AORN Expo Recap


To my Dallas AORN Chapter Peers:

This week has gone by so fast. I knew I would be this happy, before and after. But it always amazes me when I come back home and I feel even more passionate about perioperative nursing and AORN. I’m obsessed with making nursing as good as it can possibly be, making myself my best in the process.

As your representative Forty Under 40, the AORN CEO offered us upgraded admission to the Executive Leadership Summit. I was very excited and honored to be offered this opportunity. I had hovered over the button for 20 minutes when I registered a couple weeks earlier- could I afford the upgrade? Something so hugely valuable to my practice, career, and goals was surely worth the price.

I couldn’t make myself. But somehow Linda Groah (AORN CEO) and AORN knew what I needed before I asked, and they handed me the hemostat not the tonsil. They continuously prove how willing they are to listen to all members; how dedicated they are to the future and those they perceive to have the impact on the future.

If I could tell you one thing for which I benefit from attending the Summit, Expo, or Congress, it’s not the education or the motivation (though I am immensely grateful for those as well). The AORN International Surgical Conference and Expo is about connections.

It’s one thing to complain with nurses in the break room who are in the trenches with you. It’s another to meet with local nurses and hear that your facility isn’t much different. It’s an entirely new thing to meet someone from Australia and learn, yet again, that you are not alone. We have so many friends and cohorts. We take the time, effort, and money to come to Expo because we value education and are committed to ensuring evidenced-based practice in our ORs and we are not alone.

But the value of social connections mean so much more. We value humanity much more than education, practice, or ourselves.

We are human. We trust humans. We love humans. We just want to empathize as nurses. But it is so much more rewarding to empathize with positivity and grateful joy than with negativity and disappointment.

The AORN Expo is all about high spirits, grateful joy, and constant networking. Ironically, those are the concepts that allowed me to flourish and provided the desire to pursue my greatest potential. It is through positivity, gratitude, and connections that I am able to achieve and strive for more every day.

You never know whom you’ll see and who will be the reason you find joy.

That is why I am so grateful for the opportunity to attend Expo and develop a relationship with those who enact major change in the field of perioperative nursing on behalf of the Dallas AORN Chapter.

Thank you for trusting me as an AORN Dallas Chapter Delegate for 2018.

Mary Alice Anderson, MS, RN, CNOR

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