What Happens in Vegas, Doesn’t Need to Stay in Vegas!

Last month, at the 2023 AMSN Annual Convention in Las Vegas, the energy and excitement for medical-surgical nursing could be felt throughout all three days of the event. I hope those who attended enjoyed the convention and were able to connect with new people, learn something new to take back to their teams, and feel rejuvenated by all of the great work being done in medical-surgical nursing. If you were not able to make it, there is still an opportunity to watch many of the sessions in the online library. We are excited to announce that the 2024 AMSN Annual Convention will be Sept. 12–14, in Toronto, Canada! We are excited to offer an international conference next year. We know this will require a few extra steps for our attendees, such as a passport, and we will have information on our website to walk you through those steps. Stay tuned for more details!

For me, there were many convention highlights that I want to share with you this month. The first was the certification reception which was held on Friday evening and acknowledged nurses who had a milestone year (five, 10, 15, 20) as a Certified Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse (CMSRN). This year marks the 20th year for the CMSRN, and there were a few nurses in attendance who have achieved 20 years as a CMSRN, which is remarkable. This is my 15th year being certified as a medical-surgical nurse, and I was thrilled to see a number of nurses at convention who were being honored for their commitment to being certified in this specialty.     

I enjoyed the virtual nursing education sessions featured throughout the conference. I attended one session that discussed how they started with one model, but through piloting and implementation, they ended up changing the model two or three times. This reminded me that projects are not always perfect when they are first introduced, and we should expect changes throughout a project timeline. In 2024, AMSN is working on having additional education on virtual acute care nursing, not only at convention, but throughout our educational offerings.

Also, I want to mention the outstanding keynote speakers we had this year. From starting with Dr. Joyce Batcheller and “Disruptive Innovations” to ending with Elizabeth Rudolph and a discussion about lessons learned from the RaDonda Vaught criminal case, each session had great take aways and “a-ha” moments for me. I appreciated all the audience feedback and dialogue Saturday’s Town Hall session on the identity of the medical-surgical nurse. This feedback is used to discuss ways to improve AMSN and help to define our specialty. Dr. Bob Dent presented a very thoughtful session on how to build ownership using attitude, culture, and values.

Lastly, we had quite a few awards this year to recognize a few of our outstanding members.  The President’s Award, which is given to an exceptional volunteer for AMSN, was given to Beth Norman, who unfortunately passed away in July 2023. Her family was present to receive this award in her name. There was a lovely tribute to her and her career as a medical-surgical nurse, as a member of AMSN, and her efforts in making medical-surgical nursing a specialty.  We also had the CMSRN of Distinction Award, which was awarded to Arlyn Labtis, and the Clinical Leadership Award, which was awarded to Golda Manalili. Congratulations to all our award recipients this year!

Finally, I’d like to give a big thank you to Jennifer Miller and the Program Planning Committee for 2023! As one convention ends, we take a short break and then start working on 2024!