LEADERSHIP IN ACTION
A Report from the June 2013 ACNM Board Meeting
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by Kate Harrod, CNM, PhD, RN, APNP, FACNM, Secretary, ACNM Board of Directors
he ACNM Board of Directors met several times during the ACNM 58th Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Nashville, TN, to consider issues of critical importance to the membership. Our meetings at the Annual Meeting were also a time of transition: we bid farewell to past Treasurer Tanya Tanner, CNM; Region II Representative Kate McHugh, CNM; and Student Representative Emily Hanavan, SNM, and welcomed new Treasurer Joan Slager, CNM; Region II Representative Anne Gibeau, CNM; and Student Representative Lillian Funke, SNM. We also welcomed back Region III Representative Michael McCann, CNM, for a second term. Most significantly, Ginger Breedlove, CNM, officially became ACNM president after a year of preparation as presidentelect. We extend our heartfelt thanks to past president Holly Powell Kennedy, CNM, for her outstanding efforts on behalf of ACNM and midwifery, and aim to build upon the era of unprecedented interprofessional cooperation, public awareness, and political clout the profession currently enjoys as a direct result of her tenure. In June, we approved the reorganization of the ACNM regions to add a seventh region and representative to the Board of Directors. The decision was made after receiving overwhelmingly positive member feedback to the changes current board members had indicated were necessary to function most effectively. Read more about the new regional structure on page 29. We also considered another change to the structure of our board: many organizations like ACNM are now including a consumer representative, and volunteer leadership has expressed interest in doing the same. National office staff will solicit member feedback regarding formal consumer input and report at the September meeting. We approved several motions to improve the timeliness of ACNM responses to student issues. The student representative and board and staff liaisons to the Division
of Education will now review the Student Report and address its requests through agenda items prepared for the September Board meeting. The national office will work in collaboration with the Division of Education to finalize the development of a new online program to assist in exam preparation for 2013. They will also develop a business plan to produce a secondgeneration interactive exam prep program. Read more about the Student Report on page 12.
Motions from the Business Meeting
Two business meetings were held at the ACNM 58th Annual Meeting to provide ACNM members an opportunity to propose recommendations to the ACNM leadership and debate those motions with their peers. This year, members brought forth and approved 4 motions, on which the BOD deliberated in their meeting following the business meetings. Here is a summary of those motions and next steps determined by the board:
Women’s Health, the ACNM Board of Directors create a planned and professionally-run initiative, both electronic in preparation for the Annual Meeting and face-to-face at the Annual Meeting, in which members can share, discuss, dialogue, and debate their concerns, questions, fears, and hopes related to midwifery’s relationship with nursing and the other arm of midwifery in all critical areas, i.e., practice, education, law, and politics. This initiative would bring the US MERA process to the grassroots of ACNM with the goal of enhancing understanding, clarifying misperceptions, and identifying common beliefs. Board Action: This subject will be placed on the ACNM Town Hall eMidwife Discussion Group (www.midwife.org/ eMidwife-Discussion-Groups).
MOTION 3: The ACNM board submits a
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