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Posted By Jenna A. Bertini,
Friday, August 4, 2017
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RitKen and Associates, LLC. exhibited at the Home Care Association of Florida (HCAF) 28th Annual Conference and Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, where they took the opportunity to promote the WOCN® Society, the Continuing Education Center (CEC), the Wound Treatment Associate (WTA) Program and the Ostomy Care Associate (OCA) Program to more than 700 conference attendees.
A s part of the pre-conference, RitKen and Associates, LLC. held an on-site WTA Program clinical competency test for registered nurses who previously signed up for and completed the program’s online activities. As a result of the on-site clinical competency test, Cindy Valle, RN, of Diamond Home Health, successfully passed and officially became one of the newest graduates of the WTA Program!
During the conference, many attendees expressed their frustration related to the difficulty of finding enough WOC nurses to serve in a variety of health care settings, especially in home and hospice care. RitKen and Associates, LLC. stated, “It was gratifying to hear the expressions of respect for our specialty and professional society from home care and hospice owners, administrators and clinicians.”
 RitKen and Associates, LLC. promoted the WTA Program as an extension of the WOC nurse’s reach, emphasizing the clinical role WTA graduates play in health care facilities. Graduates of the WTA Program have the ability to facilitate optimal care for patients with acute and chronic wounds under the direction of the WOC specialty nurse, WOC advanced practice registered nurse or physician. For more information on the WTA Program, please click here.
The WOCN Society would like to thank RitKen and Associates, LLC. for supporting the Society’s clinical and educational efforts to advance the WOC nursing practice and achieve evidence-based outcomes.
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Posted By Jenna A. Bertini,
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Updated: Wednesday, August 2, 2017
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The Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nurses Society™ (WOCN®) Society adopted the American Nurses Association (ANA) position statement regarding the order of credentials and certifications for professional nurses, which explains the proper listing for credentials and recommends that nurses only list nationally recognized credentials.
The recommended order of listing credentials and certifications is (1) education (highest earned degree first), (2) license (designation required by the state), (3) national certification, (4) awards and honors and (5) other certifications, with credentials listed as capital letters without periods between the letters and with a comma between each credential. For example, proper listing of credentials and certifications are:
· A Nurse, PhD, RN, APRN, CWOCN, FAAN
· B Nurse, MSN, RN, APRN, CWOCN
· C Nurse, BSN, RN, CWON
· D Nurse, BS, RN, CCCN
It is critical for nurses to correctly and proudly display their credentials and certifications to distinguish their professional and educational value and elevate their level of expertise.
The Society and the Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nursing Certification Board (WOCNCB®) collaboratively developed a joint position statement to clarify the proper usage of the WOCN® acronym and WOCNCB® credentials and educate the wound, ostomy and continence (WOC) community in an effort to protect each organization’s name, brand, or logo from being used to create an impression of a relationship when one does not exist.
The WOCN® mark should only be used as an adjective along with the descriptive name, and never as a substitute for products or services or used in a plural or possessive manner. For example, proper vs. improper uses of the WOCN® mark are:
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Proper
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Improper
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WOCN® Education Program
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WOCN’s Education program
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WOCN® Annual Conference or WOCN® Society’s Annual Conference
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WOCN’s Annual Conference
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I am a WOC nurse
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I am a WOCN
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We are WOC nurses
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We are WOCNs
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The Society and the WOCNCB have taken the time to ensure that nurses are recognized as the highly qualified professionals that they truly are! We sincerely hope you find this position statement informative and welcome any comments or concerns you may have. For more information, please see the WOCN Registered Trademark Use Guidelines Position Statement.
Thank you for your continued commitment, enthusiasm and support to both the Society and the WOC specialty.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Watts, MSN, RN, CWON
WOCN Society Immediate Past President
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Posted By Jenna A. Bertini,
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
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Thank you for being a WOCN Society member! We want to make sure you are utilizing the wocn.org features and Society member benefits to your full advantage. To better acquaint yourself with wocn.org and member benefits, please view the following video demonstrations led by our very own Nurse Nancy.
Member Center Login Tutorial
This tutorial will go over the functional features of wocn.org, such as:
• Signing into the member center.
• Retrieving a forgotten password or username.
• Making changes to your profile information, including contact information for mailings, invoices and journal subscriptions.
• Viewing payment history, printing receipts, paying open membership dues/invoices, etc.
Members-only Forums Tutorial
This tutorial will provide an in-depth look at the Society’s most utilized benefit – the Members-only Forums. Learn how to connect with more than 5,000 WOC nurses to send and receive important clinical information.
Continuing Education Center Tutorial
This tutorial will go over the Continuing Education Center, one of the most valuable educational resources available to members. In this tutorial you will learn how to:
• Access CE sessions.
• Watch archived webinars.
• View past conference sessions.
• Access certification review courses and more.
This tutorial will show you how to access educational resource and materials, including:
• The WOCN bookstores
• The document library (position statements, reference guides, best practices and more).
• Clinical tools and more.
All of the materials provided are available to help you advance your practice.
JWOCN Website Tutorial
This tutorial will provide quick tips on how to access premier WOC information from the online Journal of Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nursing (JWOCN), such as:
• Archived issues and current issues.
• Articles published ahead of print.
• Downloadable PDFs.
• Continuing education opportunities.
If you have any questions, please contact us info@wocn.org.
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Posted By Jenna A. Bertini,
Monday, February 13, 2017
Updated: Friday, February 10, 2017
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Nursing students considering their many options following graduation were introduced to wound, ostomy and continence nursing at the National Student Nurses' Association (NSNA) 34th Annual Mid-Year Planning Conference. More than 600 junior and senior nursing students from across the country attended the conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in November 2016.
.jpg) WOCN Society member Carolyn Crumley, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, CWOCN, presented a concurrent student workshop, “Wound, Ostomy & Continence Nursing – WOC Nurses: Who we are, what we do,” which provided an overview of the impact that the WOC specialty has on patient outcomes and the various opportunities for board-certified WOC nurses. Carolyn also participated in a nursing specialty showcase panel presentation, with many students expressing an interest and requesting additional information.
Interestingly enough, in an unusual coincidence, the panel participants who represented eight different nursing specialties included a classmate from each of Carolyn’s nursing education programs – BSN, MSN and DNP!
Read Carolyn’s thoughts on her informative presentation and how she hoped it impacted the students:
1. What is one piece of information you hope attendees took away and found helpful from your student workshop, "WOC Nurses: Who we are, what we do?"
I hope that the nursing students who attended the session gained a better understanding of the WOC specialty nursing practice – whether they were interested in pursuing WOC specialty practice as their career path or in working with WOC nurses within their organization in other capacities. For those attendees who were interested in pursuing the WOC specialty practice, I hope that they found the discussion of the educational and certification options helpful. Finally, I hope that my passion for working with wound, ostomy and continence patients inspired them to seek out an area of nursing in which they feel the same dedication and personal satisfaction.
2. What piece of advice did you provide the students during the Nursing Specialty showcase panel presentation?
I stressed to the students that if you are not experiencing personal fulfillment in a nursing position that you are working in, explore the multitude of other opportunities. And it is not all about how much money that you make!
3. What did you like most about presenting to nursing students at the NSNA conference?
It was inspiring to see a new generation of nurses involved with a professional organization, even prior to graduation! I heard several other presenters who reinforced the benefits of continuing their involvement with the various nursing and specialty organizations.
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Posted By Jenna A. Bertini,
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Updated: Friday, January 6, 2017
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The Society does not endorse or support products or services. This is a guest blog post written by ostomy patient and advocate, Dawnette Meredith.
If you have a story you would like to share, please email share@wocn.org.
Awesome Ollie the Ostomy Bear
This is me, a 50-year-old woman completely thrilled about a very expensive stuffed bunny from overseas. Ridiculous you say? Well, this is a very special bunny. It has an ostomy just like me! I underwent ostomy surgery in December of 2016 after battling severe colonic-inertia for 49 years, 9 months and 15 days. My bunny was a bright spot in my recovery. It was a daily reminder to smile and laugh at an otherwise less than ideal situation. For heaven’s sake, I’m a grown woman, but there I was showing off my stuffed bunny to family and friends! It somehow made it easier to talk about my illness and recent surgery.
This little bunny sparked in me a hope to pass along positivity to other ostomates, and a dream to give children in the United States who undergo ostomy surgery a teddy bear with an ostomy. I designed a Teddy bear with a red button for a stoma and a removable Velcro ostomy pouch. Awesome Ollie the Ostomy Bear was born.
 There’s no better place to start than in your own back yard. Rady Children’s Hospital, near my home in San Diego, which performs roughly 120 ostomy surgeries per year, was the perfect place to begin. I know from personal experience that ostomy nurses are essential to helping patients recover and cope after ostomy surgery. My husband and I sponsored eight Awesome Ollie Ostomy Bears and delivered them to the ostomy nurses at Rady Children’s Hospital. The ostomy nurses were given the joyful task of handing out the bears to their ostomy patients. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and soon Rady Children’s Hospital called for more bears! Soon, other children’s hospitals wanted to acquire the bears for their ostomy patients. I quickly needed to find a way to get bears sponsored in time for the holidays!
 I approached my ostomy support group and its members with the possibility of sponsoring the bears for Rady Children’s Hospital. Within 20 minutes, over 30 bears were sponsored! Wow! I hurried to prepare the bears before Christmas-time. I like to think of myself as “The Ostomy Elf” busily working in my teddy bear workshop. In a flurry of fabric and thread, the bears were ready. The second batch of sponsored bears was joyfully delivered to Rady Children’s Hospital in December 2016.
It’s a new year and Awesome Ollie the Ostomy bear has BIG plans! The goal is to secure funding and provide free Awesome Ollie Ostomy Bears to children’s hospitals all across the United States.
If you or your organization would like to sponsor Awesome Ollie Ostomy Bears at a hospital in your area or purchase a bear for yourself, please contact me at Terrabusy@yahoo.com or 858-336-4418. Awesome Ollie sponsorship costs $20/per bear. Find Awesome Ostomy on Facebook to keep up on all the Ostomy Bear news.
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