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Two of Sinai Hospital's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) nurse practitioners are among the very first in the nation to achieve a new national certification. Cathy Haut, C.P.N.P. and Terry Angel, C.P.N.P., recently earned the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Acute Care Certification. There are only 50 certified pediatric nurse practitioner's nationwide who have qualified for the newly created certification, and only five in Maryland.

"Cathy and Terry are exemplary role models for their peers as they continue to be trailblazers in pediatric critical care,” said Aaron Zuckerberg, M.D., head, Division of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and Critical Care at Sinai Hospital. "We are very proud of their accomplishments and honored to call them our colleagues. Since its inception, the Sinai PICU has been very fortunate to have dedicated pediatric critical care nurse practitioners that have created and expanded the role of advanced practice nurses in pediatric critical care.”

The Pediatric Nursing Certification Board created this new certification, which offers pediatric nurses who want to become acute care nurse practitioners a new alternative. Historically those nurses who wanted to take the next step to become a nurse practitioner had only one course of study to follow, primary care. With this new certification, anyone who has a desire to specialize in pediatric acute care has a chance to do that.

"The great thing about this certification, which is based on a national role delineation study, is that it acknowledges the differences in practice between primary care and acute care pediatric nurse practitioners,” said Haut.

Haut, who works for the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board, has been involved with creating the new program since its inception. Angel, who had already obtained her nurse practitioner's certification through the old program, volunteered to help in the design of the testing and was selected to participate in a vigorous screening process.

Both played an integral part in the writing and review stages of the new exam, and they recently participated in the beta testing process for the test. The Pediatric Nursing Certification Board started offering the test this month.