Nursing and war require alert personnel. Lois James, assistant dean of research and associate professor in the WSU College of Nursing, studies fatigue among nurses. Learn more in this KUOW story from September 2021.

James will discuss her latest research as a featured speaker at the 2023 Washington State Nurses Convention May 17-19 in Tacoma. Register now!

The 2023 Washington State Nurses Convention
Rooted in Advocacy, Growing in Strength
May 17-19, 2023
Greater Tacoma Convention Center

Registration is open for the 2023 Washington State Nurses Convention. Lock in early bird rates by registering today.

We will gather together at the airy, modern Greater Tacoma Convention Center for three days of education, inspiration, and celebration. This is a time to network, connect, and gather strength from one another. Nurses have emerged from the pandemic more powerful than ever and it’s our time to harness that power.  

An impressive lineup of local and national speakers will address topics like speaking up for yourself and your patients, ending structural ableism, leadership in extraordinary times, self-care, creating a future you want, and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.    

This is Washington’s only statewide convention dedicated exclusively to nurses and the issues we face. Join us!

“The speakers were motivating and inspirational, and the content was exceptional.”
- 2021 Convention attendee  

Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a senior policy service professor at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at the George Washington University School of Nursing and professor emerita at Hunter College, where she held the Rudin Endowed Chair and founded the Center for Health, Media & Policy.

Dr. Mason is the programme director for the International Council of Nurses’ Global Nursing Leadership Institute, a past president of the American Academy of Nursing, and former editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Nursing.

She has produced and hosted radio programs on health and health policy since 1985 and currently hosts HealthCetera in the Catskills on WIOX Radio.

She has served as the only health professional on the National Advisory Committee for Kaiser Health News since its inception in 2009.

Dr. Mason is the lead editor of the book Policy and Politics in Nursing and Health Care and blogs on policy for JAMA Health Forum. She is the principal investigator on a 2017 replication of the 1997 Woodhull Study on Nurses and the Media published in 2018 in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship. She did an additional analysis of journalists’ experiences using nurses as sources in health news stories published in the American Journal of Nursing.

She is chair of the National Advisory Board for the Rush Center Health and Social Care Integration and of the Steering Committee for the Catskills Addiction Coalition.

She is the recipient of numerous awards for policy, leadership, dissemination of science, writing, education, public health, media, and advocacy, including the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Health Policy by the New York Academy of Medicine in 2019.

Dr. Mason received a BSN from West Virginia University, MSN from St. Louis University, and PhD from New York University.

She will speak on elevating your power.

Elsa Sjunneson is an internationally published author on the subject of disability and ableism. As a deafblind activist, she has worked to dismantle structural ableism. As an author, she’s written her memoir, Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, reported for Radiolab on “The Helen Keller Exorcism,” and been the subject of a PBS American Masters Short Documentary. Being Seen was nominated for a 2022 Hugo Award and won for best biography/memoir in the 2022 Washington State Book Awards.

Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight. Sjunneson has partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids. She cannot see well enough without a guide dog or cane, but she can see people react to her disability and often hears what they say.

Sjunneson will address ending ableism against disabled persons in the healthcare system.

Lois James, PhD, is an assistant dean of research and an associate professor in the Washington State University College of Nursing, where she focuses on the impact of sleep loss, fatigue, stress, and bias on performance and safety in shift workers such as nurses, police officers, firefighters, and military personnel. She has received multiple honors and awards for her work and is internationally recognized as a leading expert in her field. She is the founding director of Counter Bias Training Simulation (CBTsim), a novel and innovative simulation-based implicit bias training program that has been featured in National Geographic and the feature-length documentary “bias.” Dr. James’s work has been published extensively in academic journals, practitioner magazines, and mainstream media such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

She will speak on her latest research on the effects of fatigue among nurses.

Patti Timbers, MBA, BSN, has been a nurse for over 25 years with a passion for helping people and their growth. Along with being director of informatics at Northwest Kidney Centers, Timbers is a life coach helping nurses become the best versions of themselves. Her mission is to help individuals and groups find their passion, let go of their past hurts, and become the truest version of themselves to improve the world around them.

She will speak on personal change, motivation, and growth. Her talk will also discuss how to find your passion and let go of what doesn’t work, while refining what you want to carry forward.