Guest column | Professional development: A personal journey

by Courtney Kretz, MSN, RN, CCDS

Five years ago, I was excited and nervous to enter a new phase of my nursing career: CDI. I had no idea what a clinical documentation specialist was responsible for, but regardless, I knew I was equipped with the necessary medical knowledge. After the first week, I was in panic mode, wondering what in the world a DRG was and how I was going to learn every coding rule and guideline. I saw our department’s thick orientation binder and reconsidered whether I’d made the right choice in moving away from patient care. But as the weeks went on and my knowledge of this new role increased, I slowly gained confidence. My story may seem familiar, as I’m sure many of you have had a similar experience—wondering if we had made a mistake, anxious and nervous that we would never learn it all or that we would let our teams down.