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On leadership and learning
Edito al On leadershipand learning Gaff Pisarcik Lenehan, EdD, RN, CS, Boston, Massachusetts
ecently I was fortunate enough to attend the ,sixth annual ENA Leadership Symposium in Dallas...sixth?! It seems like only yesterday that ENA launched this n e w meeting with the hope that 500 registrants would attend. The Leadership Symposinm quickly surpassed all expectations. This year's meeting included 1000 participants, and the attendance roster read like a Who's Who in emergency n u r s i n g - - e m e r g e n c y nurse managers, consultants, entrepreneurs, and educators from the United States, Canada, and England. Once again ENA's staff made yet another entire, seamless meeting look easy, but for me the nicest things about this mid-winter meeting were the many familiar faces and the relaxed pace (for everyone except the ENA Board of Directors, whose meetings b e g a n as early as 7 AM and who were "booked" through the evening). It was surprisingly easy to find others at this meeting. An eating/lounging area in the center of the hotel lobby united many old friends, as did every walk between classes in the spacious hotel. The meeting provided the perfect courses, with topics ranging from computer information to inspiration for managers. A quote on the Symposium brochure read, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." It was fitting that this quote came from John F. Kennedy. Dallas has created a memorial to the slain president at the Dallas Book Depository building, which a number of us from the conference visited. At this "Sixth Floor Museum," I stood beside the window through which Lee Harvey Oswald fired at and mortally wounded John E Kennedy, and the memories of the enormous gravity and collective pain of the
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time flooded back. I found myself trying to impress on m y 9-year-old son just how important the loss was...just like someone in your own family had died. Even Walter Cronkite had cried. So personal was the news that everyone would remember, afterward, exactly what they were doing when they heard it. The museum's visitors spoke in hushed whispers. One could hear others speaking foreign l a n g u a g e s - French, Japanese. Some wrote in books reserved for visitors' reflections. JFK is an enduring symbol of commitment and our ability to effect change. That legacy w a s n ' t lost on people like those at the Leadership Symposium who are on the front lines, creating change, day in and day out...no one more so than ENA state presidents across the United States. At the conclusion of the Leadership meeting, ENA's Conference of State Presidents begins. From almost every state, Presidents and Presidents-Elect--the backbone of ENA, really--discuss everything from current trends to infrastructure to TNCC and CEN to new visions. ENA's meetings have come to be a source of stability, strength, and guidance, a "life force" for emerg e n c y nursing, more than just leadership and learning, and more than just the sum of its parts. While nothing will ever take the place of the excitement and largesse of the annual fall ENA meeting (coming up September 9-13 in Denver), with its General and Scientific Assemblies, I will look forward just as m u c h to the next Leadership Symposium (February 19-21, 1999, at the Los Angeles Westin Bonaventure) and its promise of the shared wisdom and special company of many inspiring people.
J Emerg Nurs 1998;24:115. Copyright © 1998 by the EmergencyNurses Association. 0099-1767/98 $5.00 + O 18/61/89704
April 1998 115
ecently I was fortunate enough to attend the ,sixth annual ENA Leadership Symposium in Dallas...sixth?! It seems like only yesterday that ENA launched this n e w meeting with the hope that 500 registrants would attend. The Leadership Symposinm quickly surpassed all expectations. This year's meeting included 1000 participants, and the attendance roster read like a Who's Who in emergency n u r s i n g - - e m e r g e n c y nurse managers, consultants, entrepreneurs, and educators from the United States, Canada, and England. Once again ENA's staff made yet another entire, seamless meeting look easy, but for me the nicest things about this mid-winter meeting were the many familiar faces and the relaxed pace (for everyone except the ENA Board of Directors, whose meetings b e g a n as early as 7 AM and who were "booked" through the evening). It was surprisingly easy to find others at this meeting. An eating/lounging area in the center of the hotel lobby united many old friends, as did every walk between classes in the spacious hotel. The meeting provided the perfect courses, with topics ranging from computer information to inspiration for managers. A quote on the Symposium brochure read, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." It was fitting that this quote came from John F. Kennedy. Dallas has created a memorial to the slain president at the Dallas Book Depository building, which a number of us from the conference visited. At this "Sixth Floor Museum," I stood beside the window through which Lee Harvey Oswald fired at and mortally wounded John E Kennedy, and the memories of the enormous gravity and collective pain of the
R
time flooded back. I found myself trying to impress on m y 9-year-old son just how important the loss was...just like someone in your own family had died. Even Walter Cronkite had cried. So personal was the news that everyone would remember, afterward, exactly what they were doing when they heard it. The museum's visitors spoke in hushed whispers. One could hear others speaking foreign l a n g u a g e s - French, Japanese. Some wrote in books reserved for visitors' reflections. JFK is an enduring symbol of commitment and our ability to effect change. That legacy w a s n ' t lost on people like those at the Leadership Symposium who are on the front lines, creating change, day in and day out...no one more so than ENA state presidents across the United States. At the conclusion of the Leadership meeting, ENA's Conference of State Presidents begins. From almost every state, Presidents and Presidents-Elect--the backbone of ENA, really--discuss everything from current trends to infrastructure to TNCC and CEN to new visions. ENA's meetings have come to be a source of stability, strength, and guidance, a "life force" for emerg e n c y nursing, more than just leadership and learning, and more than just the sum of its parts. While nothing will ever take the place of the excitement and largesse of the annual fall ENA meeting (coming up September 9-13 in Denver), with its General and Scientific Assemblies, I will look forward just as m u c h to the next Leadership Symposium (February 19-21, 1999, at the Los Angeles Westin Bonaventure) and its promise of the shared wisdom and special company of many inspiring people.
J Emerg Nurs 1998;24:115. Copyright © 1998 by the EmergencyNurses Association. 0099-1767/98 $5.00 + O 18/61/89704
April 1998 115