Disclaimer - this is NOT an anti-Clinton diary. We have too many of those as it is. But I'm fairly involved in nursing politics and y'all need the straight story on what this endorsement is worth. Which in my mind is nothing. The relationshops among the various nursing organizations - the ANA, the UAN and the various state associations - are too convoluted for almost anyone to care about. But here's the essential information:
The ANA is an organization with a once proud history of building the nursing profession. Unfortunately, for at least as long as I have been a nurse - 26 years - it has been an organization led entirely be academic nurses and management nurses. I would bet plenty there is no working bedside nurse - no nurse who actually cares for patients - in its top leadership.
The California Nurses Assn - the best and most effective nurses union in the US - used to be part of the ANA. And it used to be run by managers and professors of nursing. But in 1993 the staff nurses - the people who pay the dues and do the work - rose up and took over the organization.
At that time, the hospital industry's main agenda was to replace RNs at the bedside with unlicensed personnel, trained on the job. They called them things like "care partners" They called the process "re-structuring" We called it "de-skilling" And the ANA was all on board with it.
So we got tired of sending millions of our dues dollars to the ANA to undermine our profession and in 1995 we opted out.
Since that time the CNA (Now CNA/NNOC) has quadrupled in size, won the best contracts in the world for nurses and the first and still only nurse/patient ratio law in the US.
during that time, the ANA has done what?
Given each other a lot of awards, padded their resumes and held a bunch of meetings around themes like "Nurses would get more respect if we made a masters the entry level degree".
So don't anyone kid themselves that the ANA represents any working nurses. They may fancy themselves THE national nurses organization, but they're a legend in their own minds with nothing left but a prestigious name.