The 2010 AORN Congress was held on March 14-18 in Denver, Colorado. It was once again a great experience to attend. I arrived in Denver on Saturday, March 13 and met my roommate, Terri (from Dallas, TX) at the airport. We were picked up by an aunt and cousin from Aurora, CO, whom I hadn’t seen in 26 years! We spent a lovely afternoon with them and toured the Red Rock Amphitheater before arriving at our hotel in downtown Denver. The hotel was about a 10 minute walk to the Denver Convention Center (DCC) where the meetings were held. There were many restaurants and stores in the area and we were able to check out quite a few: Bubba Gump’s, Hard Rock Café, Rock Bottom Brew Pub, Rialto, Sullivan Steakhouse (in the LoDo—old downtown), Denver Firefighter’s Museum, Barnes and Noble. We didn’t go hungry!!
Terri and I arrived at the DCC early on Sunday to check in for the Congress, set up the eChapter booth (I am the current secretary, Terri is the webmaster/Board of Directors) and attend the Candidates Forum, where all of the candidates running for AORN offices are allowed a short speech and answered questions. Rosie Schroeder, St. Joseph’s Hospital’s Perioperative Director, ran for the Vice President position and did win on Thursday-which was very exciting to witness. I was also able to connect with Tammy Treutel (coworker), Sandy Laskowski (former St. Joseph’s PACU manager-now in Aurora, CO) and other eChapter friends. The opening session and individual awards are wonderful to observe-most of the US states are represented as well as all of the branches of the services and many other countries. The opening keynote address was “Impacting Quality” by Janet Corrigan addressing the multiple factors that are involved with healthcare reform and performance.
Monday started very early- a 5:30AM breakfast and program by Medline with special speaker, Peggy Fleming, a gold medal ice skater who spoke about her life and fight with breast cancer. 8 AM brought a very interesting session on safe surgery by Atul Gawande, MD. Checklists should be our new best friends and he discussed the WHO (World Health Organization) Safe Surgery checklist. I also attended Minimally Invasive Surgery in Neonates; Transplanting Faces, Transforming Lives: Ethical and Technical Challenges of the First American Human Face Transplant; Trends That Will Reshape the US Health Systems and the Exhibitor Hall Opening Reception.
The eChapter annual meeting was held Tuesday morning and the first House of Delegates in the afternoon. The free time was used to review some of the nearly 200 posters projects demonstrating various topics including clinical, education, infection prevention, management leadership, patient safety, art of nursing/safety issues, international displays, and recruitment/retention. One poster that was interesting to me was “Lateral Violence-Increasing Awareness and Limiting Events”. The poster explained that issues such as nonverbal innuendos, verbal remarks, undermining activities, withholding information, sabotage, infighting, scapegoating, backstabbing, failure to respect privacy, broken confidences, and physical violence all can cause issues with teamwork that directly impact patient care and need to be remedied.
The Delegates Forum was held on Wednesday. Items addressed included membership fee increases, discussion on position statements for care of older adults, RN first assistants. I visited the vendor exhibits on Tuesday and Wednesday, especially looking for contact hour opportunities. The most helpful one I found was the Richard Wolf booth on “High Definition Visualization” which explained basic visual systems information. The Perioperative Quiz Bowl, later in the afternoon, was a great review of practices and incorporating evidence based research into changes we make. I was horrified to learn that washing machines carry as many germs as a dirty diaper and reminded that patients need to be kept at normal glucose levels for optimal surgical recovery. The program pits four teams against one another but also uses audience participation and it is great to find out that you know more than you think!!
Thursday morning allowed me more time to review posters and attend the 2nd House of Delegates. The voting results were shared and I was excited that some of the eChapter members were elected as well as Rosie for vice president of AORN, our organization of more than 40,000 nurses. All of the nurses running for offices are so very accomplished in their fields and are such credits to our profession. Afterwards, Terri and I were able to grab a taxi to hurry to the Denver Nature and Science Museum to view the “Body Worlds” exhibit and meet my aunt, who is a volunteer at the museum. The exhibit demonstrated bodies in various sporting positions preserved via a plasticization process as well as many body organs, bones, body systems and information.
The week was an interesting whirlwind! There is tons of information to process and hopefully share with coworkers. I also appreciated the financial assistance from eChapter and the meeting time allowed by St. Joseph’s Hospital. Attending Congress is always a great opportunity for all perioperative nurses.
Jody