disease surveillance nurse in public health...CIC eligible?

[guest464345]

This may be a dumb question, but after reading the CBIC's website I'm still not sure....would work as a public health disease surveillance nurse be considered adequate experience to qualify for the CIC?? My job title is "RN - Epidemiology." I don't do hands on patient care in clinics....I occasionally collect specimens, but mostly I review records, interview cases, trace contracts, recommend prophylaxis, institute control measures like exclusion from work/school, recommend notifications, talk to providers about labs to send, determine how to classify a case, respond to outbreaks, etc. And tons of patient education.

It's mostly by phone, wide variety of diseases including enterics, vector borne, vaccine preventable, prion diseases, basically anything reportable except TB, HIV, and STI's (which have their own nurses). No occupational health stuff.

Do you need hospital IP experience specifically, or would this job count?

[smilingbig]

You technically don't need hospital IP experience specifically. I actually know several people that belong to my APIC chapter that work for the state in different epi departments and are CIC. I would print out your job description and verify it directly with the CBIC eligibility requirements. If there are things that you do that are not specifically mentioned in your job description you should speak with your supervisor to see about amending the job description so that it is correct and reflective of tasks that could qualify you to sit for the exam. Also, they change to be more specific starting July 1st (you probably know this) so make sure that you look at your job description and compare it the the appropriate eligibility requirments based upon when you are planning on taking it. From my understanding, I would think that you would qualify on their 4th component specifically in the areas of management and communication & education and research. Seems like semantics, but I know that you manage 'outbreaks' and communicate your findings to prevent/limit exposures. I would see if you can email them to ask; I imagine they would be forthcoming if they felt that your job description was lacking in a certain area. Good luck!

[Oceanpacific]

I think your experience makes you very well qualified to sit for the CIC.