Passed CEN

Congrats! recently passed mine last July 16. I contacted HR to add that to my badge, but I have a long first name and I don't think the CEN will fit. Or maybe I could take away the CMC-CSC. We'll see on Monday what HR says.

I passed my CEN recently and I just wanted to let people know my success story. I read many forums consisting of "advice" stating to wait to take the certification exam. And I weighed those comments with the support I received from my previous employer's corporate VP of Emergency Services who is an FAEN and my current ED educator. They gave me some tips and encouraged me to take it. IMHO, I say if you are ready to take the test, then study hard and take it like I did.

I came from a research background in emergency medicine and trauma. I worked my first year as a Trauma Research Nurse and then transitioned about 1 month ago to bedside ED nursing and took my exam and did amazingly well. I am proud to be among the 58% of RNs who attempt the exam who passed and can call themselves a CEN.

It's prioritization and pathophysiology heavy. Any disease process that can come through the ED doors could be tested.

The materials I used to review:

ENA online CEN review modules

employer sponsored CEN review

Boswell YouTube videos

Sheehey's Manual of Emergency Nursing Blue ED book

*Sorry for the long post and please feel free to contact me regarding the exam or life as an ED nurse.

Congrats! I am a relatively new nurse and gets confused with the acronyms. Would taking an Advanced Critical Care certification focused on Emergency Nursing qualifies you to take the CEN or would just that be ACCRN? How do you go about taking the CEN? Is there a theoretical component or just ED experience and if only ED experience for how long?