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If ever there was a time to focus on the here and now, it was this past year. Yet with our heads down, we may not have seen how well we were able to balance being present with investing in the future. Upon arriving at UVA Health last month, Kathy Baker, Chief Nursing Officer, recognized this achievement immediately. “Through the pandemic, while other hospitals were in survival mode,” she said, “you were moving forward.”

One important step Veronica Brill, Associate Chief Nursing Officer, took to keep us moving forward was nominating two nurses for AONL Nurse Leader Fellowships, which prepare participants to lead change through mentoring, networking, webinars, and conferences. Jennifer T. Hall (AONL Nurse Director Fellow) and Alison Okerlund (AONL Nurse Manager Fellow) recently discussed what this opportunity meant for them and for UVA Health.

Why excites you about participating in this year’s AONL fellowship?

Hall: As the national organization recognized for setting the standards for nursing leadership, AONL helps keep our nurse leaders connected to nursing constructs and theory. I love that so much of what the fellowship provides is concrete and practical — not corporate. I’m excited about the networking opportunity and am looking forward to having that external support or “hotline” to reach out to for ideas and tools.

Okerlund: I love to learn and travel so I’m excited for the five sessions we’ll attend throughout the year. I know they will re-energize me and give me new ideas. I’m also excited to have the time and space to reflect on my 13+ years with UVA Health and use to further develop as a leader. I feel honored to represent and give back to UVA Health.

As part of the application, you had to share your leadership story. What did you learn in the process of writing about yourself?

Hall: AONL was explicit about not wanting just a regurgitation of our CV. Walking through my journey made me realize a pattern in myself of experiential learning alongside formal learning. I had not seen that before, which was really interesting.

Okerlund: As a self-described introvert, leadership was not originally high on the list when considering my professional trajectory. But as I recalled poignant moments in my career, a thread emerged around developing my leadership voice — what it sounded like, what it means to me, and its importance in leadership.

Can you share an excerpt from your story?

Hall: “One of my most prized possessions is a second grade art project of yarn embroidery on burlap. The assignment required that we embroider a picture of who we wanted to be when we grew up. I depicted my stick figure self in a white cap and uniform with my hands touching a stick figure patient in a hospital bed complete with a hand crank to raise the bed. My vision for myself as a nurse never wavered and after high school, I enrolled in community college to begin my journey to becoming a nurse. As a first generation college student in a large family, it was a financial stretch to make this path possible, and I did not take it for granted.”

Okerlund: “The 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally was a defining moment for our community, our team, and my leadership perspective and presence. As an interim manager for the Surgical and Trauma Intensive and Intermediate Care Units, I did not have a rulebook on how to prepare or react to the anticipated violent threat to our community. Prior to the rally, I gathered my team in a huddle and expressed my confidence in their skills and preparation but also addressed the underlying concerns of providing support to others who do not fit our own morals, values, and beliefs. This event helped me to realize I had demonstrated a level of support, transparency, and vulnerability, which had further strengthened the confidence the team had in me to lead.”

Can you tell us a bit about your capstone project?

Hall: I will be working on nurse leader succession planning for directors. Leadership vacancies are devastating. Even when they are planned, they are so destabilizing. Turnover compromises our help chain and our ability to get the support we need to solve delivery of care issues. We need to make it easy to do the right thing by hardwiring a process into Workday. My hypothesis is if we can get it right and execute on it well for directors, then they can teach the manager level. And who knows, if we have success, there’s an opportunity to share the learnings within the Magnet community or even publish our work more broadly.

Okerlund: I will be developing a Critical Care Trauma Response Nurse role. Best practice within many trauma centers is to have an ICU nurse respond down to the trauma bay for all their life-threatening traumas. Between the Emergency Department and the Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit, we’ve talked about this need for many years but we just haven’t had the resources to commit to its development.