Guglielmi Voted President-elect of Nursing Group
First Massachusetts leader of AORN since 1960s
Date: 4/13/2009
BIDMC Contact: Jerry Berger
Phone: 617-667-7308
Email: jberger@bidmc.harvard.edu
BOSTON – Charlotte Guglielmi, RN, a perioperative nurse specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), has been voted president-elect of the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN), a professional trade organization whose membership includes more than 42,000 professional nurses.
A 30-year veteran of the hospital, Guglielmi, a Quincy resident, is the first nurse from BIDMC to hold the position. In fact, her election marks the first time a nurse from Massachusetts has held the office since the 1960s.
AORN strives to advance the profession of nursing and improve patient safety in the surgical setting by providing members with clinical practice support and educational opportunities. The group is governed by a 12-member elected board of directors and five elected officials.
A member of AORN since 1985, Guglielmi has served as the president of the Massachusetts chapter and nationally as a member of the board of directors, secretary and vice president. She will work closely with the current president during 2009 to prepare for being installed as president of AORN in March 2010.
The average age of an operating room nurse is 49, according to Guglielmi, who sees her new position as a way of “making sure our younger generation of nurses fall in love with nursing in the same way we did.”
“We need to blend the intellectual wisdom of older nurses with the enthusiasm of younger ones,” she said. “My challenge will be to connect those two groups to create a synergy of young and old with the goal always keeping your eye on the patient.”
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and consistently ranks among the top four in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org .
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