Are You Engaged?

We often hear that we need more members in our association. I happen to be one who thinks that what we really need are more ENGAGED members, not just numbers. Sure, numbers are important when you go to the Hill in Washington, DC, and yes, that does count. And yet, without those members being engaged, it's pretty hard to meet the objectives that an organization sets.

I wasn't always an engaged member. Many of you who know me have heard my early stories in our association. My first meeting was a disaster and I let my membership lapse for awhile. And yet, I'm here and I continue to be here now. Why is that? I believe it is, simply, because I stayed engaged.

Our MT training program at work has a brand new AHDI chapter, the first one to receive official recognition in that category. I had a meeting last week with the officers before their first official chapter meeting after receiving their recognition. Like most students, they were so very excited about the possibilities for the future. As they planned for their upcoming meeting, they said, "we have to be able to articulate the value of being involved and being a member of AHDI and of this chapter. How do we do that?" Now, these "kids" are brand new to our world, still in school, and brand new AHDI members. They have no idea yet of what benefits might be out there for them or others. They just know that it's the organization for the profession they intend to join in the near future. They asked me, "Why do you think it's important? What has it done for you?" Wow, it's been awhile since I really sat and articulated that. I thought perhaps it was a good thing to share here with you.

As we talked, I asked myself how my life would have been different had AHDI/AAMT not been a part of my life. For me, it was an eye opener. In the early 1990s, I rejoined the association, took my CMT exam (purely because I thought it would look cool on my business cards), and went back to my second annual meeting eventually. At some point, I became fascinated with our legislative process and so I volunteered to serve on that task force, really because I thought it would be a learning experience. It was. As a result of that, I was able to participate in some of the meetings when the HIPAA privacy rule was being written, and I actually got to draft the association response to that original proposed rule. I also had the opportunity to meet and work with Bill Braithwaite, who was one of the primary authors of that rule. Stay with me, there IS a point here! Another person I met one time at an AAMT meeting was Julie Stegman. She is a publisher with Lippincott. Julie and I became friends as we saw each other at different meetings. Eventually, the rule was published, and I began to do presentations on it. I realized the more I talked about it that we really didn't have anything that was a guide about the privacy rule and medical transcription and thus a dream was born in my head. I remember clearly standing outside with Julie Stegman at a Florida state AAMT meeting and talking to her about how I would really like to write that book so that MTs would have that tool to help them understand a little more about HIPAA. I was fortunate. Julie caught my dream and believed in it. And when the book was published, one of the forewards was written by Bill Braithwaite. That may not mean much to someone who doesn't know who he is, but for me, it was a huge recognition and honor. I do not believe any of those things would have come to pass in my life had I not been engaged in this association.

The other thing I really love doing now is public speaking. That's funny because I have three bad grades on my college transcript. One of them is an F in typing (never could make that 7:30 a.m. class!), one is an F in Sign Language (following which I taught American Sign Language at the university for 10 years, and the third is a D in speech. I got that D because in a class of 15-20 people I found it impossible to stand up and speak in front of a group. In one of the earliest AHDI meetings I attended, I went to a session where Pat Forbis and Brenda Hurley were presenting together. To this day, I can recall how I felt. I was in awe of them and their ability to do presentations. I secretly wished I could do that some day, and yet knew I never could, after all, I had a D in speech in college. Through the association, I learned things that college class couldn't teach me and there it was a highlight in my professional life to later go "on the road" with a leadership conference with Pat and Brenda and the three of us presented together. The year I was AAMT President (1998), we had approximately 800 people at the business meeting breakfast. I will never forget the look on my mother's face after I gave my President's address. She said "wow, I never would have thought you could stand up in front of all of these people and do that. I'm proud of you." Another precious memory for me, particularly now that she is gone. And again, things that happened because i was engaged. Today, I am preparing to begin the Academy of Professional Speaking, with an eventual goal of becoming a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP)one day. Again, had I not been engaged here, I would never have thought of that.

Yes, it DOES make a difference if you are an engaged member. And so how about it? Are you engaged? And if not, why not? How do we move toward more engaged members? It is an idea I hope we can explore as we move to all of the new initiatives we recently created.