Burn Nursing Specialty Certification: The Time Has Come

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From the earliest days of modern burn care, burn nurses have provided compassionate, evidence-based care to burn survivors and their families. Understanding the unique and complex nature of burn nursing led to early calls for certification of the specialty. As Coles et al. describe in “Specialty Certification for Burn Nursing: Value, Beliefs and Benefits,”¹ “clinical expertise, knowledge, skill, mastery of professional issues, and competence are hallmark features of a nurse specialty certification.” A growing body of literature documents the benefits of specialty certification to include professional development, nurse satisfaction, and improved patient outcomes.

As early as the 1990s, regional American Burn Association (ABA) conferences held discussions about the necessity of burn nursing certification. In those initial conversations, burn nurses advocated for burn nursing certification to provide recognition of the unique nature of burn care. Those conversations eventually evolved into the Burn Nurse Competency initiative, whose standard for Quality of Practice includes a competency that “encourages professional and specialty certification to enhance quality of nursing practice and patient care.”² In recent years, additional strides have been taken to support national specialty certification for the complex care of the burn patient.