By Maribeth Massie, CRNA, MS

I am your Florida Advocate to the AANA Foundation. What does the Advocate do? Essentially, I am the eyes, ears, and communication liaison between the Foundation and the Florida members. So then, you may ask, what does the Foundation do? I would love to share the highlights with you! The Foundation serves as the philanthropic arm of the AANA. Its purpose is to promote the art and science of anesthesia by rewarding and supporting evidence-based research, education, and practice endeavors. This is accomplished by supporting the membership (you!) through student scholarships, doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships, the doctoral mentorship program, and educational and research-related awards.

Just to bring it home a bit, I’d like to acknowledge those SRNA’s and CRNA’s from the great state of Florida that were able to further our profession with the help of Foundation fellowship and scholarship awards:

• Doctoral Fellowships: Juan Gonzalez, CRNA, MS and Tony Umadhay, CRNA, MSN (both Barry University)
• Student Scholarships: Joyce Kelly Scholarship to Stephen Cooper II, RN (Florida International University) and FANA Scholarship (NEW this year!) to Charmaine Navarro, RN (Wolford College)

Additional recognition goes to:

• Friend For Life: Bruce Weiner, CRNA, MS
• State of the Science Oral Poster Presenters: Juan Gonzalez, CRNA, PhD; Jeffrey Groom, CRNA, PhD; Jampierre Mato, CRNA, MSN; Robert Albertini, CRNA, MSN; Paolo Lizardo, CRNA, MSN; Sergei Roda, CRNA, MSN (Florida International University)

I know you are wondering how you can help. Thanks for asking! You can help in several ways but let me ask you to consider one way today: Participate in the 2010 Foundation State Challenge! This was designed to instill a competitive spirit of giving among state organizations! It runs from September 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. It would be great PR for the state of Florida to demonstrate we care about raising funds for nurse anesthesia research and education. I’ll tell you how to do it below.

Now why don’t you consider applying for a student scholarship or doctoral fellowship? Think about presenting a poster at the Annual Meeting? Allow yourself the honor of becoming a Friend for Life? Recognize a colleague or loved one via the Tribute Program? Donate a tax-deductible contribution to this wonderful Foundation of our future?

Get more information about the above programs and donate online at www.aanafoundation.com

Mail a check to: AANA Foundation,

Check out the FANA website for a link to the AANA Foundation and my contact information.