Conference Description

Nurses have forever known what nursing is and indeed why nurses matter.  Every day in all the settings nurses practice, our value and importance are both affirmed and challenged.  Circumstances, history, and systems can foster or hinder core values and expectations of who we are and what we do.  Some are suggesting a re-envisioning of nursing; inviting us to celebrate the essence of our profession and its timeless commitments, while simultaneously urging us to lift our voices and energies to create the change we want to see.  Ethics asks us to develop clarity on our meaning and purpose, to use our Code of Ethics for Nurses to reinforce what we are called to do, and to not just work around systems but to change them to reflect an ethic of caring.  Nurses can make an immediate difference in their care of both patients, families, and with colleagues.  Nursing’s impact can ripple across society in addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time: the epidemic of isolation and loneliness, inequities in health care, safe staffing, care of the most vulnerable, clinician burnout and the exodus from the nursing profession.  Reconnecting to meaning and purpose becomes a wellspring to empower us to disrupt the status quo.  Nursing’s contributions matter more than ever. Using the power of story and embracing the narrative of nurses, we hope that you will join us to reflect, dialogue, and celebrate who we are, what we can do, and how we can transform our profession in mighty ways.

Conference Objectives

  1. Examine how meaningfulness is found in caring, through both the relational aspect and as a moral imperative.
  2. Describe the essential elements in the nursing profession that honor timeless commitments and position nurses to play a leading role in improving health outcomes.
  3. Identify two essential ethical competencies for moral agency in healthcare providers to create and sustain health care systems responsive to peoples’ needs.
  4. Discuss the necessity to integrate nursing’s primary meaning, purpose, and values into systems, solutions, and societal views of caregiving.
  5. Demonstrate strategies that will powerfully communicate to ourselves, our colleagues, our patients and families, and communities, that we all “matter.”

National Planning Committee

  • Co-chair – *Katherine Brown-Saltzman MA, RN, UCLA School of Nursing, Ethics Center, UCLA Health System (Retired)
  • Co-chair – Angela (Angie) Knackstedt,BSN,RN,NPD-BC, Children’s Mercy Kansas City
  • *Brenda Barnum, MA(Bioethics), BSN, RNC-NIC, HEC-C, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles 
  • *Elissa Brown MSN, RN, PMHCNS-BC, Retired, Greater Los Angeles VA
  • Nancy Jo Bush, DNP, MA, RN, AOCN, FAAN, UCLA School of Nursing 
  • Brian P. Cyr, MSN, RN-BC, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Sarah Delgado, DNP, RN, ACNP, American Association of Critical Care Nurses
  • *Anna Dermenchyan, PhD, RN, CCRN-K, CPHQ, UCLA Department of Medicine
  • *Theresa Drought PhD, RN, Retired, Kaiser Permanente
  • Kathy DuBois MSN, RN, NPD-C. HEC-C, Children’s National Hospital
  • Heather Fitzgerald, DBe, RN, HEC-C, Stanford Children’s Health/Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
  • *Linda Gorman MN, RN, PMHCNS-BC. FPCN, Retired, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
  • Karen Jones MS, RNC, HEC-C, Children’s Hospital Colorado
  • Beth Kohlberg, MSHCE, BSN, RN, HEC-C, St Louis Children’s Hospital
  • Erin Marturano, MBE, MSN, RN, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
  • Jason Overby, MS, RN, NP, GNP-BC, HEC-C, Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
  • Ellen Robinson  PhD, RN, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Stacy C. Smith, MA, MLS, BSN, RN, HEC-C, National Center for Ethics in Health Care
  • Carol Taylor, PhD, MSN, RN, FAAN, Georgetown University
  • Mary Walton MSN, MBE, RN, HEC-C, FAAN, University of Pennsylvania
  • Ian Wolfe, PhD, MA, RN, HEC-C, Children’s Minnesota

*Long-standing members of the Ethics of Caring Committee