When Heather Maude joined the cardiac intensive care unit staff at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Sibley Heart Center, she was surprised to find so few nurses certified in the unit's specialty.
"There were maybe two or three nurses who held the CCRN [Critical Care Registered Nurse] designation," said Maude, RN, CCRN. "I came from a unit in New York where about half of the nurses had been certified."
Sponsored by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), the CCRN designation is a national certification in critical care nursing.
Heather Maude (right) holds a notebook with sample questions for the CCRN exam. Pamela Samen recently earned CCRN certification after taking a review class that Maude taught.
While attending an AACN National Teaching Institute conference three years ago, Maude learned how to create a certification culture in her unit and took the information back to her manager. She reported that certification would increase nurses' knowledge and confidence, raise standards, improve patient care and help the hospital recruit and retain nurses.
It also would help nurses ascend Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's career ladder, which requires certification to become nurse leaders or experts. Named one of the top 125 learning organizations of 2007 by Training magazine, Children's was happy to support Maude's desire to teach a CCRN review course.
She became an ambassador for the CCRN designation, telling co-workers how certification could help them. Maude earned her certification in adult critical care in 1992 and in pediatric care in 1995.
"I studied very hard to pass those exams and I was very proud that I'd accomplished my certification. It validates your knowledge and your skills to yourself and your peers, and [it] helps you do your job," she said. "I believed that other nurses would find it equally rewarding."
After courses in Maude's unit were successful, Children's administrators made her classes available to critical care staff from all three of the organization's hospitals. Charlene Cunningham, clinical educator in the pediatric intensive care unit at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, helps teach the courses.
There are plans next spring to open the courses to any critical care nurse, through the Atlanta chapter of the AACN.
"I knew I wanted to be a nurse as soon as I was old enough to know what one was — about 4 or 5, I guess — and I've always enjoyed teaching," Maude said. "One of my strengths is being able to explain really complicated things by a simple analogy, so this is a way to use that talent."
Pamela Samen, RN, BSN, CCRN, recently passed her certification exam after taking Maude's review course.
"I'd only been in critical care for 18 months and wasn't sure I was ready, but Heather encouraged me," she said.
Samen's experience had been in cardiac care. She believed that the certification would increase her knowledge in other areas of critical care and make her a better nurse.
"The review course showed me the areas where I was weak, so I knew where to focus my studying," Samen said. "[Maude] gave us a lot of information, materials and practice questions. The exam was very hard, but I made it."
Maude's passion for helping nurses get certified is obvious to her students.
"Heather was encouraging when I was pretty stressed out, and she also prepared me to go back to school," Samen said.
Samen started a pediatric nurse practitioner program at Emory University in August and will work part time at Children's on weekends.
Maude is pleased with the progress she has made. About a dozen nurses have become certified after taking her course, and one has been promoted to a nurse leader.
"Normally, I'm the kind of person who likes to fly under the radar and just do my job, but in this, I felt passionate that I could make a difference," she said.