Certification Board Item Writing Committee

CNLCP® Certification Board - The Challenge!

Dear CNLCP and Members of AANLCPSM,

The Certified Nurse Life Care Planners (CNLCP®) Certification Board has a challenge for all CNLCP's! Members who Attended the 2008 and 2009 AANLCPSM Annual Conference, overwhelmingly supported obtaining ABNS approval for our nursing specialty. One criterion for ABNS approval is to expand our CNLCP test questions. We need everyone's contribution to meet our goal. Are you up for the challenge?

At this time, the Item Writing Committee of the CNLCP® Certification Board empowers each of you to write test questions for the Nurse Life Care Planners certification examination.

"Oh no!" you say, "I don't have time for that!"

Ah, but you do. Almost every day in your work you are researching for your plans. You find information to back up your opinions, you look back in your nursing text books for background information, you research drug information, or you find an article of interest that pertains to the field of Life Care Planning. All you have to do is take the time to write a question about the information, list at least two references, and send us an email! It is truly that simple.

For example: While you are writing a plan for a person with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) from a motor vehicle accident, you note that the emergency room records documents a Glasgow Coma Scale of 4 on arrival. To refresh your memory of the Glasgow Scale you pull out your favorite TBI reference book and look it up. Then you write a question with that reference. Be sure to include the title of the journal or book, the year it was published, and the page.

The Glasgow Coma Scale measures:
     A. The patient's eye opening response to stimuli
     B. The patient's verbal response to stimuli
     C. The patient's motor response to stimuli
     D. All of the above (correct)

Resources

• http://www.biau.org/facts/facts_glasgow.html
• http://www.neuroskills.com/tbi/glasgow.shtml
• The Mosby Medical Encyclopedia 7th edition, December 2008

That took less than 10 minutes to create the question and document the resources. For the record, this is a very basic question and not all questions should be this simple. More complex questions will take more time to write. We challenge you to write 5-10 questions over the next 6 months. If each CNLCP authors 5-10 questions by April/May 2010, we will have about 1000-1500 questions in the bank to review for the examination.

The answer for each question requires two evidence based references. The references must should be nursing or medical evidence based using text books and/or journals that are current within the past 5 years, if possible. Feel free to use your personal evidence based resources and/or refer to the suggested - yet partial - reference list.

You may ask, "What do I get for doing this?"

You will receive the satisfaction of advancing our nursing specialty towards the goal of ABNS approval and being an active participant in the certification process.
    ~ And ~
Also, you will receive 1 CE hour toward renewal of your certification for every 5 questions you complete with two (2) references/resource based answers.

Questions can be submitted by email to April Pettengill, phone 802-849-2956, or by mail to April Pettengill, RN 195 Goodrich Hill Road, Fairfax, VT 05454. Members submitting questions must be a CNLCP and must send a copy of their curriculum vitae or resume along with the first question being submitted.