Heart-stopping moments don’t just happen in the OR. As a nurse, you may be called upon in emergencies without access to an AED (automatic external defibrillator) or other equipment. Ensuring CPR certification means you are on hand with the knowledge to help save a life in or out of the hospital.
Debunking 5 Big Myths About CPR
Although most people know CPR and how it can save lives, wrong information often hinders effective aid. Do you think these, even to yourself?
Someone Around Me Will Know CPR
Most Americans know CPR increases survival rates for myocardial infarctions, but only 2 out of 5 would be willing to perform it. Why won’t people help with a procedure they know can be the difference between life and death?
The one reason cited for not rendering aid is a lack of confidence in proper CPR procedures. CPR certification addresses this issue and provides a way to save a life when others won’t step in.
The EMTs Will Render Aid When They Arrive
EMT arrival highly depends on traffic, weather, and location, with 1 in 10 people waiting more than 30 minutes for an ambulance. Even response times of fewer than 10 minutes may be too late when someone has suffered a heart attack.
Survival rates decrease 7-10% every minute CPR is delayed. Bystander help can double or triple survival, but you must act quickly. The rule of thumb is that you are the help until help arrives.
No One Dies From Heart Attacks Now
While increased efforts in prevention are laudable, they can promote the idea that heart attacks are not fatal in this modern age. But cardiac disease, including myocardial infarction, kills the most Americans every year compared to every other disease. Performing CPR is still the best way to respond and save a life.
Everyone Receives Equal Care and Help
Studies show that low-income and minority communities have much higher rates of death from heart attacks. This survival gap can be up to 19%, proving that CPR training is helpful and vital in disadvantaged areas. If you live or work in one of these areas, being confident in CPR and willing to assist is imperative.
Hospitals Have the Latest Equipment–We Don’t Need CPR
According to The Joint Commission, crash carts with missing or expired items make up the top three list of hospital problems. You cannot count on equipment to take the place of CPR training. When the AED fails, or the crash cart battery is dead, it is up to you to begin compressions immediately.
Why Certification is Crucial
You Forget What You Learned
You probably received CPR training in nursing school, but did you know that retraining and revisiting procedures are vital to rendering optimal aid? Your knowledge of methods and skills in administering CPR deteriorate as time passes since your initial training.
Procedures Are Updated Regularly
Also, remember that guidelines for CPR are updated as new research emerges, and you need to know what the latest findings advise to give the best help.
For example, in 2020, the American Heart Association released new guidelines on CPR for both in-hospital and out-of-hospital cases. Included are changes to the Adult CPR Algorithm and
Chains of Survival. If your training was before 2020, you must include these essential revisions.
But I’m not a cardiac nurse, you might say. According to specialist Diana-Lyn Baptiste, “every nurse is a cardiac nurse” because, quite simply, every patient has a heart susceptible to disease and infarctions. And crises can happen anywhere, in any ward.
Your Patient Outcomes Will be Better
Swiftly providing aid helps patient outcomes in the short run, but the effects don’t stop there. When nurses are certified in CPR, their patients exhibit improved outcomes from the time of the event to discharge.
Training also helps you stay calm when emergencies happen, and your attitude transfers to your patients, reassuring them amid what can be a terrifying episode.
Certification is Easier Than Ever
You used to have to spend hours at in-person training sessions or pay for expensive certifications. But now, you can get CPR certification online and even study on your mobile phone at home or when you have spare moments during the day.
There are no textbooks or manuals to buy, no taking time off to attend classes, and your workplace might even pay for your training. The convenience of online certification makes it a no-sweat, no-hassle way to level up your skills and resume.
What better way to contribute to the well-being of yourself, your patients, and your workplace?
Having CPR certification lets you act with speed and confidence in a crisis. Think about it this way: if you or a loved one were having a cardiac event, what kind of person would you want to help?
In the world of nursing, certifications and their corresponding designations carry with them the concepts of excellence, professionalism, and focused dedication to career growth. Not all nurses pursue certification during their years of service in healthcare, but many hear the call and take inspired action to achieve such a goal.
Making an effort to become certified in your nursing specialty is like doubling down on your skills and knowledge. Doing this takes discipline and forward-thinking, demonstrating that you care enough to show the world that nursing excellence and professional mastery matter.
Every year on March 19th, we celebrate National Certified Nurses Day to honor the nurses who take their careers to the next level by becoming certified. This celebration encourages us to take a moment to acknowledge the role that certification plays in strengthening the nursing profession while improving care and patient outcomes. Being certified is meaningful, and we make meaning by pausing for the cause of reflection and recognition of the nurses who choose this path.
Nursing Certification 101
According to the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), the first nursing certification was issued in 1945 to recognize nurse anesthetists. Certification boards began to be created in the 1960s, and the number of available nursing certifications continues to grow to this day.
Many nurses choose to pursue certification of their own volition, while some employers may encourage or even require nurses in specific specialty areas to become certified. Having your employer pay for and support your certification goals can be a desirable benefit, especially if your certification process has a financial cost you’d rather not bear yourself.
A 2021 Journal of Nursing Administration study states, “Nurse specialty certification is ’a mechanism for validation or formal recognition by documenting individual nurses’ knowledge, skills, and abilities specific to their specialty’. It is a form of individual credentialing above and beyond entry-level education and licensing. By pursuing specialty certification, nurses exhibit a commitment to professional growth and lifelong learning while establishing competency in a specialized area of care such as oncology or medical-surgical nursing. The intended outcome of certification in nursing is to improve safety, quality of care, and health outcomes for those using healthcare services.”
No matter what certification you choose to pursue, rest assured that being certified is something to be proud of and to clearly and proudly document on your resume as a mark of nursing distinction and professional mastery.
Why Should You Consider Becoming a Certified Nurse
As mentioned above, certification is a demonstration of dedication to your area of specialty nursing practice. Being certified can serve many purposes and brings with it a variety of benefits, including:
Marketability: Being certified can make you a stronger candidate in the job market, especially if it sets you apart from non-certified applicants for the same positions.
Career mobility: Some employers may value nursing certifications very highly, with certified nurses more likely to advance on the organization’s clinical ladder or into positions of greater responsibility, including nursing leadership.
Respect and recognition: Certification can elicit in others a sense of respect for and recognition of your professionalism, expert knowledge, and skill.
Personal/professional pride: Certification may elicit pride in your expertise, mastery, and accomplishments as a dedicated nurse.
Certification is a feather in your nurse’s cap. It marks you as a nurse focused on career growth and expert skill and knowledge. By being certified, you benefit not only your career but also inspire others to follow in your footsteps and contribute to the improved quality of patient care, not to mention strengthen your employer’s organizational profile.
Certification Speaks Volumes
Having one or more nursing certifications speaks volumes about your professionalism and desire to develop yourself as a nurse of integrity and mastery. Being certified says a great deal about you, and your certifications can enhance your ability to advance your career in any direction you’d like to go.
Some nurses may sit on their laurels and do the bare minimum, while others may seize the day and take every opportunity to develop themselves professionally. Only you can decide if the path to certification is right for you based on your perception of the benefits of certification and the value of that process to your career.
In recognition of Certified Nurses Day, let’s acknowledge those nurses who’ve stepped up to the plate and taken on certification as a prospect worthy of their attention and hard work. And if you’re already certified, give yourself a pat on the back for going the extra mile and showing the world that you’re a nurse who wants to be the best you can be.
Nurses go through years of hands-on training and academic courses to become a nurse and then excel at their profession. And when nurses find a nursing specialty that is especially rewarding to them, becoming certified is the next step for highly motivated nurses.
On today’s Certified Nurses Day, nurses who take on additional work to become certified in their specialty are honored for their pursuit of excellence.
As a nurse, certification is a signal to your professional community and to your community of patients that you have done all you can to achieve the latest knowledge. That means a nurse’s training and understanding of the most recent evidence-based practices is current.
Making the decision to become certified and then taking the actual steps to make that happen requires both dedication and focus. Nurses generally must complete a certain amount of hours within a specialty before sitting for the certification exam. That process helps give them a solid foundation of the skills and processes needed to specialize in their chosen area. But the time spent working in one area also helps nurses decide if that is the path that is right for their career goals and professional aspirations.
The American Nurses Credentialing Center offers a wealth of resources and various certification exams for nurses. A nurse certified in a particular specialty is one who wants to have all the tools possible to provide the highest standard of patient care. And certification isn’t limited to one area. For instance, specialty certified emergency, trauma, transport, and burn nurses often take the Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing’sCertified Emergency Nurse (CEN) exam, and they might also want to consider the Certified Burn Registered Nurse (CBRN) or the Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse (CPEN) as well. No matter what area a nurse works in, taking the time and effort to earn a certification is noticed, and even sometimes celebrated, within the organization where they work. Certified nurses often are seen as experts in their areas and so are excellent resources for their teams and also mentors to other nurses.
Some nurses say the fear of failure keeps them from taking a certification exam. But from the perspective of many certified nurses, the information on the exam is information that is part of their daily work responsibilities already. That doesn’t mean exam preparation and studying isn’t necessary, but it does mean that many nurses find they are familiar with the information that they will be tested on.
Combined with preparing for the exam, that existing professional knowledge boosts their chances of success. And if fear of failure is a real roadblock, nurses don’t have to tell anyone that they are taking the exam. Their organization won’t know they are taking it, so if they don’t pass on the first try, it won’t be noticed at work. And if the first try doesn’t go as planned, taking the exam again is worthwhile. Having that additional understanding and the certification to show your dedication to nursing knowledge and process is a significant professional achievement.
Today’s Certified Nurses Day honors all the hard work nurses do to provide top-notch care and also to signal their commitment to the nursing profession as a whole.
If you can’t attend, we’ve got you covered in advance as we sat down with Debbie Hatmaker, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Chief Nursing Officer at the American Nurses Association (ANA)Enterprise, to discuss the ANA’s role in addressing the nurse staffing crisis and how nurses can use the Magnet model to better their careers.
What follows is our interview, edited for length and clarity.
American Nurses Association (ANA) Chief Nursing Officer, Debbie Hatmaker, PhD, RN, FAAN
-Earlier this year, the ANA urged Congress to address the nurse staffing crisis and the work environment issues. Can you discuss the need for a national dialogue and ongoing collaboration between nurses, Congressional leaders, and other key stakeholders to support our nursing workforce, patients, and our nation’s health and well-being?
The nurse staffing crisis continues to demand a national dialogue with nurse-led approaches to help ease the enduring work environment challenges that nurses face across numerous specialties and healthcare settings. We support enforceable minimum nurse-to-patient ratios that reflect key factors such as patient acuity, intensity of the unit practice setting, and nurses’ competency, among other variables. And this is just one part of a larger solution to solve this.
We continue to work on addressing other challenges that have significantly made the nurse staffing issue worse, such as burnout, workplace violence, mandatory overtime, and barriers to full practice authority.
Nearly 400 ANA members convened at the U.S. Capitol, representing the nation’s more than 4 million registered nurses, to petition Congress to address the national nurse staffing crisis this summer. In addition to advocating, ANA is also advancing solutions from the 2022 Nurse Staffing Think Tank2022 in partnership with other leading organizations, which produced a series of actionable strategies that healthcare organizations could implement within 12 – 18 months.
We continue to advocate on behalf of nurses and remain a collaborative partner. Our goal is to empower nurses and position them for success. We continue calling on Congress to enact meaningful legislation and policies that improve nurse staffing and work environments.
–How can nurses use the Magnet Model to better their nursing leadership and shared decision-making?
The Magnet process fosters a collaborative culture that spurs shared decision-making. Magnet organizations are even provided with a multiyear framework for quality improvement and a structured way to engage staff in decision-making. This tool can help energize and motivate teams. In fact, team building, collaborating across disciplines, regular open community, and building staff engagement, while difficult to quantify, are often what happens during the Magnet process.
-What are some questions to ask before accepting a job at a Magnet hospital? Can you offer some tips for helping nurses choose which Magnet hospital to work in?
Each Magnet-recognized organization will have its own hiring standards, so each nurse should review those as they apply for or accept a position. But they should know that whatever role they fill, a Magnet organization will invest in them and their potential. At ANCC, we’ve created a free resource for nurses looking for select practice environments and interview questions to ask.
Magnet Recognition means education and development through every career stage, which leads to greater autonomy at the bedside. A Magnet organization supports opportunities for nurses to pursue new skills and professional development, champions them in those pursuits, and rewards them for advancing in their profession.
We’ll be at the 2023 ANCC National Magnet Conference® October 12-14 at the at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois. Stop by booth #918. We look forward to seeing you there!
Whether you know Nurse Blake (Blake Lynch) from his Facebook videos, podcasts, live comedy shows, or cruises, he’s proven that he’s a nursing force to be reckoned with using his humor to bring nurses together.
After graduating with a BSN from the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, and working in trauma centers around the country, Nurse Blake started posting original comedy videos to cope with the stress of his nursing job. His lighthearted videos connect with nurses, nursing students, and healthcare workers worldwide, and he entertains almost four million followers on social media while lifting healthcare workers across the globe.
But Nurse Blake is more than comedy.
He’s the creative force behind NurseCon at Sea, one of the largest and most popular nursing conferences, and the NurseCon app, which provides free continuing nursing education courses.
Meet Nurse Blake, a nurse, creator, internationally touring comedian, healthcare advocate, keynote speaker, and creator of NurseCon at Sea.
Minority Nurse talked with Nurse Blake about running one of the most popular nursing conferences and his plans for NurseCon at Sea 2024 in Mexico.
Where did you go to nursing school, and what was the experience like for you?
I graduated from Seminole State College and the University of Central Florida in 2014. I was in a concurrent program. So, I got my ADN through Seminole State and my bachelor’s through the University of Central Florida.
Nursing school was hard, challenging, and not easy, and I had a lot of meltdowns, but I did it. And when I was about halfway through my program in 2013, I became president of the Florida Nursing Student Association. And that sheds light on gaps in education for nurses. I attended many nursing conferences; they were all so boring in these hideous corporate centers. So, I knew back in nursing school that I wanted to shake up the nursing conference world, but I didn’t know what that would look like. I thought about taking over one of the state nursing conferences, but zooming ahead to 2019, I decided to create my conference, NurseCon.
What was your inspiration to create one of the largest and most popular nursing conferences, and what goes into planning such a big event?
When people ask if I’m still a nurse at the bedside or in a hospital, I’m not anymore because I’m not only busy with my comedy tour, which takes me away multiple months out of the year, but I also manage and run NurseCon with a team of 90 people, including full-time and part-time employees and contractors. NurseCon is a massive team effort; I couldn’t do it alone. I have an office in Orlando, Florida, which is convenient because our cruises sail from Miami. So, in addition to the 1,000 staff members, we have a team of almost 100 NurseCon at Sea people trying to make this conference the best experience for our guests. So, we have educators and customer service, and we bring in our dancers, DJs, and production. So, if you look at our pictures from NurseCon at Sea and say, “Wow, that pool is so lit,” it’s because we bring our fog machines, lasers, and lighting. We have a huge production team and staff that helps elevate the regular cruise ship experience, which is already so amazing and epic, but we want to put the NurseCon at Sea touch to it.
Education is the most important. NurseCon at Sea isn’t a nursing conference without education. So, we are accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the California Board of Nursing. I have three DNPs that run and manage nurse candidacy education full time. We are super committed to it, and we’ll probably bring on 30 educators on our next sailing to deliver over 70 hours of CNEs. That number has gone up every year. Our first year, it was 20 hours of CNEs. Then it was 36. And now we’re jumping to almost 80, which is pretty impressive. And it’s all included in the price of the conference. We also specialize in continuing nursing education for nurse practitioners and the pharmacology track. CNEs are expensive, hard to find, and nurses need many hours. So, that’s also something we provide, and that’s included. We’ll probably have about 150 nurse practitioners in our pharmacology track on the cruise ship, which is incredible.
Do NurseCon participants request course offerings that you incorporate into the nursing conference?
Yes, we have education committees made up of some of our educators and also participants of NurseCon at Sea. This is their experience. We provide the venue, the CNEs, and the entertainment, but the guests make it an experience. So, we also always value our feedback and survey our guests after our cruise sails and even on the ship to make it the experience that nurses deserve and the experience they want. It’s such an inclusive, happy conference. And it’s all because of our guests. They make it such a safe space for everyone to be themselves and talk about the issues they’re facing, and to me, that’s the most extraordinary thing about NurseCon at Sea. We have nursing students that come on. We have retired nurses and nurses from around the world attending many specialties. Everyone in the nursing world can learn from each other even though you’re not from a specific specialty. And no matter your age or status. We’re all here to learn from each other. No matter how many degrees you have or certifications, no one’s better than anyone else.
Everyone attending NurseCon looks like they’re having a great time. Talk about what a nurse attending NurseCon can expect.
It’s epic. Vacations sometimes are once in a lifetime for people, and for them to connect with friends and family or coworkers is super special. We’ve done three cruises since we launched and had groups of nursing students who graduated together 20 years ago. Now it’s their annual trip, and they’ve been on all three. So, now it’s becoming a tradition for some people, and that’s special.
People make T-shirts, go all out on our theme nights, and are already getting their outfits ready. So, it’s a community within a community. And not even I am in all these special groups where they talk about what they’re going to do for next year. So, it’s so cool that it even lives outside of me, and NurseCon at Sea has become its own culture created by the guests.
Next year’s NurseCon event is in Mexico. Can you talk more about the courses and features?
Mexico’s going to be great. We always want to provide a new incredible location or port. So, people can get off the ship and choose whatever activities they want to participate in. We also have two full days at sea, so it’ll be our longest one yet. And that’s because people wanted it to be longer. And our theme nights are sports night and fairy tales. So, everyone will be super busy, and I can’t wait to see everyone’s outfits. I know the dancers are so excited and already rehearsing and working on the production. We meet every day about NurseCon at Sea, so as soon as the last one is over, we’re already preparing for the next one. I will be working on booking our 2025 cruise later this month.
The NurseCon at Sea app provides users with their continuing education for free. But it’s more than education. Please talk about your inspiration to create the app and its impact on nurses.
We have the NurseCon app; you can also access it on NurseCon.com. If you can’t attend the conference or need CNEs, we have a library where nurses can get them for free. I know a lot of other websites out there that say it’s free, but then you take the course, and then you have to pay for this certificate, or only one course is free. Ours is free, which is cool. I decided to launch this during the pandemic. I knew nurses were working so hard going through that, and I wanted to provide them with an education platform so they can get their courses for free. So, that stayed consistent. Once nurses attend our cruise, they can get their CNEs through that platform. And we will also be putting our courses from the cruise on that platform. If you can’t attend the event for whatever reason but are interested in those courses, you will take them and get the CNEs for free after the ship has sailed.
We like to talk about topics that many other conferences don’t necessarily talk about, and that’s so special. The coolest part is that you don’t have to be a nurse to attend. You have to be a guest of a nurse. And we were doing a course on pediatric trans health, and a nurse attended with her husband, who was just on as her guest. And he’s not in healthcare at all, but he sat through the course and came up to the educator afterward and cried. And they thanked the educator because their child is trans, and they learned so much from a non-healthcare perspective just from being on the ship and attending a CNE that the nurse didn’t have to attend. Knowing that it’s going to have a positive impact on their child’s life and their life as a family unit is what makes continuing education for nurses the most special.
What makes NurseCon at Sea different from other nursing conferences?
It’s the diversity on the ship. It’s incredible. I’ll look around a room, and this is what nursing is supposed to look like. This is what nursing is supposed to be, just like this in this positive environment with nurses of all ages and backgrounds coming together and learning from each other. That’s all the community. It gets back to all our guests, making it a safe space for everyone.
The annual recognition of Certified Nurses Day on March 19 honors the nurses who go the extra step to achieve certification in their specialties. But the day also helps raise awareness in the nursing community about the importance of certification and the benefits it brings to a nursing career.
Certification is an excellent career advancing move; after all gaining more knowledge and skills in your nursing specialty is only going to help you be a better nurse. But many nurses overlook another important result of gaining certification–the confidence boost it gives you and the new peer recognition of your advanced knowledge.
Clara Beaver, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, AOCNS, and president of the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC) says certification brings better patient care, but also changes a nurses relationship with patients. “The best part [of nursing] is the buildup of trust with patients,” she says, “and having certification shows you have that commitment to oncology and that you have that knowledge. You both care about it and you know about it.”
Each certification is different, so look into one that that matches your specialty area. For example, ONCC offers five certifications: Oncology Certified Nurse, Certified Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurse, Certified Breast Care Nurse, Blood and Marrow Transplant Certified Nurse, and Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse Practitioner. Beaver says the bone marrow and breast care certifications are newer and were industry driven as a result of many nurses specializing in oncology subspecialties.
Some nursing specialties are starting to require certification as the advanced and most current skills are required for patient care. Many Magnet hospitals require certification for some nurses as do many cancer centers.
“We’re always trying to find the value in increasing knowledge and commitment,” says Beaver. “Certification says to the community that those nurses are staying up-to-date on what’s going on and their skills may be higher.” Beaver says when she became certified it made her think about patient care differently. “I looked at my patient differently because I had increased knowledge,” she says. :I looked at the entire background and not just at the task in front of me.” With certification, Beaver says she understood more of how things worked and could explain what was going on to the patient a little more.
Nurses who are certified are proud to show their certification, says Beaver, because it is instant recognition that you’ve gone above and beyond what’s required. “I feel like certification takes you up a little higher and they become like the informal leaders. They have raised confidence.” And their success with becoming certified shows other nurses that they can also achieve the same thing.
Nurses do find one of the biggest roadblocks to certification is test anxiety. “Nothing is as bad as the NCLEX,” says Beaver with a laugh. Before each of her three certification exams, Beaver says she had to overcome major test anxiety, so she understands why it can be a deterrent. “I just had to remember this is what I do every day,” she says. “Test taking is scary.”
Before each exam, she studied the test blueprints. She also pulled all the resources that were referenced to study those as well. That’s what the questions are based on, she says, so review all that information carefully. “Pull the statistics and the references,” she says and find out your weakest areas so you can focus on those places intensely. Reading information out loud helped Beaver retain the information, and she encourages nurses to find a method that works best for them.
When you sit for the test, Beaver suggests that you read the entire question, then read all the answers, and then go back and read the question over again. This will help you slow down and comprehend exactly what is being asked.
If paying for the exam is a barrier, see if your organization will help pay for it or if a professional organization will help.
“Certification is an important part of our job as nurses,” Beaver says. “And it’s attainable. It expands your knowledge base and your skill set. And it shows a commitment to what you are doing.”
