Specialty certification for my professional nursing provides confidence and satisfaction about the commitment I as a nurse show to being committed to improving patient care (MSNBC, n.d.). Most specialty certifications require you to be in your area for a minimum of two years. When I worked at a larger facility, they encouraged all of the nurses to work on their obtaining their certification. The nurses that I worked with that obtained their certification had additional knowledge that the other nurses did not have.
Specialty certification as whole for the nursing profession validates expertise and shows a specialized knowledge base (MSNBC, n.d.). The facility that I work at all of the nurses are TNCC certified as we are a critical access hospital and when working on the floor we are responsible for the ER. When trauma patients arrive to the ER every nurse must be able to take care of these patients. For certain types of trauma situations over the last four years the only trauma some nurses have seen has been through the TNCC course. So this helps our staff to stay prepared.
MSNBC. (n.d.). Benefits of Certification. Retried February 10, 2018 from https://www.msncb.org/medical-surgical/cmsrn-resources/benefits-certification
4 Responses
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I agree, certification does give you that boost of confidence. It enhances nurses credibility among colleagues, patients and other members of the healthcare team and provides an avenue to validate their specialized knowledge. I think certification is also a good way to remind your facility’s management team of your capabilities.
Adverse events that place patients at risk for harm are common in intensive care units. Clinicians’ level of knowledge and judgment appear to play a role in the prevention, mitigation, and creation of adverse advents. Research suggests a possible association between nurses’ specialty certification and clinical expertise. The relationship between specialty certification and clinical competence of registered nurses and safety of patients is a relatively new area of inquiry in nursing.
Nursing education programs are increasingly moving towards being regulated and certified by agencies like National League for Nursing or ACEN. It’ll be interesting to see, if in the future, certification in nursing practice will move towards the same direction and become a requirement.
It is hard in a smaller facility to see the types of situations like trauma situations, in order to keep skills up to par. You must be prepared to see that one time trauma in a smaller facility. I think it is great that they require that certification from all the nurses on the floor. It is important for you all to carry that extra knowledge and expertise. You never know when a trauma might come through those doors!