The Metropolitan Washington Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Inc. represents the occupational health nurses (OHN) serving the nation's government and business leaders. MWAOHN is a Chapter of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Inc.

Members of MWAOHN work in many institutions, businesses, and Federal agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Government Accountability Office, the Washington Post, the Smithsonian Museums and the National Zoo, Organized Labor Unions, and the military.

Our meetings are held in the heart of Washington, D.C. in Metro accessible locations.  Meetings always include an educational program with continuing education contact hours. 

We welcome visiting OHNs and anyone interested in occupational health nursing to attend our meetings. If you plan to visit Washington, D.C. let us know by sending a message about your plans to the Chair of our Meeting Planning Committee.

Message from President Barbara Hayden, RN, COHN-S

Our mission is simple: to promote high quality occupational health nursing practice by providing continuing education and opportunities for networking.  To fulfill this mission, we have 5 continuing education lectures each year over an early dinner at a convenient location. We select lecture topics from the suggestions made by members.

At our meetings, you will meet nurses who work in the federal government, for Federal Occupational Health, from private corporations like National Geographic, the Organization of American States, Metro, and the Washington Post.  We share anecdotes on practice - we got a great snake bite story in September  from our National Geographic nurse, Karen Barry. We support one another in the trials and tribulations of these uneven times.

How to keep it simple? We need to use technology as much as we can - Claudia Beach, our Web master  - leads the way with this. We could revise our by-laws so that they are shorter ; we could re-tool our nominations and elections process so that it's fair but less cumbersome. Let's be on the watch-out for work-saving methods and stamp out all unnecessary elaborations!

How to keep it fun? Primarily by calling for "all hands on deck" with the work of the organization. It is distinctly not fun to labor alone, to be the only person shouldering a load. It gets old fast. Let's build reserve capacity so that every role or function has a team behind it and no one is unduly burdened.  All ideas are welcome on how we could make our dinner meetings even more fun.

Together, we will keep our practice sharp and we will support each others career success and satisfaction. Alone, we can only go stale and feel isolated - so come on out to every meeting and bring a colleague, too!