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Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope you have found some time to relax during this sunny month of July! I have been asked several times about my leadership journey and where it started so I would like to share it with all of you, if that’s okay. Like many heard while I was campaigning, leadership has always been instilled in part of the fabric of my being since I was a child. I was an advocate for my baby brother by sitting by his crib all day to ensure he had everything he needed. And my leadership skills only grew more evident from there. So when I stepped inside the doors of my University my freshman year and saw there was nursing leadership, I immediately submitted an application to join the slate of candidates. I did not have any clue what nursing leadership was or how much I would come to love it as Co-Communications Director of the Molloy Nursing Student Association (MNSA). When I attended the Nursing Students Association of New York State’s (NSANYS) 70th Convention my freshman year, I had no idea that I would be encouraged to run for a state position, submit my application minutes before it was due, get nominated on the floor, and become Midhudson Regional Director. Looking back, I am so immensely grateful for the individual who pushed me to run because I would not be where I am today if I didn’t have that positive peer influence--if he didn’t have the ability to see something in me that I didn’t necessarily see yet. And this was all before I stepped foot or virtually attended an NSNA Convention. That April, I attended my first NSNA Annual Convention virtually and it was love at first sight. I knew that someday, I wanted to be able to do what I love and for the students I love, but on a national level. After I became Midhudson Regional Director, I knew this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my nursing career and immediately applied to be Treasurer. I spent the next year as Treasurer for NSANYS and Co-Vice President for MNSA. And I loved every minute. It was during this year that I attended my first NSNA Annual Convention in-person in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, I was given that same push as I was given my freshman year. Only this time, it was for a different opportunity. This time, it was to run for President of the National Student Nurses’ Association. I felt it was achievable but it didn’t feel like it was my time. I decided not to run during that year and told myself that I had to do it my senior year and give it my final shot. I attended my first NSNA MidYear Convention in-person in Virginia Beach, Virginia and was given the same shove forward to go for national leadership. Taking what I learned about leadership the past couple of years, I decided to give it my all. I was given such gratuitous financial support, asked the best campaign manager anyone has ever had to be mine, gathered my colorful supplies and goals for office, pre-slated, used social media and early campaigning as a tool, packed my suitcase, and flew into Nashville, TN. I gave my speech, had a wonderful debate with my fellow candidates, campaigned, and was elected to be the 72nd President of the National Student Nurses’ Association. Many students have come up to me since and seen this role as unachievable, untouchable, and that once elected, are a powerful force. But I humbly disagree. As the power is in the people. The power was in your hands by voting and trusting your elected official to do their job. That trust is the untouchable force. I am simply human, the same as all of you. Which makes me proud to tell you all, if I can accomplish my dreams of being able to call myself President of NSNA and represent the entire United States nursing students as a whole, then you can do whatever you set your mind to. Whether that is running on your local level, on your state level, or even on the national level. You are capable of multitudes. And I hope if not now, that one day, when you are standing where I am, you are able to reflect and realize that you are exceptional, capable, and are a leader. Hope to see you at Leadership Summit Friday! Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren
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Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope your July is filled with lovely summer air, warm beach days, and most of all, relaxation! On June 30th, I attended the International Council of Nurses’ Student Assembly where students (undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral) gathered to discuss common issues and learn from the ICN Student Steering Group’s wonderful agenda. One of my favorite parts of the day was the roundtable discussions we had on timely questions such as “What would you like to see from your National Nursing Association (NNA)?” Getting to discuss our five key answers and come together to learn about how healthcare looks different in each country was my favorite part. I sat at a table with students from South Africa, Taiwan, Vietnam, Canada, and Lebanon. It was also really shocking and upsetting to learn that many nursing students do not have a separate nursing student association like the National Student Nurses’ Association. Many rely on funding and decision-making done by their National Nursing Association. Canada was the only country that had an entirely separate nursing organization and I was able to meet the Canadian Student Nurses’ Association President, Eyasu Yahob. He is an amazing colleague and inspiring leader. I was able to extend an invitation to him, on behalf of the NSNA, to attend our Annual Convention in April 2024. Hopefully, I will be able to introduce him or one of his colleagues to you come April time. Other than the roundtables, I really enjoyed the networking we were able to do during lunch with nursing leaders around the world. I was able to connect with the Jamaican Nurses Association and some of the students from Mexico during my lunch session. We also were fortunate to listen to incredible speakers like Dr. Katie Huffling, the Executive Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and Dr. Christine Genest, a Professor from the Université de Montreal (University of Montreal) on Mental Health in Nursing. Overall, it was an amazing day with lots of connections with students, which I loved most of all. Let me know if you have any questions for me in the comments or feel free to email me personally at [email protected]! Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren  Students from Mexico, USA, and South Korea  Top row: me with students from Mexico Bottom row left to right: Paulina, a PhD student from Canada, and nurses from Jamaica  Me with RóisÃn O'Connell, the Student and New Graduate Officer for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation  From left to right: Aline from Lebanon who moved to Canada, Charlene from South Africa, me, Eyasu who is President of the Canadian Student Nurses Association, student from the Canadian Student Nurses Association, Paulina who is a PhD student from Canada, student from Vietnam but studies in Taiwan, Pojen from Taiwan  All students present at the ICN 2023 Student Assembly Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying some summer weather! We talked about the International Council of Nurses Student Assembly Day, but I attended the rest of the ICN Congress of 2023 in Montreal, Canada afterwards and it was an amazing success! I had such a fantastic time meeting nurses from all over the world! The opening ceremony and parade of all the different national nursing associations in their native and cultural attire was a spiritual experience to say the least. See below for the slideshow of only some of the 136 professional national nursing associations included in the parade. During the opening ceremony, a beautiful land acknowledgement was performed with Indigenous leaders invited to share some of their rich cultural heritage with us such as throat singing, native songs, and dances. One of my favorite memories from ICN Congress 2023 was hearing from the first nurse and midwife in Somaliland, Edna Adan Ismail. After retiring, Edna saw the problems that existed in our home country’s healthcare system and sold her things, bought land, and started building a hospital for her community. Edna’s frustration lies in the fact that conditions like eclampsia that are cured in other countries are being the causes of major fatalities in her country. Therefore, Edna taught her first class of nursing students while the construction was being done and today, Edna has over 1,000 nurses and midwives to date. Another amazing plenary session I attended was Caring with Courage, a new BBC and ICN collaborative project tailored around the stories of nurses out in the community, made for the world to see on the silver screen. With only viewing some of the powerful clips, I was able to witness the unique and profound work that this collaboration and nurses in the field were able to produce. Additionally, I was able to take a master class on Robotic Surgery and how it is taking us into the 21st century and beyond. With studying and learning new technology, we can ensure that we are better equipped to serve the generation of tomorrow. With the addition of robotics, nurses need to ensure that patient care is still a priority while the surgeon may be farther away, performing the surgery with devices like the one I learned about. That night, NSNA was invited to a reception for the National League of Nursing (NLN) and it was a lovely networking opportunity where I saw some familiar faces from ANA Membership Assembly, and where I met some new faces in NLN. Overall, it was a wonderful success and spoke to the leadership of Dr. Beverly Malone, CEO of NLN, and Dr. Kathleen Pointdexter, Chair of the NLN. In the plenary session on Tuesday morning, we were able to hear from Simon Sinek, renowned leadership expert and author of bestselling book “Start With Why,” along with Leigh Chapman, Chief Nurse Officer of Canada. Their conversation on how great leaders inspire action was rejuvenating. The discussion focused on how great leaders are needed starting in nursing school and that “we need to take care of the people taking care of the people.” It left me with a recharged battery to bring back home to you all. The last morning of the conference, the plenary discussed disaster situations going on all around the world and the effects on the nursing profession due to these issues. People from Ukraine, Turkey, and Myanmar joined the morning plenary virtually to discuss the issues currently negatively affecting the population. The conditions that some of these countries are facing are horrific but nurses don’t have to worry only about the conditions of living on a battlefield and bombing sites. In Myanmar, nurses have to go into hiding and in some devastating cases, are persecuted for their line of work. It was truly heartbreaking and unsettling to learn about the issues taking place around the world. Lastly, in the closing session, Dr. Pamela Cipriano, current ICN President, past ANA President, and past NSNA President, spoke about the amazing work done at the conference and the new ICN logo that was displayed for the first time. The ICN Congress 2023 was a great success and I cannot wait to see what the ICN and the Finland Nurses Association unveil for the 2025 Congress in Finland! Comment below with any questions you have for me regarding the International Council of Nurses Congress 2023! Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope your July is filled with lovely summer air, warm beach days, and most of all, relaxation! One of the most important and effective qualities to being a fantastic leader to me is being able to communicate professionally and with personality. A visible quality in many nursing leaders that I admire is personality. But something that often gets overlooked in professional nursing leaders is also personality! There’s a pendulum between personality and professionalism and the best nursing leaders find that equilibrium. I am here as a future nursing leader to share some light on what I have learned to assist you in being the BEST nursing leader you can be! I’ve had mentors that have been strictly professional, strictly personality, and the best of both worlds. And I’ve found time and time again that the best leaders not only uphold excellent professionalism when called for, but know how to extract the perfect amount of their personality for the delegation, colleagues, and other leaders to see. An excellent example of this is our Executive Director, Dr. Kenya Williams. Not only is she a strong leader in the nursing profession, but everyone who knows Dr. Williams is not only a colleague, but a friend to her. Because of our similar leadership styles, I have learned multitudes of lessons from Dr. Williams. Additionally, while attending all the conferences I have, I’ve witnessed my own key takeaways and would love to share them with you!
Please leave any questions you have for me in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as possible! If you would like to have a conversation with me on the side, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! Continuing our previous discussion, I attended Hill Day in Washington D.C. with ANA and visited various legislators and staff members to discuss important policies related to nursing. The following day, I was able to sit in on the first Membership Assembly session where ANA discussed business relating to Bylaws, introducing ANA Enterprise’s organizational alliances, and more. That day, I had the pleasure of bringing greetings on behalf of NSNA in front of the entire delegation of the American Nurses Association. What an honor to be able to stand in front of inspirational leaders like ANA President Jennifer Mensik-Kennedy and the vast ANA voting body. I discussed what NSNA has been up to since the new election in April and how our current board is hard at work for organizing the best MidYear and Annual meetings for our students. I concluded my speech with best wishes for a truly wonderful Assembly and was shocked to find a standing crowd applauding the work of NSNA! It is an immense pleasure for me to bring this knowledge to all of you to know the kind of weight that NSNA has with nursing organizations upon graduation. It is never too late or a better time than now to join this incredible organization and be applauding the exceptional work we do for years to come. Afterwards, ANA held their dialogue forums. The three topics discussed were:
That night, the incoming Executive Director, Dr. Kenya Williams (Past NSNA President) and I held the annual NSNA Past Presidents Dinner in which we had a wonderful attendance from Dr. Mary Foley (current ANA Consultant to NSNA, Past ANA President, Past NSNA President), Dr. Pamela Cipriano (Current ICN President, Past ANA President, Past NSNA President), Kyle Loose, RN (Past NSNA President), Dr. Cheryl Schmidt (Current NSNA Consultant to the Resolutions Committee), and Sharon Lamberton (Past NSNA President). It was a wonderful turn out with many other Presidents missed greatly. The following day, two different sessions of the Membership Assembly took place regarding bylaw changes, elections of the American Nurses Association Board of Directors, and more. It was an incredible and very fast three days in which I saw many familiar faces from previous NSNA boards, met so many inspiring nursing leaders, and really got to put my advocating skills to the test. I am so excited to share all these experiences with you and please leave any questions you may have for me in the comment or feel free to shoot me an email! Have a lovely rest of your July and I will speak to you soon! Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren   Me (striving to be a future ANA President) with the Past ANA Presidents! Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope you all are doing well and having a lovely first week of July! This past June, I was delighted to have the opportunity to bring greetings on behalf of NSNA to the American Nurses Association’s 11th Annual Membership Assembly. Prior to the beginning of the Membership Assembly, ANA held their annual Hill Day in Washington D.C., where nurses from all over the United States (and some students, including me) were able to visit federal legislators and present policies and bills that ANA is hoping to pass for the future of nursing. ANA was asking legislators to support the following:
Stay tuned for part two of the ANA Membership Assembly! See the attached links for more information on the bills and policies ANA presented to legislators. Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren   From left to right: Tara Shajan, Treasurer of the National Association of Indian Nurses of America, Kimberly Velez (Director-at-Large on ANA-NY), Jacob, a staff member of Hakeem Jeffries (NY), me, and Dr. Patricia Lavin from New York University (NYU) Hospital.  From left to right: Dr. Marilyn Dollinger, President of ANA-NY, me, and Dr. Jeanine Santelli, Executive Director of ANA-NY Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the first day of July! Since our election in April, the NSNA Board of Directors has had an extensive board orientation and meetings in New York during the month of May to kick start this incredible year. We had two different workshops given by Dr. Rumay Alexander and Dr. Pamela Thompson that were excellent in helping shape our feasible goals and expectations for our tenure. Afterwards, we had two day-long board meetings, discussing various voting matters that our members will be happy to see translated from our resolutions on paper to in-person at our MidYear and Annual meetings. We even had time to squeeze in an excursion and see Moulin Rouge on Broadway as a board! Overall, it was a wonderful trip that I know helped all of our committees and board members feel more comfortable in their roles. Not only that, but it has also increased the working capability of our board as a team. We have exceptional communication, respect each other’s opinions, and all know we are working for the membership and nursing students across the United States in creating a better tomorrow for each other. Comment below if you have any questions for us! Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren  The 2023-2024 Board of Directors with the incoming Executive Director, Dr. Kenya Williams  The 2023-2024 Board of Directors Greetings, NSNA members and future colleagues! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the warm summer weather wherever you are in the country. Our NSNA Board of Directors has been hard at work implementing the change that was asked of us both during our campaigning and while seeing the change needed in office. Keeping our goals in mind as well, we have started to formulate plans of action in order to achieve this. One of my plans of action to address not only mental wellbeing, but also open communication is to create a NSNA President Blog. This will allow for the President to have dialogue with students on things that have been happening while in office that normally, students don’t get to see. Education can only advance through transparency with professional organizations like NSNA and I am happy to be able to bring this platform about. The NSNA President role is a tremendous one that often is unknown for specifics of what we do. I am happy to put this confusion to rest by introducing transparency, integrating innovation, and providing an extra layer of humanity back into professionalism. After all, humanity is at the core layer of our scope as nurses and if we are not humane, we are not nurses! I urge you to continue to check into this blog and your emails to better understand the role of NSNA, everything the NSNA Board is accomplishing through our activism and hard work, and futuristic methods that will help make NSNA better for the next generation of student nurses. Yours in service and signing off for now, Lauren |
AuthorMy name is Lauren Lodico and I am the 2023-2024 NSNA President. I attend Molloy University in Rockville Centre, NY as a senior in their traditional program. I am expected to graduate in May 2024 with my BSN and a minor in Writing. I aspire to be a future Labor and Delivery nurse with hopes to further my education by going back to school for my Family Nurse Practitioner and PhD, so I can have the pleasure of teaching future nursing students and conducting my own research. I have also published two novels and written several unpublished in genres such as young adult romance, mystery, suspense, and more. Archives
March 2024
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