VOL 26/NO 1
R
PENS
eporter
A bi-annual publication of the Pediatric Endocrinology
President’s
Nursing Society
G
Report
ood Day my Nursing colleagues!
In This Issue: 1 President’s Report 3 Meet Your Board of Directors 4 PENS Recognizes Select Members at 2014 Conference 5 Commitee Reports 7 The Highlights of PENS 2014 6 PENS E-Community – Join Us! 10 Bylaw Vote 2014 11 Bylaws Revision 2014 16 Annotated Bibliographies 17 Clinical Exemplar Submissions
I’m happy to write this note to you today as I reflect on our PENS Conference in Louisville this year. It was a great conference from the content, location, food and the time to network with each other! I think this was my 15th conference maybe? It seems my spring is always planned around the PENS conference. I can tell you that I look forward to it every year and find a way to make it happen in my life! PENS, to me, is more than just an organization, it is a life force on its own, so unique that it draws people in and keeps them in! From Kathy Clark as our founding PENS president who still comes to this day and participates as well as so many others… to (as we reviewed during our Leadership Lunch this year) those who stay on and keep sharing, learning and giving to PENS. Friendships are made across the miles, states and countries through PENS. This year at the end of our conference we had a wonderful speaker named Donna White who talked about “Compassion Fatigue.” She did an amazing job talking about what we all know so well and live every day. I know that we are all really busy with work and family and further responsibilities that we may find it hard to put any more into something. When Donna asked who in the crowd had at least 8 hours of sleep per night I put my hand up. She looked at me kind of puzzled as I was the only one with my hand up! She said “Where are you from?” I realized during her talk that I was an “anomaly” as a PENS nurse who did not feel all this “Compassion Fatigue” any longer. It has not always been this way! I’ve been living with Crohn’s disease since I was 14 years old, having had surgeries and plenty of procedures/drugs. I was inspired to be a nurse through the amazing care I received. I went on to get married, have a child and a full time job in Peds Endo Nursing. A few years later I was not doing so well. This was when a good friend once told me when I said I was having “a stressful day” with personal and work issues that “there is no such thing as a stressful day, it’s simply and opportunity to better manage your emotions, once you realize the impact of your attitude on your life you will not feel stressed.” I thought about that and read that statement dozens of times as I had it posted on my wall continued on page 2
P.O. Box 14516 Lenexa, KS 66285-4516 913.895.4628 877.936.7367 FAX: 913.895.4652 pens@goAMP.com www.pens.org