Meet the new AORN president

AORN Journal,  May, 2005  by Liz Cowperthwaite

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

AORN's new President, Sharon A. McNamara, RN, MS, CNOR, vividly remembers the excitement of attending her first AORN Congress in 1980. She was awestruck at meeting and talking to the people who had written the textbooks she had read in her perioperative nursing program. She remembers watching then-President Barbara J. Gruendemann, RN, MS, CNOR, FAAN, at the House of Delegates and the thrill of being "close enough to touch the President's sleeve" when Gruendemann came down the aisle to leave the session.

   As a new nurse coming in, the whole
   experience had such an impact. You
   see [the Board members] as almost
   untouchable. They were up there, and
   you could never be that.

Now; entering the Presidency, she is surprised when she receives the same kind of reaction. Recently, when she visited her own chapter to do a presentation, she was startled at the applause she received when she entered the room. All she could think to say was, "It's just me!"

FROM SURGICAL TECHNOLOGIST TO RN

Growing up in Lackawanna, NY, a steel town just outside of Buffalo, McNamara had not given much thought to a career in nursing. That changed in her senior year of high school when her father died suddenly of a heart attack at age 49. She remembers the hospital experience and recalls how wonderful the nurses were to her mother as a turning point. She also credits her mother, Rita, who managed to raise four daughters on her own with only a grade school education, with showing her that she could achieve anything she set out to do.

McNamara applied to the University of Buffalo with the goal of becoming a psychiatric nurse. Unfortunately, her grade point average was two points too low, which prevented her from being accepted, so when an opportunity arose at a small hospital that offered a surgical technologist (ST) on-the-job training course, she took it.

Working as an ST, Sharon met two of the women who would become important mentors in her nursing career. The woman who has had the greatest impact on her career is Doris Bolton Chalfant, RN, who was her manager at Our Lady of Victory Hospital in Lackawanna.

   She has been my role
   model for the kind of
   nurse I hope I will be--a
   very compassionate lady,
   very much dedicated to
   perioperative nursing.
   She was an expert clinician
   who held the standards
   of perioperative
   nursing in high esteem.
   There was no grey area.
   You did it the right way,
   or you had to make her
   understand why you
   didn't. She is a great
   mentor.

Her other mentor and role model was Ann Williams, RN, MS, who McNamara met through AORN of Western New York State. At that time, AORN chapters were helping STs start their own organization, which is now the Association of Surgical Technologists.

   The AORN chapter mentored us, and
   they were very active in recruiting
   perioperative nurses from the surg tech
   population. A lot of people from that
   age group who are AORN members
   now started as surg techs and went
   back to get their degrees and RNs.

After 12 years as an ST, McNamara entered an evening nursing program for adults at Trocaire College in Buffalo.

McNamara went to work as a staff nurse in the OR at Our Lady of Victory Hospital after she received her associate's degree. A little more than a year later, administrators from Trocaire College approached her to say they were opening a clinical site at the hospital; they offered her a clinical instructor position. After 10 years, she took over as director of the program and concurrently taught an introduction to perioperative nursing course. She also received her bachelor's degree and a master's degree in community health nursing during this 10-year period. Innovative nursing programs and a career in nursing enabled McNamara to complete her education, work flexible hours, and still be home to raise her children, Brighid and Ken.

After five years as program director at Trocaire College, McNamara was offered a position as a perioperative clinical nurse specialist at Millard Fillmore Hospital, Buffalo. She accepted the position, and two years later, she took over as manager of the OR at the hospital's city campus. After another two years, she became the director of surgical services. When the hospital merged with a larger system a year and a half later, she became responsible for two city hospitals, Millard Fillmore, which had a 12-room OR, and Buffalo General, which had a 26-room OR.

Two years ago, after her daughter moved to Raleigh, NC, and her husband, John, retired, McNamara began to investigate other options. She called WakeMed Health and Hospitals in Raleigh and was interviewed on the telephone and later in person. She accepted a position as director of surgical services and made the transition to the south with her husband and son, Ken. She describes WakeMed as an extremely nursing oriented facility where she has the resources and the administrative support to do her job and support her staff.