2025 Nursing Conference Grant Winning Essays

The questions for this year’s application cycle were as follows: 

1. Please describe how you will share what you learn at this conference with colleagues. 

2. How will you incorporate what you learn from this educational offering into your practice? 

3. How will this conference advance your long-term career goals (beyond the attainment of continuing education hour requirements)? 

 

Essays were lightly edited for grammar, flow, and readability.  

 

Andrea DeSapri

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Essay 1:  With my direct nursing education colleagues there are several opportunities to share the information gained from this conference. Our Onboarding and Professional Development team of 15 people has a team meeting every other week. I would work with my manager to arrange a block of time at this meeting where I could share the ideas and perspectives offered at the ANPD Convention. In addition, there is a quarterly system-wide department meeting that reaches over 60 educators facilitated by our Vice President of Nursing Professional Development, Research, and Practice. Following Convention, I would assemble a presentation to share at the next quarterly meeting in order to capture a wider audience than just my direct team and disseminate best practices throughout our healthcare system. Beyond the walls of the hospital system I serve, the local-level Northeast Ohio chapter of ANPD, Pentagon, holds quarterly meetings. It is an expectation of this group that those who attend Convention collaborate together and share what they learned from both concurrent sessions as well as the keynote speakers. Through this platform the personal learning I experience at this conference has the ability to be disseminated throughout the entire region of Northeast Ohio healthcare systems - benefiting educators, direct bedside caregivers, and patients.

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Essay 2: Since being recognized by DAISY in 2017, I have promoted from a bedside caregiver role to a role in the nursing education department of the same hospital system. In my current role as a Nursing Professional Development Specialist I support the onboarding of newly hired nurses by facilitating orientation classes, professional development workshops, clinical skill simulations, and mock codes. The ANPD convention highlights evidence-based best practices from around the country specifically related to orientation/onboarding, professional role development, competency management, and collaborative partnerships. Both concurrent sessions and keynote speakers share their methodologies for facilitating the same programs I do, addressing how they have overcome challenges such as learner engagement, teaching to multiple generations of learners in one classroom, incorporating DEI into their programs, and bringing new technologies and ideas to the forefront of nursing education. Within the past year, some of the programs I co-facilitate have been struggling with learner engagement and accountability. The team I am a part of also struggles with adapting new technologies including AI and virtual reality. I hope to bring back from Convention inspiration, creativity, and advice from new perspectives that can help advance the nursing education department I serve through implementation of new technologies, ideas for innovative curriculum development, and content delivery approaches that hopefully increase learner engagement. Ultimately, these enhancements have the opportunity to benefit the nursing staff I serve and promote positive outcomes for the patients in the care of our hospital system - a goal that I aspire to meet just as much in my current role as when I served as a direct bedside caregiver.

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Essay 3: Although the agenda for the 2026 Convention has not been finalized yet, annually there are both concurrent sessions and keynote speakers that address topics such as incorporating new technologies, utilizing evaluation data to support curriculum changes, engaging a diverse audience of learners, collaborating with nurse leaders, and assigning value and ROI to the work of nursing education. My hope is that there will be a wide variety of best practices, shared stories, and implementation examples from speakers at Convention 2026 addressing these themes. In addition to attending the sessions, I plan to engage in conversation with the speakers to determine how to adapt the best practices and new ideologies presented to my specific hospital system and work environment. I believe that there will be a wide variety of approaches to nursing education and professional development shared at this conference that I can take with me to create an action plan that can be applied to the two professional goals cited in the previous question.

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