[outcomesfirst]

Do you maintain membership in professional associations? I am disappointed in the bahavior of several nursing orgs (ANA, AACN, ENA - lack of leadership/policy/inability to move forward - actually I left AACN years ago after they started offering AIDS insurance) and am considering giving up those memberships. Other than journal subscriptions, I see no value in membership. What are your thoughts?

[augigi]

I go with ones relevant to my specialty, although many of them are useless apart from journals. I'm still in: Transplant Nurses Association, Australian Confederation of Critical Care Nurses, International Society of Heart Lung Transplantation, Heart Failure Society of America.

Fortunately my employer pays my memberships!

[gauge14iv]

The problem with specialty orgs is that many of them do no lobbying to advocate for nursing, patients or relevant issues. It is good to belong to them - they are often worth it for the CE's and journals, but it is important to belong and support something that also holds some lobbying and policy making influence.

[augigi]

I don't have any of those where I am! I was a member of the Australian Nursing Federation (union) for several years, even acted as a workplace job rep for them - and the one time I needed their assistance with legal support, they were completely useless.