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On January 1, 2021, Massachusetts became the 23 rd state in the nation to pass full practice authority (FPA) legislation for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (Mass Bill S.2984, 2021). Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) include, nurse practitioners (NPs), certified nurse midwives (CNMs), certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs), and clinical nurse specialists (CNS). In most states, including my own state of North Carolina, APRNs practice under the supervision of a physician and are regulated by both the Board of Nursing and the Medical Board. I propose that APRNs should be governed solely by the Board of Nursing. This change will decrease the ...

“It’s fitting that the newly adopted ARN Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement was published this week of January 18, 2021, given the historic nature of both the inauguration of Kamala Harris—the country’s first woman, first Black, and first Asian American vice-president—as well as the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.” Tonisha J. Melvin, DNP, APRN, CRRN, ANP-C ARN DEI Task Force Co-Chair

Congratulations to all CRRN's for achieving and maintaining certification and celebrate today, on Certified Nurses Day! I wrote this for my blog and would like to share my colleague Cindy Dey's story to highlight one of the many settings and roles in which a CRRN makes a difference. Certified nurses are recognized for the value they bring to their specialty area of practice. On Sunday, March 19, we celebrate Certified Nurses Day . The American Board of Nursing Specialties (ABNS), the organization that represents nearly a half million certified nurses states: Specialty nursing certification is THE standard by which the public recognizes ...

How will you be celebrating Certified Nurses Day?

I want to take a moment to thank the people at ARN who do such a good job with the anual conference. If you never have attended one you really should think about going to one in the future. I always walk away with so much more knowledge. My favorite part is seeing and talking to all of the vendors. It's like trick or treat for nurses. This year I learned so much about decreasing falls. I really appreciated hearing from the speakers on falls because, I do the falls program on my unit. I am definitely going to look into post fall huddles and fall review meetings in the future.

I remember the golden days of Acute Rehab. We had those easy ortho patients that you treated their pain, walked them to the bathroom and helped them get dressed. Sometimes you thought you had a tough day but usually you had it pretty easy. Now you get the sicker patients. You get more of the harder CVA patients and if you do get an ortho they have medically complex problems. They say what used to be in the morgue is now in ICU and what used to be in ICU is now in acute rehab. Things sure do change over time. I have come to the realization that these harder patients may make taking care of them more difficult but also I get a bigger sense of satisfaction ...

If you are new and have never attended an ARN conference you should really think about going. It is a lot of fun and you meet people in the same field of nursing you are in. Its fun to talk to other nurses and get their perspective on what's going on in rehab. You find out that they have the same issues you have on your unit. I love the venders too. They have all kinds of neat new products and give you samples. Its like trick or treat for rehab nurses. I always come back with a back full of new products to show the nurses on my unit. You also get a lot of CEUs that come in handy when you renew your CRRN. I always learn so much that helps keep my rehab skills ...

Why are we rehab nurses? We started out on our unit with almost 90% of our patients being the easy ortho patients and have slowly gone to having more neuro patients. Now we have almost 50% of our patients that are neuro patients. I used to love the easy ortho patients. As times have changed so have I. Now what really makes my day is seeing the miracle of a CVA patient lifting their hand or moving their fingers for the first time, that GBS patient come in flat on their back and being discharged walking and being able to show that spinal cord injury patient that there is still a life out there for them. Recently I had one of my cord injury patients come back ...

What motivational line do you like to use for your patients? Teddy Roosevelt once said, "believe and your half way there." I use that line a lot to help motivate my patients. Not too long ago I used it on one of my difficult patients. He replied, "Yah well he's dead..." It took a second to come up with a reply to that but I finally did. I told him, "Look what he did while he was alive because he believed in himself."

Some of you may be too young, but as a child of the 60's, I am acutely aware that the right for all to vote only came about during my lifetime. I remember my parents working on efforts to help make voting in the south a reality. That's why voting in any election, be it local, national, or even our nursing organization's election is so important to me. Voting is a powerful tool. It allows me to have a voice by way of my representation. It's not a friendship or popularity contest. It is serious business. So, don't waste your vote by not voting for the best representative, the person who demonstrates their steadfast commitment to the causes that we all care about, ...

The Board of Directors just returned from a productive weekend in Washington D.C. We met on Thursday to lobby on the Hill and meet with elected officials and their staff about important funding related to rehabilitation and nursing. Your Board of Directors, with help from our friends at The District Policy Group (thanks to Jeremy and team!), were able to meet with nearly 20 officials and discuss funding for TBI, nursing workforce development, and other important legislation that affects rehabilitation nursing. It was great to see how ARN is now being recognized and remembered for our advocacy for those with disabilities as well as promoting funding for research ...

I must first say that I am not known for being a "techy" person. I am a Baby Boomer and a Grandma, so new things like this platform are a bit intimidating. However, having just explored our cool Member Circle, here are 5 great reasons to love it: 1) It is easy! I created a profile in a matter of minutes. You can learn so much more about each other because everything is right at your fingertips. The platform is a lot like LinkedIn, but just for us. I am thrilled to see so many features such as being able to spell check, italicize, bold, cut and paste...I know I've not even tried all the neat options yet. 2) You can use your LinkedIn information and it transfers ...