The tragic events of Sept. 11 gave most of us cause to reassess what is important in our lives and how we choose to live. Simply said, priorities have been re-evaluated and adjusted to fit into the world as we now know it. Without question, it's a different world today.

It is appropriate, yet refreshing, that the focus on "everyday heroes" in the aftermath of last year's attacks has stimulated a renewed interest in service professions, such as law enforcement, firefighting and nursing. While I expect to see far more "uniforms" at our door this Halloween, I would like to see at least a few "nurses." I wonder what visible symbols children of today will associate with being a nurse?

It is an unfortunate reality that dramatic events often are necessary to produce the requisite sense of urgency and motivation for us to make meaningful change. I remain hopeful that the generally dire condition of health care in California will receive the attention it deserves before some type of disaster highlights our gross inadequacies.

I also have great hopes that California's nursing community can coalesce around a few meaningful strategies to prepare us for the future.

The fourth California Nursing Summit will take place Sept. 13 at the Sacramento Convention Center. As conferences go, it is a bargain. But more importantly, it is the "do not miss" event in our state for the nursing community. I am honored to be part of this event, and NurseWeek is pleased to be a sponsor. We will share as-yet-unpublished data from California's own nurses that we derived from our recent national study. Some of the results were fascinating-and will surprise you. We look forward to gradually sharing this data in future issues.

One thing is for sure, more summits and other meetings like them will be necessary to bring California's nursing community together, and to serve as a catalyst for our influence on key policy issues. Although a lot of great things are happening locally, not much that is helpful is occurring in Sacramento.

Even the simple (so to speak) things seem to be difficult. For example, can we collectively exert our influence on our governor and ask him to release Board of Registered Nursing funding so that our own dollars can go to work for us? We have a talented board waiting to collect data through our licensing process, if only we could access our own funds.

I hope that this and other achievements will be the result of our collective efforts during the next year. Regardless of our agenda, I hope and pray we find synergy and enthusiasm for our goals without an external imperative forcing our hand.

Discuss this and other topics with your colleagues at www.nurseweek.com/rnvillage.