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By Amanda Lynn Garlock, RT(R),(MR)
I am writing to you, my fellow leaders from our facility’s command center at 3:30 in the morning guarding our precious inventory of PPE in the midst of a national Covid-19 pandemic and PPE availability crisis. I find myself scouring the AHRA boards for best practices from other organizations and leaders to see what is going on in other parts of the country. Not only that but I am at ground zero.
Our facility hosted the first patient in the nation and I know that I have information to share with others that may help them prepare so that they don’t end up facing as much of a crisis as we did. This is why I belong to the AHRA. This is why we need to encourage those who are new to leadership to join the organization or maybe they have been in the profession for a while and they haven’t really seen the benefits of membership. I can tell you that we are living it. There is no better time than now. I have never seen the forums more active in the past two years than I have in the past 3 weeks. No judgments being passed just support, ideas, best practices, well wishes, prayers, and thankfully a bit of humor because we could all use a bit of levity during this time.
I am grateful to be a part of such an organization. Take that support and reach out to your up and coming leaders. Get your leads involved with local meetings and seminars. Encourage them to take advantage of the monthly membership option as a more cost effective means of membership and then encourage them to apply for the annual meeting scholarship. I can promise you that should they win a scholarship and attend the annual meeting as I was lucky enough to do this past summer in Denver, they will never leave the organization and you will have a leader for life. If you see that spark, especially now in a time of crisis, fan that flame and give it room to grow. Create something positive during this time of stress. Show them how their membership opens the door to resources such as the forums and webinars where best practices can be shared in real time for events like these. This is membership and leadership in action. This is your AHRA.
Amanda Lynn Garlock, RT(R),(MR), is the Supervisor of Quality, Training, and Safety for Imaging at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, WA. She can be reached at Amanda.Garlock@providence.org
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I agree wholeheartedly. I have been a member of the AHRA since 2000. This is truly a family with a great love for our profession and each other. Sharing of information and best practices is only a small part of what this association does.