Greetings!
I am very excited to announce that I recently joined the Policy and Government Affairs team at the American Nurses Association. By way of getting to know me and my background, my career started on Capitol Hill where I worked in the House of Representatives for several years, and most recently, I had the privilege of working at the American Physical Therapy Association.
I do not think landing at ANA is purely coincidental. Just a couple of years ago my family went through a deeply terrifying time. One day my mother was healthy and happy and overnight everything changed. She developed hematomas on her brain and wound up in a weeks-long coma. As readers of this blog uniquely know, my family was terrified. We were in ICU for a very long time and developed relationships with many hospital workers.
We would not have made it through each day without the nurses we met. When we didn’t understand something (which happened frequently!), the nurses would break it down and explain what it meant. When we needed something for my mother, they would get it as soon as they could. Of course, there were also the moments where we didn’t see hope, and as busy as ICU nurses are, they would take a moment and were there for us.
This fall my family celebrates three years since that time. I couldn’t be happier to share that my mother is awake, at home, and she recently went to Orlando with her children and grandkids and had the vacation of a lifetime.
While we are so grateful to be past that stage, we are forever thankful to those nurses who not only helped my mom but helped our entire family. We have even gone back to the hospital to see the team and show off how well their former patient is doing!
Working in this role is what I can do to try and repay all of the nurses around the country that have done so much.
Here at ANA I am leading our legislative efforts on issues that include: Title VIII funding; safe staffing; workplace violence; health care transformation; and U.S. Nurse Cadet Corp. legislation. I encourage you to get in touch with your Members of Congress and tell them your stories about why it is so important they support these issues.
I look forward to working together to move forward sound policy that helps advance the nursing profession across the country.