I Call Myself Nurse ...

By: Corey Tillyer, Executive Director, Health Care Information Systems
Planning, Informatics & Analytics - Fraser Health Authority

MUSE International, Board Chair 

I am a hospital trained registered nurse. I lived in Vancouver General Hospital nursing residence for three years while learning to become a registered nurse. When I finished my training, I worked as a medical-surgical nurse in direct care for 13 years. During that time, I attended the University of Victoria and completed a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.

Because of my med-surg generalist nursing knowledge I was asked to work on a nursing documentation system project in 1996. You know ... back in the good old days when the internet was just coming to us common folk via the modem. It was supposed to be a temporary assignment bringing nursing knowledge to the IT team who were implementing MEDITECH's NUR module. Well - here I am many years later and as it turns out, I did not go back to my med-surg position. Instead I started down a career path I did not initially intend for myself, a career path that didn't really exist when I graduated from nursing school.

I have recently become sensitive to the fact that some people no longer consider me a nurse because I work in clinical informatics. For some reason, my nursing knowledge and experience have somehow disappeared because I have joined an ancillary service, an area that supports those giving direct care. But I do not understand why this is the case? In 1992, the American Nurses Association deemed nursing informatics as a specialty nursing practice.

Canada followed suit several years later with the Canadian Nurses Association releasing a position statement called, "Nursing information and knowledge management."  Clearly our North American Nursing associations have deemed informatics as a speciality within nursing practice.

Nursing education today centers around both clinical and IT-related specialties. Did you know that MUSE International is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation? I am very delighted to be the Lead Nurse for the MUSE Organization.

With my nursing cap firmly in place, I review all MUSE presentations and content to assess if it meets the requirements as high-quality nursing education.  Once I have ensured all criteria are met, MUSE is able to provide continuing education credit hours to nurses who attend qualifying sessions. This role allows me to combine my education, experience and skills.

I am so honoured that MUSE has given me the opportunity to give back to the calling that lives in my soul. I proudly call myself Nurse.