AORN education paJl

AORN keeps nursing staff actively involved in the profession An open letter Dear Lois,

I'm so glad we had a chance at Congress to sit down and catch up with each other. Some- thing you said keeps coming back to me, and I believe it needs further explanation on my part.

You are deeply involved in operating room nursing. I admire you for being persistent and for being a catalyst for major changes in your operating room and hospital. But it disturbed me when you asked, "Do you miss nursing?" I answered that sometimes I do miss clinical practice and the operating room. But you seemed to imply that since I took a staff posi- tion at Headquarters, I am no longer actively involved in nursing. This is not true for me nor any other nurse at Headquarters.

I am going to share some important activities of our divisions in the Education Department and what part the professional staff plays in those activities. The divisions include Creden- tialing, Consultation, and Continuing Educa- tion (CE). As department director. Carol Alex- ander oversees activities of all the divisions.

"Credentialing" is a broad term. It includes licensure, registration, certification, accredita- tion, approval, and charter, to name a few. Gwen Dodge and I make up the credentialing staff.

If you have not yet read the report in the June Journal about the new credentialing study by the American Nurses' Association (ANA), please do. The recommendations and out- comes of this major study will affect every prac-

ticing nurse-RNs and licensed practicalivo- cational nurses. Licensure, registration, cer- tification, and accreditation of nursing schools and of continuing education providers will all be affected.

AORN, as a cooperating group, participated in discussions with the study committee. As AORN's representative at these meetings, I felt privileged to be in the midst of a project that will have a major impact on nursing. In late 1977, the University of Colorado approached AORN with the concept of a joint demonstra- tion project, and one project director, Gwen Dodge, was named from the Credentialing Di- vision.

In Fall 1978, AORN began the project, offer- ing an elective in operating room nursing for senior baccalaureate students and selected RNs. This was the first project of its kind in Colorado. The University has expressed inter- est in continuing this elective for their generic nursing students. We believe it was a giant step forward in relationships between a major nursing school and AORN and in our promo- tion of the perioperative role.

At Congress you heard that states mandat- ing continuing education for relicensure are not recognizing AORN's ANA accreditation. Since accreditation IS a type of credentialing, our division is collecting data from all states on the status of mandatory CE and how they re- gard organizations such as AORN that are nationally recognized providers. This is a big task.

The national trend at this time is for organi- zations to obtain provider status in those states. For nurses to use continuing educa- tion units (CEU) accrued at AORN national seminars and Congress, AORN must apply to each of those states. If we do not seek provider

d* AORN Journal, July 1979, Vol30, No 1 21

status, we may not hold national seminars in Kansas, Iowa, Massachusetts, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Minnesota, since registrants would not be able to apply these CEU to re- licensure. That is a serious problem for our members and our national programming.

AORN's Approval Board, which approves local chapter offerings, may be out of business in a few years if all instate offerings have to be approved by the state boards of nursing. This is the case now in California.

Yes, Lois, I am deeply involved in nursing. Among my other activities in the Credential-

ing Division are administering the AORN Schol- arship Program and representing AORN on the certification board of the American Associ- ation of Neurosurgical Nurses. Since both or- ganizations are starting certification programs, we believed there was value in sharing experi- ences.

As staff, we are involved in all aspects of the AORN certification program-Council meet- ings, publication of the Applicant Certifica- tion Guide, interpreting eligibility through cor- respondence and telephone calls, overseeing printing and distribution of materials, and pre- paring a budget. This is an enormous respon- sibility because this is no doubt the biggest project AORN has undertaken.

I vividly remember a few years ago when you and I tried to predict where we would be and what we would be doing in the future. Not in a million years could I have foreseen what has happened in the last two years. And Lois, did you ever think you would be an OR super- visor?

Responsibilities of other nurses in the Edu- cation Department also influence practice, but they are not fully understood by our members.

In the Consultation Division, Janet K Schultz and Colleen Harvey have a direct impact on OR nursing practice by offering technical, moral, and ethical advice to nurses through letters, telephone conversations, seminars and other speaking engagements, and the monthly "Experts research: Q & A" in theJour- nal. They have done initial planning for the first course offered in the new Education Center, "The Nurse Manager in the OR," which was presented June 4 through 15.

Schultz advises the AORN Audiovisual Committee as a script consultant for develop- ment of audiovisual material that depicts OR

practice to nurses and to consumers through public service announcements. As liaison to the Technical Practices Committee, she is in- volved in setting standards for OR nursing. She keeps us abreast of developments in the Federal Trade Commission and the US De- partment of Health, Education, and Welfare. The staff represents nurses as users of medi- cal devices with other voluntary standard- setting associations.

The Continuing Education Division has var- ied responsibilities. Staff members include Julia A Kneedler, Sharon Lunn, and Bradley J Manuel. They manage the program planning for Congress, national seminars, and the World Conference. AORN publications such as the Modular Independent Learning Sys- tems (MILS 3%) and theSurgical€xperience:A Model for Professional Nursing Practice in the OR were developed by the CE Division.

CE staff advised the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals on revision of nurs- ing service standards, which now state that the circulating function in the OR is the responsibil- ity of the registered nurse. All these activities not only keep them abreast of current practice but affect current practice.

As you see, it is difficult to give a brief answer to the question, "What do you do at Headquar- ters?"

If you're in Atlanta for the 1980 Congress next March, let's get together again to rem- inisce and share our personal and profes- sional growth.

Janet Sabbe, RN Credentialing coordinator

24 AORN Journal, July 1979, Vol30, No 1