Professional organizations and networking in nursing are critical for generating the energy, flow of ideas, and proactive work needed to maintain a healthy profession that advocates for the needs of its clients and nurses, and the trust of society. For instance, I work in the operating room and belong to Operating Room Nurses Association of Canada (ORNAC). I also recently became a member of Forensic Nurses Association of Canada. It is important to hold a membership in professional organizations because they can provide learning resources, networking, evidence-based information, workshops, and conferences to improve nursing skills. The goal of advocacy efforts by professional organization is to educate association members, all professional nurses, and the public about the importance of broad-base membership, creative ideas, and energetic participation in helping the profession improve and move to higher levels. In prior eras, visionary nurses realized the need for associations in order to meet the changes occurring in the social, cultural, and economic sectors of their world. Elected association leaders today remain responsive to their members and incorporate members' input by devising new mechanisms to advance healthcare through the nursing profession, thus allowing members to contribute to the accountability and voice of the profession to society (Matthews, 2012).
The balance between professional career and belonging to a professional organization can be maintained by