The focus is on medical-surgical nursing in this episode of the Nursing Notes Live podcast with a panel discussion on our topic. On the panel is Jill Arzouman, President of the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses and a clinical nurse specialist at Banner University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona. Also joining us is Mimi Haskins, president of the Medical-Surgical Nurse Certification Board and a clinical assistant professor at the State University of New York School of Nursing in Buffalo, New York. Here’s that discussion.

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Jamie Davis: Hi, Jill and Mimi, it’s great to have you here on the show with me today and I will start off with my traditional first question for our guests. I’d like to just find out a little bit about what brought you to the nursing profession. We’ll start with Jill. Jill, tell us a little bit about why you wanted to become a nurse.

Jill Arzouman: I wanted to become a nurse because I enjoyed taking care of people. I love trying to promote wellness and I just thought it’s a sort of a wonderful opportunity to be involved in the healthcare profession. Quite honestly, I did consider medical school. I considered nursing school. I also considered physician assistant school way back when, when I first started. I thought nursing, to me, offered the most flexibility to blend family and career and more opportunities to different things over my career. Nursing has certainly offered that to me over my 30-plus years as a nurse.

Jamie: Excellent. How about you Mimi?

Mimi Haskins: Well, I started out in my former life as a cost accountant. I really became interested in nursing when my husband had some major health issues and had to have surgery. I was with him pretty much all the time while he was in the hospital. And I was just blown away at how wonderful the nurses were. The doctors and the residents came in and left, but it was the nurses who cared about him and took care of him and me. I just found that to be – it just struck me. I’m somewhat of a nurturing person by nature. So I became interested in looking into becoming a nurse. I actually did it in quite a roundabout way. I started out – I was in the Army Reserves at the time. So I became an Army medic. Then I went on to become an LPN. Then I got my RN. So it’s a road traveled and I’ve loved every minute of it to be perfectly honest.

Jamie: That’s great. I actually started as a civilian paramedic before I became a nurse and so I completely understand. We come into this profession in so many different ways, but so often, for many of the same reasons, because of our desire to help and care for others. So we’re going to go and jump on in here the main topic and that’s Medical-Surgical nursing, which I guess when I first started out as a nurse and in nursing school, I thought it was the place you went before you got into your specialty as a nurse. And I know that you both are probably gritting your teeth with me saying that because we all know now that Medical-Surgical nurses and nursing is really a specialty unto itself. So as we go through this discussion, I want you both to just jump right in, comment on each other’s things that you say because I really want to hear what you both have to say about the questions that I ask. Jill, why don’t you start off? Talk a little bit about the history of Medical-Surgical nursing as a specialized nursing career.

Jill: Well, it initially was,