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The Nurse Leader Fellowship Program is the perfect example of a transformation leadership
activity here at UNC. Transformation leadership is when leaders within an organization take
ideas from within the organization, really nurture those ideas, and help nurses who have
them grow the program into something big and exciting. The entire program was about nurses
here at UNC getting guidance and leadership from people who are already in leadership
positions and learning from them. It was an idea that I had. I was a CN IV. I worked along
with a director who gave me the support and guidance along the way and then got so much
buy-in from the leadership within UNC. So Mary Tonges, all the other directors, the
managers, were fantastic about giving the fellows the time they needed, supporting them,
serving as mentors to the fellows. One of the really powerful stories from the fellows
came from the director of Oncology, Meghan McCann. She talked about our new Baxter Pump
roll-out, how we needed to move to a new pump system, she talked about the problems, the
obstacles, the people that she needed to bring to the table and how it really was an institution
wide project to roll out. How she got buy-in from the entire institution and how we implemented
as a whole from the director's perspective was very powerful for us fellows because those
are big picture things that we don't do everyday, but just hearing her talk through the process
was really inspirational for the rest of us. And each of the speakers that presented were
able to speak to experiences like those, and so everybody found something within each of
the presentations that inspired us, that we could take back and do with our unit. The
exciting thing at the end of the program was when we asked the nurses what their career
goals were. Each of the 15 people, aside from one person who was maybe moving, said they
fully intend to continue their leadership in nursing career here at UNC. In fact, one
fellow said, "Whatever I grow up to be, I will do it at UNC." So it's just very exciting
to see this group of really great leaders plan to continue their career here at UNC
and it's exciting to watch them grow within their units and within the hospital as a whole.