Emergency nurse certification review course held at St. Anthony

Warwick — A Certified Emergency Nurse review course was recently hosted by the Warwick campus of St. Anthony Community Hospital and held at Mount Alverno Center. Most of the registered nurses who attended the lectures are affiliated with St. Anthony, but the course was open to all nurses regardless of hospital affiliation. One attendee was Heidi Clouse, R.N., who works at Bon Secour Community Hospital in Port Jervis, which is close to her home in Shohola, Pa. “It was nice that St. Anthony Community Hospital offered this course so close to many of our homes,” she said. “Normally we would have had to travel to Westchester County or beyond.” The instructor for the course was Cathy Fox, R.N., C.E.N. Fox has over 18 years of emergency nursing experience and currently works as the emergency department educator at Bon Secours De Paul Medical Center in Norfolk, Va. She also works in the emergency department of a Level II Trauma Center in Virginia Beach. Fox is a recipient of the National Emergency Nurse Association’s Distinguished Certified Emergency Nurse Award. Certification, in general, is a mechanism by which the public and employers are able to identify practitioners who have met certain standards in their particular nursing specialty. There are certifications in many areas of nursing including obstetrics, oncology, surgical nursing, critical care, and flight nursing. The emergency nurse certification, titled C.E.N., is specific to emergency nursing and measures the attainment of a defined body of nursing knowledge in that specialty. “This was a wonderful opportunity for all the registered nurses in our community,” said Thomas Flynn, R.N., nurse manager of emergency services at St. Anthony. As a result of continuing education, emergency nurses are able to provide care to all age groups with any clinical problem including both major and minor injuries and all medical emergencies, using the latest advances.