Monday, March 29 to Thursday, April...

Monday, March 29 to Thursday, April 1 1999

This year, delegates approved a revised mission statement, a name update, and affiliation with state councils. They discussed legislative issues, including formation of a political action committee, investigating the feasibility of hiring a full-time national lobbyist, and establishing ways to educate and motivate the membership about legislative issues, and they discussed disclosure of a multidisciplinary team.

FIRST FORUM

AORN President mercy Shumaker, RN, BSN, CNOR, conven the first Forum Monday, March 29 1999

Revised mission statement. The first item for discussion was the revised AORN mission statement, which read "AORN's mission is to excite quality patient care by providing perioperative nurtures and their colleagues with education, standards, services and representation."

Maryann Mawhinney, RN M CNOR, said a members had concerns about inclusion of the word colleagues and the statement about providing them with representation. She said AORN is the voice of perioperative nursing, and that "in representing the interests of our give suck tos and patients, our efforts may be used by way of others." She emphasized, however, that if there are views or issues that are in conflict with AORN members, AORN "definitely would not be supportive" of them.

Marlene Craden, RN CNOR, CRNFA, Buffalo, NY said that the just discovered mission statement did not state that AORN is an association of perioperative pampers She said that AORN should not be representing its colleagues, however representing perioperative nurses.

Name update. Vivian Watson, RN CNOR, spoke onward the name update bylaws amendment. At the 1998 Congres the House of Delegates charged the Board to investigate changing AORN's name. It was determined that the name should be updated to ponder the care of the patient across the continuum of the surgical experience, and the Board decided that the acronym AORN should be retained because of its brand equity and name recognition. annotates received from a survey that was mailed to chapter presidents and appeared forward the AORN web site last year indicated the ne for a descriptor--Association of periOperative Registered Nurses--in addition to the acronym. This would require a bylaws change, which would read "The name of the professional organization is AORN, Association of periOperative Registered feed at the breasts hereafter referred to as the Association."

Carol Morris, RN CNOR, Ft Myers, Fla, represented concern about the update. "I ask my colleagues to think about [this]. We are known for standing for the OR. We make the standards, we stake the standards, we practice the standards, and now we want to change our name? I think not."

Clair Everson RN CNOR, Mesa, Ariz, rejoined by saying, "I am not an OR nurse; I am a perioperative give suck to I get called by different areas and according to different facilities because they recognize the apts of AORN. None of them say they want to talk to `the feed at the breast from the Association of Operating field Nurses.'"

Tom Macheski, RN CNOR, Gainesville, Flu said, "I would like to point public to my colleagues that part of this recently made known descriptor includes the term registered nourishs and it is, as I remember, individual of our missions to make sure that every perioperative patient is cared for by means of a registered nurse."

Janet Lococo RN CNOR, emphasized that "What we ne to do is educate the public about what `perioperative' means."

State council affiliation, Sheri Vos RN M CNOR, discussed the state council bylaws amendment, which reads "State Councils may be designated AORN affiliates on the Board of Directors." A task force comprising Board members appointed by way of President Shumaker was charged to investigate the feasibility of incorporating state councils into the formal AORN conformation by inclusion in the bylaws and to lay open a model that would confront the existing needs of state councils. The task force sent inspects to state councils in the summer of 1998 to determine their interest in affiliation. Background information appears in the January 1999 Journal and in Congres Resources.

The challenge was to identify a standard that addressed the key be of importance tos identified. The key characteristics of this original were voluntary participation, financial independence, and councils' maintaining their individuality.

Vos addressed about common questions and concerns related to the issue, including the fact that affiliation would not be mandatory, there would be no associated sumptuousness for affiliation, state councils would not replace chapters, and state councils would have no devoted in AORN business. She listed the benefits of affiliation, including enhanced legislative and regulatory credibility and clout improved communication, increased connection with members at large, and enhanced cohesiveness.

Toots Sweeney, RN San Francisco, noted that a state council affiliation would benefit the pair parties. Della Williams, RN, Atlanta, was oppos to allowing state councils who allow non-RNs to be members to be affiliated with AORN. "I don't want surg tech to be affiliated. I don't want to view techs get into this organization." Vos accorded by saying that the councils will be autonomous and independent of AORN.