Donna Herrin, MSN, RN, CNAA-BC, FACHE

Article Outline

• Tell our readers about your passion for nursing and your career path in the profession
• What leader skill best describes you?
• As you reflect on your career and journey as a nurse leader, is there anything you would have done differently than you did?
• Was it a fellow nurse leader who influenced you the most or someone else?
• You are now the president-elect for AONE and have had an obvious commitment through the years to involvement in professional organizations. What would be your best advice to nurse leaders related to their development through professional organizations?
• What do you see as the greatest challenges facing nursing today, and then what will those challenges be in 10 years?
• Throughout your career, it seems you have maintained positions and involvement in both academic and practice settings. Why has that been so important, and how have you done it?
• What are some of your major areas of interest and work now?
• Share a bit of your personal journey and interests outside of nursing
• Copyright

• 
  • View Large Image
  • Download to PowerPoint

Back to Article Outline

Tell our readers about your passion for nursing and your career path in the profession 

Nursing is the best of the best—as a career, a profession, and a life journey. Sometimes simply stated serves us best, and to say that the opportunities are limitless is true.

Like many of my colleagues, I came into nursing accidentally and nontraditionally. I was a young mother who was interested in hospitals since I was a volunteer as a teen. I then went to work in the local hospital as a unit secretary, soon developing a specific interest in nursing and how one became a nurse. I started taking courses at the community college and within a few years completed the associate degree program.

After some years of practice, I realized that I really must have more education to pursue the things I was interested in—leading and teaching. It took me some time to complete my bachelor's degree in nursing, and when that was complete, I went directly into the master's program.

My practice was first as a labor and delivery staff nurse, which I dearly loved. As I moved through my educational journey, I took on progressively evolving roles in specialty staff development and leadership, becoming the director of a very large women and children's program. I enjoyed many additional opportunities in that role, ranging from leader development and accreditation projects to construction of new buildings and opening new services. It was one of the best learning positions of my entire leadership career.

After 25 years in one organization, I had the opportunity to expand my experience base and moved to become the vice president for patient care services and chief nursing officer. Six years later I moved into my current organization as a senior vice president and chief nurse executive at the corporate level in a multi-hospital system.

Along each of these positions, I held faculty appointments where I taught administration at the graduate level, got involved professionally in the associations, joined an editorial board and became an appraiser for the American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Recognition Program.

Back to Article Outline

What leader skill best describes you? 

I think that I have been a good mentor. I love to listen and ask questions. Many times the questions are posed specifically to engage or help the participant to illuminate what she or he already knows. At other times I just want to know…there is so much to know. I very much enjoy seeing aspiring nurse leaders open the door to their first leadership learning, to attain their first leadership position, to see good leaders become great leaders, and to inspire someone to pursue his or her education or other professional aspiration.

Some colleagues say that I am influential to their work and their pursuits, laughingly saying that, when they spend time with me, they leave with a whole list of ideas—or sometimes work assignments—that stem from our dialogue. I believe that may be the case, in a positive way.

Back to Article Outline

As you reflect on your career and journey as a nurse leader, is there anything you would have done differently than you did? 

Oh yes, many things! Not that there were lots of mistakes, but because the paths are so varied. There are times I look at progress and think, wow, I should have started that earlier than I did, maybe pursued some key goals earlier in my journey.

Back to Article Outline

Was it a fellow nurse leader who influenced you the most or someone else? 

I have been so influenced by the nurse leaders in AONE (American Organization of Nurse Executives), those who were key leaders long before I became active in the organization. I watched their paths, heard their messages, read their works, and aspired to be like them.

Back to Article Outline

You are now the president-elect for AONE and have had an obvious commitment through the years to involvement in professional organizations. What would be your best advice to nurse leaders related to their development through professional organizations? 

First, it is such an honor to be selected to lead a great organization such as AONE. To me, involvement in our profession is not optional. As nurses, across-the-board thinking about how our profession is governed, standards for practice are set, influence is exerted, resources are organized—all are part of the professional nursing role. Whether a staff nurse, a nursing specialist, or a nurse leader, connecting to the professional organization is part of the work. We have a long way to go in this arena.

• 
  • View Large Image
  • Download to PowerPoint

As I speak to nurses in my own organization, to leadership students, and others, I challenge each to see their role as a professional as encompassing the attributes of a leader. Often I clarify that encompassing attributes of a leader and “being” a leader does not mean holding a management position. If all 2 million-plus nurses saw themselves as and acted as leaders, the power of our profession would be unimaginable. I believe this philosophy is grounded in participation in a professional organization.

As for my upcoming time as the 2009 president of AONE, I plan to continue the great work that has begun over the past few years, specifically focusing on reaching 10,000 members by 2010, accelerating the work for future care delivery models, and collaborating across the nursing profession to advance the priority work of AONE. As we turn the corner into 2010, we know we will be at the cusp of many retirements in nursing and nursing leadership, so a focus on the nursing workforce priorities and developing future nurse leaders is of utmost importance.

Back to Article Outline

What do you see as the greatest challenges facing nursing today, and then what will those challenges be in 10 years? 

There are many challenges before us, and along with those challenges are many opportunities. I think defining, testing, and understanding the nursing role of the future and the care delivery processes or models is our greatest opportunity. I am confident that we will thrive and that those who are young in their career or are yet to come have so much professional excitement and fulfillment ahead.

In 10 years, I think the key challenge for the nursing profession will be twofold: the overall need for leaders, as so many will have retired, and the new approaches to care through technology, treatments, and the ever-increasing quest for higher levels of wellness. I am certain that the nursing profession will be thriving, with a high demand for the expertise that nurses bring to health care delivery. I do think, though, that the role will be very different and even more crucial in the patient care delivery approaches being designed and tested today. The AONE model describing the nurse of the future provides a lot of guidance to education and to practice as we prepare for these future years.

Back to Article Outline

Throughout your career, it seems you have maintained positions and involvement in both academic and practice settings. Why has that been so important, and how have you done it? 

To teach is to learn, and to work with learners is so inspiring. I am so inspired by students as they uncover the learning of leadership. They motivate me to grow so that I can continue as a role model and mentor for them. While I have greatly enjoyed the classroom, I now am thriving in the online environment. It is remarkable how quickly participants—both teacher and student—can know one another. From the faculty perspective, it does not take long at all to see where students are excelling and where others may be challenged. Virtual teaching has to be integrated into overall faculty work as the boundaries can be limitless. Students participate at any time and at any place and have expectations as learners that their faculty is side by side with them, creating somewhat of a 24/7 teaching experience. It is something that academic institutions are examining as there is some perception that to teach online is less demanding when, in some ways, it creates more demand on the faculty role.

I expect that I will always be involved in both the academic and practice arenas for the foreseeable future. I think this blended approach is very complimentary to our profession, the academic setting, and the practice environment.

Back to Article Outline

What are some of your major areas of interest and work now? 

Like many nurse leaders today, I am very interested in and focused on leader development, resource management, specifically workforce planning, and looking futuristically at nursing roles, care models, and the implication of information technology. With my appointment at the university (University of Alabama at Huntsville) I have been able to blend my practice areas of interest into my teaching work, helping administrative students integrate practical, real-time practice challenges into their courses, papers, and projects.

There are so many challenges and opportunities, and the work of nursing leadership is so interesting and evolving. Currently I enjoy leading nursing and patient care delivery across a very large health system. There are many aspects of this work, starting with key collaboration with the CNOs at the delivery sites. The CNOs lead patient care delivery for their site, and I then primarily work on strategic matters and advancement of the care processes and the professional practice for nursing. I am privileged to work with a great team of nurse leaders, and in collaboration with them, we are transforming the practice of nursing, addressing workforce planning for both the short term and the long term, and orchestrating massive system-wide implementation of information technology. Key to all of this is the ongoing development of our entire leadership team. Our team wrote and was funded to examine new approaches to leader development using various interventions. These interventions are designed to improve the leader's ability to impact the relationship with nurses providing direct care, thus leading to retention and improved patient outcomes.

• 
  • View Large Image
  • Download to PowerPoint

Back to Article Outline

Share a bit of your personal journey and interests outside of nursing 

Those who know me personally know that I place very high value on faith and family. The past few years, life has challenged me greatly, and I have been significantly impacted by the untimely death of my husband. I have learned so much about the value of friends and family and transcending grief. I am still in that journey and know that my life has been profoundly changed by the experience. In my professional work, I have always valued a focus on patient-family centered care, and now that has more meaning to me than ever before. It is something that health care delivery across the board has so much more to learn about. I find great inspiration in time spent with my six grandchildren and get great pleasure from being with them as they learn, grow, and experience life.