HNA – a meeting with both rhyme and reason

Trish Bell kicked off last week’s HNA meeting in her own inimitable style – apologies if I’ve missed anything!  

I’d like to thank our lady Chair

The very knowledgeable Kate Khair.

On many a task she has bestowed

To compose another witty ode.

 

I stand before you, a lovely bunch,

And wish I’d eaten a bit less lunch.

To you my poem I now recite.

Like puddings, I’ll keep it sweet and light.

 

We come from all corners of this land

To discuss haemophilia and von Willebrand;

Over the country and county borders

To talk about rare clotting disorders.

 

We think of those for whom we care

And from each other our knowledge will share.

And all the talks we will discuss

And what we take back is up to us.

 

So what is on our great agenda

(In case, like me, you can’t remember)?

We start with new treatment products

And hope they don’t cost mega-bucks.

 

And then we have a welcome break –

I’ll try to limit my consumption of cake.

Research by Alpha and Mel Wilkinson

Delivered with passion and verbal aplomb.

 

Then a talk called ‘Advanced, Specialist or Confused’ –

Please enlighten me, Anna, don’t leave me bemused.

The AGM follows. The bit of it that’s best

Is knowing our future safely in their hands rests.

 

The subject on which I need to find out,

‘Revalidation: What’s that All About?’

Our conference dinner, quiz and cabaret

A time to relax – hip hip hooray.

 

One activity I’ll surely be prioritising:

Spending time in the bar, socialising.

And hopefully we will all be fine

Despite consuming lots of wine.

 

I hope I sleep like a pig in clover

And not wake up tomorrow with a horrid hangover.

This leads me on nicely to Saturday.

I’ll keep on reading, if I may.

 

So, after early morning shifts

We’ll listen to beloved ‘Snippety Bits’.

And then some coffee and well done to all

Those who displayed a poster on the wall.

 

The talks on clinical management

Will benefit both the nurse and patient.

And then ‘The Challenges of Haemophilia Care’

Will enlighten us with stuff that’s going on out there.

 

And really soon it will all be over.

Time to return to places like Dover.

So, thanks to Kate for giving me time

To present to you another rhyme.

 

And just in case I didn’t know it,

I seem to have become an HNA poet.

I seem to have got in far too deep –

I’m thinking up poems while I sleep.

 

Out of this situation I don’t want to reverse.

I still want to be known as a fabulous nurse.