Attending AANA Mid-Year Assembly? RN/APRN Meet & Greet Explained

If you're planning on attending the ANA's Mid-Year Assembly as a nurse, the very thought of attending can bring a level of anxiety. You're wondering, what happens when you get there? Where do I go? Who do I talk to? Am I even supposed to be here? That uncertainty is real, and it's exactly why I created the RN APRN Meet and Greet presentation. This isn't just another session. It's meant to give you direction, context, and a starting point. So when you walk into this conference, you walk in with clarity instead of guesswork. Welcome back to the CRNA Mentor Podcast. In today's episode, we're gonna talk all about the RN APRN Meet and Greet at Midyear Assembly in Washington, DC. Now this event is going to take place on April 26th at 8:00 AM at the JW Marriott. In today's episode, we're gonna talk a bit about Midyear Assembly and the RN-APRN Meet and Greet if you plan to attend. I want to discuss how the Meet and Greet came to be, what to expect if you plan on attending, who you expect to see there, and what I want you to take away from this presentation. Now, the Mid-Year Assembly is traditionally in our nation's capital, and it's the second biggest conference that the ANA puts on each year. Being that it's situated in Washington, D.C., this conference is all about advocacy of the CRNA profession. And being that that is the main focus, it is a bit of a different feel than the ANA's Annual Congress. Now, Annual Congress this past year in Nashville, Tennessee had nearly 4,500 attendees. It was incredible. It was expansive, and it had 157 different sessions of virtually any topic that you'd want to learn about in anesthesia. It was honestly one of my favorite conferences of all time. Yeah. Now, with that being said, Midyear Assembly is different, but it's a good different. It's a bit of a smaller scale, a little bit more intimate, and definitely has a bit of a different feel. Now, this is largely due to this overarching theme of advocacy. All the CRNAs in attendance at this conference are there for one reason. They are deeply passionate about this profession and wanna support and protect it. You can literally feel the energy of the attendees from the presentations to the hallway conversations, and especially at the Political Action Committee's event, the PAC event. Now, if you're an aspiring CRNA and listening right now, you might be thinking, how do I navigate this experience? I'm not a CRNA, I'm not a nurse anesthesia resident, or really even someone who completely understands this profession. But let me tell you, it is completely normal to feel that way. In fact, the very reason that the RN APRN meet and greet exists is because so many of my mentees shared that same exact sentiment. During my daily phone calls, when I was talking with my mentees, we would get on the topic of professional development, and it went something like this. I would tell them that, you know, one of the newer best opportunities to build your resume is by becoming a member of the ANA. There is an RN APRN option where you can become a member and then attend our conferences. And that's largely what this is all about, is giving you the ability to attend our conferences, to learn about this profession, at a different level while surrounded by CRNAs. Now, as I said this, you know, they would often respond saying, "Tyler, I understand your perspective, but as an RN, I am going to feel like a fish out of water at an anesthesia conference." Now, I heard this time and time again, and I heard it enough times that I realized I needed to do something. So, I leveraged my role as an AANA social media ambassador and got connected to the director of meetings and special events Jen Vrahala. Now, I shared my findings with Jen and with the ANA and received approval to create the RN-APRN Meet and Greet. Now, my entire CRNA Mentor platform is built around welcoming and shepherding in the next generation of CRNAs. So this meet and greet aligns perfectly with my mission and what I aspire to do in terms of helping to shape the CRNA community across the nation. Now, I was absolutely thrilled when I received this opportunity, and, and I look forward to this, you know, this year and hopefully years to come. Now, last year we had a lot of fun. I incorporated a couple different guests. I had Dr. Richard Wilson. He is the Assistant Program Director with Somnia Anesthesia. I had Dr. Debbie Manzola. She is the Program Director at Bloomsburg's anesthesia program, as well as Matt Thaxton. Now, Matt, he is now the lead lobbyist of the ANA. I also brought in some airway equipment, some airway dummies, and we had a couple RNs who actually got their first intubation. Wow. Now, we're gonna do the same exact thing this year. We're gonna have a couple different guests. Joining me, we have Dr. Craig Atkins. He is the program director at Rocky Vista University. We have Dr. Nikki D'Amico. She is the program director at VCU. Matt Faxton is joining us again. He's now, like I said, the lead lobbyist with ANA, as well as Ike Bartell. He is currently an RRNA at Newman University's anesthesia program, and he's the old moderator of our Facebook group, the CRNA Mentor Community. Now, our guests are gonna discuss several different topics. Dr. Craig Atkins will be discussing the history of nurse anesthesia. Nikki D'Amico is going to emphasize the importance of resident engagement and how grassroots advocacy can actually help shape the field of nurse anesthesia. Ike Bartell is going to be talking about early engagement with the ANA and with state associations in terms of advocacy as a nurse anesthesia resident. And then Matt Thaxton will speak about his perspective as our lead lobbyist. Thank you. Now, my number one goal with this meet and greet is simple. It's to make you feel welcomed and comfortable in this experience. There's real value to being surrounded by people who are at the same stage of the journey that you are. And, and I truly believe that, which is why I feel this RN meet and greet is so important. My segment of the presentation is really geared towards getting you acclimated to Midyear Assembly. I plan to share some insight from my personal CRNA journey, as well as from my mentee's journey to become a CRNA. Finally, my aim of this presentation is to really help you make a mindset shift. And if you're able to do that, you will make the most of your conference at Midyear Assembly. After that, we're gonna open the floor to questions. And then after the Q&A, we're gonna have everybody get up and move around to start to network and mingle with not only the other nurses that are there, but there's gonna be a number of nurse anesthesia residents as well as program faculty. Thank you. And other leaders within the ANA. I plan to bring some airway equipment as well as those airway dummies again this year. So if you'd like to learn how to intubate, certainly feel free to do so. Now I do have a bit of a surprise this year for our attendees of this presentation. And, you know, I wanna really break down the barriers of communication and make it easier for you to talk and network with current nurse anesthesia residents as well as CRNAs who are in attendance of this presentation. Hello. Now, I don't want to say too much about this because I don't want to give it away, but I really try and do my best to approach this meeting from your perspective. One is because I'm naturally an introvert myself. You know, last year I had to practice what I preached in this presentation and put myself out there and really reach out to CRNAs that I have never talked to before to network and to kind of, you know, help grow the CRNA Mentor platform. So I really wanna help you do the same and really make it easy to network. Now, last year leading up to Midyear Assembly, I attempted to compile this list of podcast episodes to share with my mentees to help them better understand the Midyear Assembly conference. This year, I launched the CRNA Mentor Podcast that you're listening to right now. And if you're not following, I have created an advocacy miniseries. Now, I will list the episode titles in the show notes below, but this episode is included as well as episode 1 Episodes 3, 4, 5, and then we have 2 more episodes that are gonna be dropping in a couple weeks. One with Matt Thaxton, like I said, the lead lobbyist, and then another one where we are going to be discussing all the different presentations that RNs can attend to kind of try and make most of this conference. Now, this entire miniseries within the CRNA Mentor podcast is devoted to help you understand the meeting before you attend. Now, if you're considering going to Midyear Assembly, but you're reluctant to go because you're gonna have to go by yourself, don't worry. I've thought about that as well. So if you are going by yourself, I encourage you to join our meeting before the meeting. This is gonna be happening within our Facebook group, the CRNA Mentor Community. You can find that linked in the show notes as well. We ended up doing this last year, this meeting before the meeting. It took place on Zoom and everybody introduced themselves. It was super casual, introduced themselves. We got to talking a little bit. And that way they had familiar faces that they recognized before they even arrived at DC. At the meeting before the meeting, we also plan to discuss opportunities to get together throughout the conference. Last year after the RN meet and greet, we had about 15 to 20 different RNs who had attended the RN meet and greet and then joined me for lunch and connected with other nurses who were going through the same part of the journey. And that was really a special part of that conference for me. We ended up doing the same thing at annual congress as well. You know, a group of my mentees, all of us got together at a barbecue joint and they were able to network amongst each other a bit. So we're gonna talk about doing that again in this meeting before the meeting and potentially set that up. Alternatively, there are opportunities at these various conferences to attend independently sponsored events. Now, these events take place in the evening, typically after, you know, these agendas for the day wraps up with the ANA. And Annual Congress had a lot of different opportunities for this. We'll have to explore to see if there— what is out there. I know there is a couple events at Mid-Year Assembly last year, but often you have to kind of be in the know to attend these events, or sometimes they're catered towards a specific group, but we will be discussing this as it kind of gets closer to the conference. At the end of the day, my goal with the RN meet and greet is simple. I want to make this fun and enjoyable for everyone. Not overwhelming, not unclear, not something where you feel like you're trying to figure it out on your own. I, I've been in that position. I've had the same questions and I've watched so many of my mentees feel the exact same way walking into their first conference. So this is me helping shorten that learning curve for you, giving you a place to start, people to connect with, and a clear way to navigate this experience. So when you walk into Midyear Assembly, you feel welcome, you feel like you belong, because that will help you get the most from this experience. Thank you.