In celebration of Certified Nurses Day on March 19, the Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing (BCEN) launched a Certified Nurses Day web page with nurse recognition resources plus basic information about specialty certification for patients, families, and healthcare consumers.
The page also features a new YouTube video with interviews with three of the more than 40,000 RNs worldwide who hold the Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) credential—one of the oldest and most widely held nursing specialty credentials. The RN share why national specialty certification matters to them and their patients
“As BCEN celebrates the leadership, dedication to excellence, professionalism, and service of board-certified nurses delivering truly exceptional care in every specialty,” says BCEN CEO Janie Schumaker, MBA, BSN, RN, CEN, CENP, CPHQ, FABC, “we wanted to share why nurses working across the emergency spectrum choose to get board certified.”
Here is what several board-certified emergency, transport, and trauma nurses said about the importance of nursing specialty certification:
“Any specialty certification, by definition, improves patient care. It means you’re an expert who has demonstrated competency and knowledge in your field,” says Jessica Evins, BSN, RN, CPEN, a Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse (CPEN) with New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Department in New York City. “While pediatric patients make up a small percentage of the overall Emergency Department population, people underestimate the unique challenges of taking care of kids. Having pediatric emergency specialty knowledge is critical, and being a CPEN is the best way to show families that you are as equipped as possible to care for their kids.”
Education Coordinator and Flight Nurse Caroline Levin, BSN, RN, CEN, CCRN, CFRN, PHRN, a Certified Flight Registered Nurse (CFRN) with STAT MedEvac in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says: “In the dynamic outside-the-hospital environment, being certified in transport nursing means we bring an expertise to patient care that offers an advanced knowledge-informed perspective on diagnosis and treatment to support our patients’ best possible outcomes.”
Lindsay Schoem, BSN, RN, TCRN, a Trauma Certified Registered Nurse (TCRN) with Inova Loudoun Hospital in Leesburg, Virginia, describes a thank you letter she received from a trauma patient who had learned what the letters T-C-R-N on her name badge meant: “The patient wrote: ‘I just felt so much more comfortable knowing your expertise was in trauma. I just knew I was going to receive the best care.’”
Nick Jazdzewski BSN, RN, CEN, with Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, says: “Quite simply, being a Certified Emergency Nurse makes me a better nurse, and it raises the performance of the team around me. The heightened knowledge I’ve obtained through specialty certification allows me to quickly anticipate changes in patients’ conditions, which means I can intervene sooner, and that gives patients the best chance for positive outcomes.”
Over 50,000 RNs practicing in 26 countries around the world hold one or more of BCEN’s five specialty credentials which independently validate an RN’s mastery of the emergency, pediatric emergency, flight, critical care ground transport, or trauma nursing specialties. There are over 40,000 Certified Emergency Nurses (CENs), 5,400 Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurses (CPENs), 5,600 Certified Flight Registered Nurses (CFRNs), 450 Certified Transport Registered Nurses (CTRNs), and 7,200 Trauma Certified Registered Nurses (TCRNs).
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