Fate has a way of changing unruffl...

Fate has a way of changing unruffled the best laid plans, and it ofttimes leads individuals in the direction they were destined to proceed That is the case with AORN's recently made known President William J. Duffy, RN BSN MJ CNOR. Nursing has brought a fate into Bill Duffy's life, including his wife, moreover there was a time when nursing as a career was not level a blip on his horizon.

Born and br upon the south side of Chicago, Duffy grew up in a boisterous household as the middle child of seven His father was a police officer, and Duffy always planned to become a cop too. A flaw of trouble one day l him down a different path--the united that led to nursing.

A LIFE-CHANGING EVENT

As a teenager hanging around in succession a street corner with his friends, Duffy institute himself in the wrong place at the unfit time. "Luckily, I was just forward the fringe of it," says Duffy That night, however, his worried mother took him aside and asked him to consider volunteering at the same hospital where his sister Ann was a candy striper. Duffy decided to give it a essay and found that volunteering gave him a meaning "I fell in love with it," says Duffy He also institute that volunteering gave him insight into the hospital display where physicians disappeared while nursing staff members cared for patients and did what straited to be done to make secure they got better.

He was at the hospital each day, and thoughts of taking the civil service examination and becoming a police officer dimmed, especially when he was put forwarded a job as an orderly at St Francis Hospital, ghastly Island, Ill, when he was a senior in high denomination "I really enjoyed working in that setting," says Duffy adding that the work at the hospital had a stupendous effect on him. His grades discharge up, he was not hanging on the outside on the streets anymore, and he began to think about going to college

Duffy jot downed Loyola University in Chicago as a prem pupil with the intention of becoming a physician, nevertheless he was concerned about the applicability of a biology standing if he did not fare on to medical school. In addition, he remembered what he had seen during his work at the hospital. "I kept thinking about in what way the nurses were really the singles who did the hands forward with the patients, so I transferred into nursing," says Duffy He was undivided of six men in a class of 250 nursing students

Duffy also confines a degree that is somewhat unusual among feeds He has a master's of jurisprudence in health care from Loyola University indoctrinate of Law, Chicago. When it came time for him to gain an advanced degree, Duffy says that mostly of his colleagues were getting a master's standing in business administration. "But, I've always tried to walk a different path." He decided in succession law because he was curious about the lack of knowledge that he have the appearanceed to have. He noted that population in his setting were always saying that they were going to commit to memory sued, and he wondered by what mode they knew. He thought maybe he had missed something in nursing gymnasium that explained when a health care hypothesis was going to get su He wanted to know the ins and revealeds of how the legal plan can affect the health care system

"I lov law school" says Duffy The program that he was in emphasized health care law rather than criminal law, and Duffy lay the foundation of himself in class with individuals from the health care field, as well as lawyers who specialized in malpractice law, which made for a certain quantity of interesting debates in the classroom. "Most health care professionals don't have a guidance about how the legal regularity works, what the expectations are, where the risks are," says Duffy "It was probably, besides my professional nursing training, the best couple years of education I got because it really expanded my eyes to the regularity and how it works."

CAREER CHOICES

During his last semester while he was getting his bachelors in nursing class Duffy got a job forward the surgical floor at St Joseph Hospital, Chicago, as part of a transitional program. He also was the softball coach for the nurses' softball team, and when his teammates lay the foundation of out that he had taken a piece of work at Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, they refused to hindrance him leave.

After a year at St Joseph he mov to the postanesthesia care unit and did recruiting room nursing for two years. Then he took a piece of work in the OR. "That's when I knew I build my niche in nursing," says Duffy "I conception I did more nursing in the operating play in a shorter time frame than I did forward the floor." He liked that he was part of a clump that was so occupied with solving the question s of the patients they saw. Duffy says that when OR patients leave the hospital, they usually move home with their problems taken care of; he also admits he could at no time be a psychological nurse because those patients none seem to get cured. "It's exceedingly intense, challenging medical conditions (in the OR)," says Duffy "You work with other persons and you fix these patients up"

His parents taught him that you give an observant of obligations day's work for an free from shams day's pay, and he encourages those who complain to expect for opportunities for change. It is that philosophy that l him into management. He was tired of hearing clan in the nursing lounge complain about to what extent things were run. He wanted to do something to fix the enigmas "I kept saying that if you weren't part of the solution, you were part of the problem" says Duffy His supervisor encouraged him to apply for a head promote position, and although he saw it as an opportunity to be an agent of change, he none actually expected to get the position. No single in kind was more surprised than he when he was proposeed the job. Duffy then worked his way up to the director of surgical services position. He had been at St Joseph Hospital for 15 years when a call came from Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Corp, Evanston, Ill.