The 2023 edition of the UPMC Hamot Symposium will provide insight and inspiration for a culture of well-being in the nursing profession through engagement, innovation, and gratitude. Faculty for the program will include nationally recognized leaders in nursing as well as knowledgeable experts from UPMC and UPMC Hamot — a two-time Magnet®-designated hospital.

Featured Speaker:

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, EBP-C, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk – recognized nationally and globally for both her clinical knowledge and her innovative approaches to a wide range of health care challenges – serves as Vice President for Health Promotion and Chief Wellness Officer for The Ohio State University, as well as Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Evidence-based Practice at the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She also is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine.

Dr. Melnyk’s groundbreaking work spans evidence-based practice, intervention research, child and adolescent mental health, and health and wellness. A frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences, she has consulted with hundreds of healthcare systems and colleges worldwide on improving quality of care and patient outcomes by implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice.

Featured Speaker:

Bonnie and Mark Barnes, FAANs

Bonnie and Mark Barnes spent their careers working as advertising and marketing executives. They were retired, growing wine grapes in Sonoma, CA, in 1999 when Mark’s son Patrick, age 33, developed the auto-immune disease ITP. Pat and his wife Tena had given birth to the family’s first grandchild 6 weeks prior to Pat’s illness, so they flew to be with him. Pat’s death was a terrible surprise to his family. However, the nursing care they experienced during Pat’s 8-week hospitalization compelled them to express their gratitude to nurses everywhere for the clinical skill and especially compassionate care nurses provide every day. This is why The Barnes’s created The DAISY Foundation™ (an acronym for diseases attacking the immune system) and The DAISY Award® for Extraordinary Nurses.

Today, The DAISY Award is celebrated in nearly 6,000 healthcare facilities and nursing schools in 39 countries.  Over 200,000 nurses have been honored, having been nominated by their patients, patient families, and colleagues. Each nomination (over 2.5million to date) tells the story of extraordinary compassion and care provided to a patient. The impact of these stories’ public DAISY Award celebrations on nurses and their organizations is well documented. The DAISY Award provides healthcare leaders the means to highlight all the “right” going on in their organizations, providing great role-modeling opportunities and a way to make tangible the organizations’ mission and values. The program helps drive organizational culture, inspires and motivates extraordinary nursing, nourishes teamwork, enhances nurse engagement, promotes the professional image of nursing, and helps offsets compassion fatigue with compassion satisfaction.

Our Keynote Speaker:

Maribeth McLaughlin, MPM, BSN, RN

Maribeth McLaughlin is charged with the development and implementation for nursing strategy for UPMC’s 20,000 nurses, maintaining oversight of nursing standards for 40 academic, community, and specialty hospitals, as well as over 700 outpatient sites, rehabilitation, retirement, and long-term care facilities.

She served as the Vice President of Operations at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital for 6 years and prior as the Chief Nursing Officer for 12 years.

She also served simultaneously as Vice President of the Women’s Health Service Line, directing women’s health and newborn services for UPMC. She served as AHA chair/member of the Maternal Child Health Council.