Guest Editorial

It is an honour to be elected as the Australasian Neuroscience Nurses Association President at the annual conference in Wellington, New Zealand thus giving me the opportunity to lead ANNA over the next 3 years. I assure you I am dedicated to neuroscience nursing and will be committed to the role of ANNA President.

I have been a neuroscience nurse for over 30 years, and have been working in the role of Clinical Nurse Consultant at Westmead Hospital for the majority of that time. Those of you from NSW would know I am also currently the Neurosurgical Nurses Professional Development Scholarship Committee (NNPDSC) Chairperson.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing President Jeanne Barr for her exceptional hard work, dedication and passionate and inclusive leadership of ANNA over the past 3 years.

I would like to reflect on the vision of ANNA. ANNA has a great history spanning over 45 years. The World Federation Neuroscience Nurses (WFNN) was established in 1968 with the first ANNA conference being held in the nation’s capital, Canberra in 1974 with 30 nurses in attendance. ANNA is the peak body for neuroscience nurses to facilitate and foster the advancement of neuroscience nursing thus enabling optimal patient centred care. Although neurosciences is a relatively small specialty, as nurses we have the power to influence and drive change by working together. Together we can continually strive to build a better and safer environment and provide the best standard of care to our patients whilst advancing our organisation and profession.

One of my key areas of focus over the next 3 years is to increase the relevance of ANNA to our neuroscience nurses so that we can continue to foster growth, collegiality and learning whilst continuing to grow our membership. As a professional organisation we need to connect our members with each other to learn from one another and develop skills and opportunities as well as foster networking and discussion. Our Treasurer Catherine Hardman will be implementing a mentor program in 2020 to provide an opportunity to early career neuroscience nurses as well as an opportunity for more experienced neuroscience nurses looking to give back. The committee are also looking to seek other ways to strengthen the connections we have with our members.

The World Health Assembly has officially designated 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife” in recognition of the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. I look forward to sharing this wonderful celebration with you all at the next ANNA conference in Melbourne, Australia.

I would like to once again thank you for your support and I look forward to working with the committee and members in guiding the association over the next 3 years.