AAPPN strives to be your professional home.
In this moment, our lives—both professionally and personally—are ineffable. Painful, frightening, overwhelming … those words seem piteously ineffectual at encompassing this point in time.
How can this professional association truly be your professional home? As your Board of Directors, we seek to recognize what we are collectively experiencing.
We recognize our student members. You face the gravity of studies, finals, and the challenge of entering your profession. Perhaps you also face the loss of public recognition for your graduation, the loss of personal independence by having to move back home, or the sudden displacement of well-made plans for the future.
We recognize our community health members. You face difficult practice changes in your workplace, in process, in practicality, and in stability. You also face increase anxiety and health risks for your clients, as well as the complexities of life in a time of COVID.
We recognize our private practice members. You face substantial practice changes and client health issues as well. Your future working environment may be completely different than you planned. In addition, you try to adapt to constant shifts in regulatory and reimbursement rules.
We recognize the difficulties—both personal and professional—that are unique and yet connect us.
With the death of George Floyd and the light that has been shed upon us in the two weeks since, we also recognize our limitations. AAPPN can help members in many ways. In dealing with the toll and trauma of racism as it relates to our profession, we are at a place of beginning. We don’t have answers, but we can commit to sharing the burden.
We can listen, setting aside judgement and agenda.
We can provide opportunities to build leadership skills for a new perspective of leadership so eloquently described by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
We can provide resources for broadening perspectives and enriching our collective strength.
There is much work to be done. In the midst of our own struggles, we are not alone. We are nurses, inexorably bound in our compassion and our care for the whole person, whether they are a client, a colleague, or a companion.
We are emboldened to strive for one vision: to ensure that each AAPPN member feels welcomed home. We humbly offer our hands to hold as we embark on this journey.
Sincerely,
Mary Ellen O’Keefe, MN, MBA, PNHCNS-BC, ARNP, President
Kristine Highlander, ARNP, PMHNP-BC, President-Elect
Dana Dean Doering, ARNP, Past President
Nikki Behner, DNP, MPH, ARNP, Secretary
Ginni Buccola, DNP, PMHNP, Member At-Large
Jean Tang, PhD, PMHNP-BC, Member At-Large
Danielle Waldron, ARNP, PMHNP-BC, Member At-Large
Patricia Wuertzer, MSN, ARNP-BC, PLLC, Member At-Large
Kirk Roberts, Executive Director
Christine Crosser, Associate Director