Joyce McMahon, RN: NACDN Secretary's Personal Statement

I became involved with NACDN through its former version, the Maryland Association of Chemical Dependency Nurses.  MACDN was a professional, state-wide organization of nurses who worked in this field, started by a handful of nurses from Hopkins. It included an annual conference and quarterly in-person continuing education events. The primary purpose of MACDN, however,  was to offer certification  for LPNs, RNs, and NPs.  In fact, all the nurses at my current workplace were members, and everyone had earned their CDNC certifications except for the two most recent hires, one of which was me.  The other nurse and I would check the website regularly looking for the next exam date, but the MACDN site was never updated.  I learned later that the MACDN founder, Ben Janvier, had passed away.  That, and the COVID shut-down, seemed to spell the end of the organization.  I became CARN certified, because it was the only certification available to me. My co-worker, an LPN, had no path to certification because there isn’t one for LPNs in this field.

In 2022, Marian Currens asked me to be on the board of the new, national form of MACDN, NACDN.  The National Association of Chemical Dependency Nurses exists to offer nationally recognized certification for all nurses in this field- LPNs, RNs, and NPs.     Every nurse in this field can be a well-prepared nurse who takes pride in their profession and their specialty.  That’s my goal- to have all the nurses in this field be #CertifiedExcellent.  We work with a very vulnerable population in a fast-changing field. I don’t think any nursing specialty is more important than ours, because people struggling in addiction affect so many family and friends around them.  When one person recovers, a corner of the world gets better with them.

So the short version of my personal statement is: I’ve been a member of MACDN since 2019, I’ve been on the Board of  NACDN since 2022, and I am deeply committed to this cause. And I know it can be done, because Ben Janvier did it!  But there are a lot more steps to creating a nationally recognized certification for this field. That has been a learning experience.  It has taken a lot of work, and there is more work to come.

We invite you to join NACDN today.  Become part of the momentum towards #CertifiedExcellent nurses in this field.  Attend our regular webinars with original content and enjoy the free CEUs we post for our members.   Together, we make a big difference in a specialty that needs it.