Lisa Morris shares her passion for being a nurse navigator and expands on how much she's gained from AONN+.
Transcription:
My name is Lisa Morris, and I am a breast nurse navigator. I work at Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. I am the chapter president for the Alabama chapter of the AONN+. Why did I come to the AONN+ conference this year? Because I wanted to learn new things to take back to Alabama chapter, and to my hospital, and to my own practice. There's so much awesome, wonderful information that we get here, that is just, I don't know what to say, it's just wonderful to be able to take it home.
What have I found most educational about the conference? Everything. I just cannot say one thing. Last night we heard Matt Zachary and his story was just so moving, and it just made me recommit why I do what I do, that the patient really needs us as navigators.
How do I plan to use this information? Again, I'm going to implement a lot of the information that they gave us, the tools that they gave us to use in my own practice, and again, to share with some of the navigators that were not able to come so that we can make a very cohesive navigation organization. Am I going to get certification and why is development of a program and a national organization important? Boy, that's a loaded question.
I am going to get certification through the AONN+, I am certified through the National Breast Navigation, and I want to get the overall oncology one as well. As we know as navigators we don't just navigate a lot of times one discipline, so I think it's very important and it's the standardization of everyone being on the same page and thus getting the information out about why becoming a navigator and a certified navigator, because again, we uphold the standards and it makes us stronger.
I've been a navigator for 10 years, and I have been certified for 7 of those. I became a nurse 31 years ago. I've always wanted to be a nurse, and it is definitely for me, a calling by God to be in to the oncology profession. My mother and my sisters both have had cancer, and I saw the need for navigating because back 20 years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of navigation. So that's my passion for what I do.
