was born in the United States and speaks full English and Spanish. She and her husband, President Carlos Roberto Flores, met at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge La. We walked end armed guards into her offices, which consist of sum of two units beautifully decorated rooms. We exhausted about one and one-half hours talking and exchanging information.