Kimberly Van Raay is a U.S. Army Veteran and registered nurse with professional experience. Yet, despite having years of experience as a combat medic training and even more in the specialty area of cardiac stress testing, she never felt prepared to help those who struggled with the cunning and baffling disease of addiction.
At age 40, Van Raay fell victim to the disease of addiction, a process she so aptly describes as “bankrupting my soul.” Today, she serves as the lead RN at Soul Surgery and attributes her professional success to the experience and strength she found through her recovery.
Gaining Compassion, Professional Integrity, Resilience, and Strength
Van Raay’s passion for helping people was her inspiration for attending nursing school. Her nursing education at the Jacobs School of Medicine, one of the nation’s most comprehensive academic health centers, and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo taught her the foundation of becoming a registered nurse emphasizing compassion and professional integrity.
Kimberly Van Raay is the lead registered nurse at Soul Surgery. Kim attributes her professional success to the experience and strength she found through her own recovery
During her time in the Army, Van Raay learned the importance of resilience, strength, and leadership skills as she endured rigorous combat medic training that tested her will. However, these experiences were not enough. Van Raay did not yet learn what it was like to need a nurse or to be a nurse who could impact the lives of her patients on both the physical and spiritual levels. So, when she hit rock bottom in her 40s, she truly learned the value of life and health.
The Education of Addiction
She turned to alcoholism when she was trapped in a loveless marriage and hit rock bottom when she experienced a seizure while withdrawing from alcohol. Van Raay checked into the hospital under an assumed name and was sent home without any meaningful tools or education on how to stay “recovered.”
Her abusive drinking continued until she ended up involved in an extreme DUI accident in Arizona and almost lost her arm. After that accident, Van Raay found the strength she needed to educate herself about the tools required for a recovered life. Finally, after feeling isolated in her struggles with addiction, she was ready to live a clean and sober life.
Van Raay devoted herself to educating herself about everything addiction-related. Her nursing background served her well as she poured through the academic literature. She joined the team at Soul Surgery, an outpatient clinic in Scottsdale to help people who are in the very same position she once found herself in and now she wakes up each day with one mission – to bring education and some degree of understanding to those struggling with the disease of addiction.
Overcoming Addiction and Living a Recovered Life
If telling her story helps just one person, Van Raay believes that all of her struggles and her education path are worth it.
She works with many coworkers at Soul Surgery, also coming from a background of addiction struggles and living a recovered life. The clinic’s mission aligns with Van Raay’s purpose, to provide evidence-based client care and holistic therapies to treat the body, mind, and spirit. She approaches her practice with an integrated approach to care, relying on evidence-based modalities serving clients throughout their rehabilitation process and even after discharge.
While Van Raay’s nursing school education brought her into healthcare, she says it was ultimately her process of recovering from the depths of despair and addiction that taught her all she knows today. Working as a sober life coach and showing others unconditional love, she is a sought-after recovery advocate and speaker. She recently shared her story on the Escaping Rock Bottom podcast by former journalist Brandon Lee.
Nursing certifications are essential for nurses and provide additional assurance that the RNs caring for patients are competent, well-trained, seasoned professionals.
Numerous studies demonstrate that nurse certification improves patient care and safety. According to a 2002 poll, more than 73% of individuals pick a hospital that employs a more significant proportion of nurses with specialty certification.
Types of Nursing Certifications
Various nursing certifications are available for nurses who want to advance in their professions. Depending on your profession and education level, some are accessible. Others consider your specialty.
First, certificates are offered for various stages of the nursing profession, starting with CNAs and LPN Nurses and progressing to APRNs with MSN training. There are predetermined certificates available for each nursing level. Some nursing credentials, such as those aimed at RNs or APRNs, are specifically intended for that nursing level. However, some could be accessible to both.
Additionally, certificates are based on your specialty and determined by your goals and interests. For example, you can obtain certification in cancer, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, and many more specialist fields.
What Nursing Certifications Are Most Important for New Graduates?
Although there is a severe shortage of nurses, getting the nursing career of your dreams right out of nursing school may be difficult.
Certifications are among the things that will unquestionably improve your marketability as a newly qualified nurse. So let’s examine the best nursing credentials for recent graduates that will offer you an advantage over other applicants.
The minimum standard for nurses is widely considered certification in essential life support (BLS). This specific qualification is suitable for two years before needing to be renewed. It confirms your knowledge and proficiency in properly using AEDs and establishes your capacity to perform CPR.
Another essential qualification for fresh graduates wishing to work as nurses is Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS). Building on the BLS framework, ACLS certifies a person’s capacity to detect and respond to cardiac arrest and other cardiovascular crises.
Nursing Certifications for LPNs
By finishing a CME Nurse Practitioner program, you may start the road to a fantastic nursing profession. Your LPN education will equip you to provide high-caliber, competent patient-centered care. In addition, pursuing LPN qualifications to improve your employment and pay changes is also an excellent idea.
You can deliver drugs intravenously if you have a certification in IV therapy.
Your long-term care certification will demonstrate your capacity to care for patients at home or in long-term care institutions.
LPNs with wound care certification can clean and treat a variety of wounds. Therefore, when employing LPNs, hospitals and long-term care centers strongly favor candidates with this certification.
Nursing Certifications for Registered Nurses
An Associate’s Degree in Nursing or a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, which is fast becoming the requirement for becoming a registered nurse, can be earned.
You can begin your RN profession after passing the NCLEX-RN. However, being certified in fields that interest you might be wise if you want to set yourself apart.
There are several certifications available once you have obtained your RN license, and here is where your goals, interests, and long-term career aspirations will come into play. These certificates include, among others:
The Holistic Nursing Certification is an excellent choice for RNs who desire to specialize in patient care that emphasizes the patient’s body, mind, and spirit.
The Nurse Executive Certification is essential for nurses who want to work in senior leadership roles in the healthcare industry. Nurses with a BSN or higher degree can apply for this form of accreditation.
APRNs’ Nursing Certifications
If you pursue an advanced practice registered nurse career, you’ll need to pick a nursing specialty and work for board certification in that field. A few of the most popular APRN certificates include:
Family nurse specialist: Nurse Practitioners frequently choose this qualification because family nurse practitioner ranks among the most in-demand nursing jobs.
The “go-to” qualification for nurses who desire to devote their substantial knowledge and abilities to care for the elderly is the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Certification.
Nurse Anesthetist Certification. It is understandable why this certification is so highly sought-after, given that nurse anesthetists earn the highest salaries among nurses.
Bottom Line
While acquiring a state license is necessary to practice nursing, certification is typically optional. But being certified is a great way to further your nursing profession. In addition, your CV will be unique, which may be necessary for the competitive nursing employment market.
Our Nurse
of the Week is Czarina
Cecilio, a 33-year-old registered nurse (RN) at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Multiple Myeloma
Center in New York City. Multiple myeloma (MM) is a type of bone marrow
cancer and in addition to performing her nursing duties, Cecilio is also
responsible for a lot of paperwork because the medication administered to many MM
patients is experiencing a national drug shortage.
Cecilio works 10-hour shifts on a regular basis,
helping keep her patients comfortable in the midst of this drug shortage. Cecilio’s
role at the Multiple Myeloma Center is Clinical Nurse Liaison. She serves as
head RN of the practice and her responsibilities include educating patients on their therapy regimen and helping them get
medication, supervising medical technicians, and keeping the clinic workflow
organized.
However, she also spends a lot of
time on the phone with manufacturers and drug providers in an effort to secure
treatment for her patients. Many MM patients are treated with an intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG),
but production for the medication has slowed, causing increased demand.
Cecilio tells businessinsider.com, “With myeloma, it’s an incurable disease, [but] it’s treatable, so that’s why we see these patients all the time. You get to build a relationship with these patients.”
Cecilio didn’t always want to be a nurse. She received
her undergraduate degree in anthropology and then decided to go into medical
research. She eventually ended up in an entry level nursing job as a medical
technician, but found herself unable to answer many of her patients’ questions regarding
their care, so she decided to go to nursing school. Now, she loves her work as
a nurse in the multiple myeloma clinic because it allows her to form bonds with
patients who are typically receiving long-term treatment.
To learn more about Czarina Cecilio, a registered
nurse at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Multiple Myeloma Center in New York City,
read Business Insider’s coverage of their day spent shadowing her here.
The ANCC Practice Transition Accreditation program
is dedicated to validating hospital residency and fellowship programs that help
transition registered nurses (RNs) and advanced practice registered nurses
(APRNs) into new practice settings that meet rigorous, evidence-based standards
for quality and excellence. APRNs in the NNP
Fellowship program at Children’s Hospital Colorado are part of an elite
program that promotes the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and professional
behaviors necessary to deliver the safest and highest-quality care.
Pat Givens, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive for Children’s Colorado, tells eurekalert.org, “We are extremely proud that Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Fellowship is recognized by ANCC as one of the highest-quality transition programs in the country for NNPs. The accreditation provides the patients and families we serve across the state and region with the reassurance that our neonatal nurse practitioners are some of the most highly trained in the country.
Children’s Hospital Colorado is one
of the nation’s leading and most expansive pediatric healthcare systems with a
mission to improve the health of children through patient care, education,
research, and advocacy. To learn more about Children’s Hospital Colorado’s
recent accreditation approval for its Neonatal Nurse
Practitioner Fellowship program, visit here.
Our Nurse of the Week is Meg Busing, a nurse, mother, and former camp counselor who founded Camp YouCan, a summer camp in Nebraska for kids with epilepsy. She was inspired to found the camp after going through her own health struggles and after serving as a counselor at a camp for families of kids with cancer before she started nursing school.
After a car accident in 1998 left Busing with a traumatic brain injury that left her struggling with seizures for over a decade, she eventually underwent a successful brain surgery, which has left her seizure free since. Meg started the camp along with her husband Kael Busing, as well as their own nonprofit, the Midwest YouCan Foundation.
Busing tells Omaha.com, “We named it Camp YouCan because kids are always reminded of the things they can’t do. We just want them to see all that they can do and meet other kids with epilepsy.”
Camp YouCan provides a sense of community and a chance to talk with other kids going through the same thing. The camp offers a number of activities including ziplining, tightrope walking, rockwall climbing, archery, and a water slide. By the end of the week, campers leave with new confidence in their abilities, lifelong friendships, and excitement to come back and do it again the next year.
Before opening Camp YouCan, Meg overcame her illness and injuries and became a registered nurse and mother of three. Now she’s sharing with others how to advocate for themselves, build a community of support, and find things they CAN do. To learn more about registered nurse Meg Busing and how she founded her nonprofit and a summer camp for kids with epilepsy, visit here.
