Professional Organizations

[outcomesfirst, BSN, RN]

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, CNS]

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, MSN, APRN, NP]

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, CNS]

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.

[cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP]

I know this is an old thread but I am curious why you were so disappointed by the AACN offering AIDS insurance. I'm just wondering...

!Chris

[hotflashion, BSN, RN]

I wondered about the AIDs insurance thing, too. Seems like good insurance to have!

Anyway, I'm just an unemployed new grad but I belong to organizations in areas I'd like to become experienced in and right now that's palliative care (HPNA) and pain management (ASPMN). I attended a local chapter meeting of the HPNA and was not very impressed; they were not very welcoming to me. It takes a lot for me to go to an event where I know I will know no one, and I wished they'd been a little more outgoing. (They need a new member greeter, like in church!) I used to belong to the American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN) because I'm interested in the history of nursing, but I let it lapse. There's only so many hours in a day and so much $$ to spend on these things. For advocacy, I've never heard anyone say anything good about the ANA, and I don't belong. I do belong to my state's nursing association, which is the union. Belonging to these organizations keeps me informed about CEU events that I'm actually interested in.

I was hoping to find that there is a prof organization for research nurses, which is what I was looking for information about when I came to this forum. Using Google, I did find Society of Clinical Research Associates (SoCRA), which includes all sorts of professionals not just nurses.

Onward and outward, if not actually upward...

[ClinicalResearchNurs]

First choice: International Association of Clinical Research Nurses (IACRN) IACRN.org

(This is my favorite because it advocates for Clinical Research Nursing/Coordinators and has a close relationship with the NIH and is mentored by Claire Hastings, RN, PhD (Chief of Nursing at the NIH Clinical Center). The meetings are in Bethesda, and many opportunities for involvement. It is a newly formed organization.

In addition, I'm also a member of:

SoCRA

ACRP

Drug Information Associates

Sigma Theta Tau

And an institutional membership to Consortium of Academic Programs in Clinical Research (CoAPCR).

There are other organizations:

Society of Research Administrators (SRA)

Society of Clinical Research Data Managers (not sure I have that name correct).

Unfortunately, I'm not a member of the state ANA organization, due to "ran out of $" but do stay abreast of this and have goals to join there too.

It gets expensive, but I teach Clinical Research Management, so I need to be abreast of this- and it is not exactly a cheap way to go. Part of the pathway to being a professional.