NTI 2019: AACN's Nursing Conference in Orlando
After attending NTI for the last three years, I can definitely say it’s one of the best nursing conferences I’ve ever been to and it keeps getting better every year!
My first National Teaching Institute (NTI) was back in 2017 in Houston, TX. (Fun fact, this is the conference that inspired me to start my website/blog, The Burnout Book!)
Then, in 2018 I attended NTI in Boston, MA. I had the privilege to be a volunteer social media influencer for AACN while I attended the conference!
At NTI 2019 in Orlando, FL I was an attendee, influencer, and SPEAKER!
Let me back up and explain what NTI is for those of you who are aren’t familiar with it. The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) holds their annual conference every year with the purpose of educating the thousands of nurses who attend. This conference is for nurses who work with high-acuity patients (which is basically all of us) and you can earn CE contact hours at the live sessions, PLUS you have access to recorded sessions for several months after the conference!
Here are some of the highlights from 2019:
Education and Professional Development
Education is one of the primary reasons nurses to go to conferences and NTI excels at this! There are hundreds of learning opportunities packed into few days with 20+ different concurrent sessions and mini ExpoEd sessions happening simultaneously! It’s hard to even get away to grab lunch (which is why several veteran NTI attendees have given the advice of stopping by a grocery store the first day you arrive and having snacks and food to keep you going during the day)! It’s wise to pre-plan which sessions you want to attend before you even get to NTI (with a plan B or C as a backup in case that session is full). WARNING: The FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) is real! You’re one person and you can only be one place at one time. AACN has helped address this by recording majority of the sessions and offering them for several months after the conference! For example, four months after NTI 2019, I watched a couple more sessions specific to nurse burnout that I had missed in the comfort of my own home. The NTI planning committee does a great job selecting topics that will cover variety of topics (clinical and non-clinical) across all levels of experience! And of course, everything comes with CEs.
The “supersessions” are always interesting and provide a way for members to hear from AACN leadership and other inspiring people in person. Be ready for when they announce awards/achievements of individuals and chapters, it’s basically one big party! (I’m talking a DJ with music and confetti!)
Social Media Influencer
Jon (Twitter @TechNurseJon) and I during one of the Facebook live streams! I don’t remember what I was talking about, but it might have been how to perform chest compressions on an infant? Thanks to Monica and Mike with AACN for all the behind the scenes work!
One of my favorite NTI experiences was the chance to work with AACN’s marketing team as one of their volunteer social media influencers for the conference! The team consisted of @TechNurseJon, @redbeardrn, @lisaraeayers, and @AMednurse. We attended the conference, posted about our experiences using the hashtag #NTI2019, and then got together at the end of the day to do Facebook live stream videos to recap the events of the day! It’s nice to be able to share bits and pieces of the conference with nurses who weren’t able to attend.
Being a Speaker
One of the major highlights of NTI 2019 was the opportunity to speak as a panelist on the topic, “Support for Practice: How to Survive a Bad Day.” Magally, Andrea, and I each took turns sharing our best strategies for dealing with a bad day! Julie and Sarah from AACN helped us by facilitating the discussion and helping us organize everything. Also, I think it’s necessary to thank modern technology for playing a major role in helping us pull this off.
The night before we were scheduled to speak, one of our panelists, Magally, was notified that her plane was being delayed. Instead of arriving that night, she would be arriving the next day, a few hours after our scheduled session. After some frantic texts and phone calls back and forth, she came to the realization that she wouldn’t be able to arrive sooner and would have to miss the session. However, over the months leading up to NTI we had met up through Skype several times to practice what we would say. So that night, Magally video recorded her portion of the session and shared her bad day strategies. The next day, Julie and Sarah were able to work with the AACN crew to get that video embedded into our presentation! While she wasn’t physically there, Magally was still able to share her ideas with the group! Talk about a real life example of how to survive a bad day. Thanks to the awesome nurses who came to that session and interacted with us!
Here’s a little interview AACN did with myself and the other panelists for Bold Voices.
StoryCorps
The StoryCorps airstream trailer was in Orlando at NTI! To celebrate their 50th Anniversary, AACN launched the Nurse Stories Project in partnership with StoryCorps and they want to hear our stories! Instructions of how to do this can be found on the AACN website. The audio is then put into an archive in the Library of Congress, which is pretty awesome! You can even submit your story in writing, if you prefer.
I was lucky enough to get a time slot during the conference to sit in the airstream and record with Christiaan (@redbeardrn). As recording buddies, our job was to keep each other talking by asking probing questions: how we met (NTI 2018), the origins of our nursing career, how we both ended up in critical care, etc. The conversation gets really interesting when we both discuss our dual role as nurse and patient (we were both recently diagnosed with autoimmune disease- Type 1 Diabetes for Christiaan and Crohn’s disease for me). AACN is taking some of those recorded stories and condensing it into a quick 3-minute synopsis. When our story comes out, I’ll be sure to link it here!
And seriously. We all have a story to tell. Consider recording your own story!
The Expo is massive! There’s a reason attendees get a map and everything is labeled with numbers, a person could totally get lost in there. AACN has 14 hours of Exhibit time over the three days with tons of ExpoEd opportunities for conference attendees to learn something new!
You’ll see all the big name medical companies here with their latest and greatest technology and equipment. This is the place to come if you want to get all the conference swag (pens, water bottles, compression socks, stress balls, candy, etc.) or get in line for a massage or coffee. It’s also where you’ll go if you want to practice compressions on a Zoll manakin or pet some Therapet dogs! You can talk to industry experts if you’re looking to go back to school, start a new job, or become a travel nurse or flight/transport nurse!
Insider tip: if the Expo becomes too much stimulation for the senses, go find the Certification Oasis! It reminds me of a library: it’s quiet, there’s comfy chairs, they have water/coffee/sometimes snacks, and you can just relax. The certification ladies are the best and will answer all your questions, or just let you hang out. Also, they have amazing pens.
Meeting New People/Networking
While NTI was originally created as a source of education for nurses, it’s also, by default, a great way to meet nurses from all over the country! The ability to meet new people or see old friends is an amazing reason to attend NTI! It becomes a reunion of sorts when you get to see the same people once a year.
Nurses Night Out/Certification Dinner
NTI 2019 Nurses Night Out at Universal Studios in Orlando! The theme park was reserved for us as a “private event” and we were able to enjoy majority of the park from 7:30pm-11:00pm (only a few areas were closed off). I spent most of my time with friends at Wizarding World of Harry Potter and had dinner at The Three Broomsticks! The night went way too fast.
While I didn’t attend the certification dinner in 2019, I went to it the 2 previous years and it’s always a good time! It’s fun being in a room with other certified nurses and celebrating your achievements. There’s dinner, a DJ, and dancing! It does require an extra fee/ticket to get in, so make sure to do that with your registration (they do sell out).
Thanks for reminiscing with me! If you attended NTI 2019, leave a comment and tell me YOUR favorite parts! What did I miss?
And you guys. Registration is open for NTI 2020! It will be May 4-7, 2020 in Indianapolis, IN and I cannot wait! Save the date, request your PTO, and text your nurse BFF and see if they want to join you! AACN also has NTI scholarships they award out to 20 first-time attendees and 20 veteran attendees, all your costs could be covered! Deadline is December 9, 2020!
P.S. SPOILER: I’ll be a speaker in 2020! My two sessions are “ICU Versus ED: Bridging the Specialty Gap” (co-presenting with Sarah Wells of New Thing Nurse) and “Power of Poop: Fecal Transplants and the Future of Medicine.” It’s going to be epic.