Happy summer everyone!

I hope that you have spent time this summer taking care of yourself. I cannot believe the season is almost over! Besides taking a vacation myself this summer, I had the amazing opportunity to present a few AMSN PRISM Awards® to nursing units around the country.

I always love these presentations because I get to see the phenomenal things our nurse colleagues are doing to improve patient care and to support each other. The energy and the excitement that comes from the units accepting the AMSN PRISM Award warms my heart, fills me with such joy, and reignites my passion for the profession. I look forward to presenting AMSN PRISM Awards on your units in the future!

I do hope that you will be able to attend the AMSN 31st Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas from September 29 through October 2.

As summer closes, I am looking forward to what the fall season will bring. I do hope that you will be able to attend the AMSN 31st Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas from September 29 through October 2. While this will be a hybrid event, and I am thrilled that we will have the opportunity to meet in person again.

Convention is always a fantastic learning opportunity for me. I love to see and hear about what is happening in areas that I do not see that often, or areas where I do get to work in with my students, but I need a brush up on techniques and procedures.

Convention offers nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) hours that go towards your CMSRN® recertification efforts, so it does become a win – win scenario for everyone. Learn more about the convention.

I am also excited because during convention, we will have a CMSRN Certification Reception for nurses who became certified or renewed their CMSRN credential July 2021 through June 2022.

At this invitation only event, we’re going to celebrate their accomplishments with food, drinks, and friendly conversations! We hope to make this an annual tradition so be on the lookout for your invitation the year you recertify your CMSRN!  

Later in the fall, I will be meeting and interacting with the Continuing Competence Task Force that has been diligently working on recertification models that will better meet the needs of you, the certificant. We have realized that we can deliver something better all around for you and we are looking at having something in place that will be a great improvement for you sometime in 2023-24. I promise, as soon as we have a lock on this, we will let you know how this will benefit you.

We will also be looking for nurses to join our board very soon! We will have an opening for an emerging professional who is a newly licensed nurse working in the medical – surgical practice and for an experienced nurse who has earned the CMSRN credential.

Service on the board is a great way to voice the needs of certified nurses, assure we are doing the best in every way to support certified nurses, participate and evaluate what is happening in the certification industry, and grow in your professional and personal development. Calls for applications will go out soon, so be on the lookout in your emails for the details.

Please know that as the certifying board for medical – surgical nursing, we are closely monitoring the happenings within the health care industry, and we are always supporting the work that you do every day. We understand that there are challenges all around in staffing ratios, salaries, resiliency, and the like, and we are working with AMSN to provide resources to you to help you get through whatever it is that is happening with you and where you work.

Please do let us know what is missing and how we can help you in ways that are meaningful to you. As our mission states, we exist to validate excellence in medical-surgical nursing. We could not do this without the work and dedication of each and every one of you.

In closing, I just want to thank you for everything that you do. You are amazing and you are doing great things for your patients and their families every day. I could not be more proud to call you my colleagues. Enjoy the rest of the summer and I look forward to meeting and interacting with you at convention.

Until then, I wish you nothing but the best.

Wes