Note from the Instructor: Enjoy the twists and turns of CDI

By Laurie L. Prescott, RN, MSN, CCDS, CDIP

I have been looking forward to the month of August for a while now. It is a great month, filled with summer activities and the birthday of my oldest daughter, but this year is particularly special because I see it as a “full circle” moment in my life and in my career.

When people ask me how did I “get into CDI?” I usually start the story with the comment that it seems every job I have held contributed to my personal and professional growth and my success in that role. My early years of nursing provided me with a strong diverse background related to clinical care to include operating room, post anesthesia care, intensive care, cardiovascular, neuro, etc. I was exposed to and grew very comfortable working with providers and communicating with them. I spent several years in management, developing new programs and initiatives. I worked in roles related to compliance and education. This experience combined provided me with a strong base that allowed me to thrive in the role of a CDI specialist.

So, what is the full circle?

I started my nursing career at the University of Vermont 30 years ago. My four years there were some of the most fun-filled, growth-filled, and challenge-filled years of my life. But before college, as a teenager, I worked at the then Medical Center Hospital of Vermont as a candy-striper (back when they used to call young hospital volunteers that due to the red-and-white striped uniforms they wore). I came back to the hospital as a nurse intern during college and got my first nursing job there after graduation.

That hospital is now the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVM) and in early August I get to travel home to Vermont with my daughter to celebrate her birthday—and I get to teach CDI and risk adjustment to the staff there. I don’t think life can’t get any better than that!

But wait, it does! During my final years at UVM, I met and married my husband. He was a young Army lieutenant who took me off to Kaiserslautern, Germany. We spent two years living there and during that time I worked as a volunteer nurse in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit at Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center. Yes, I volunteered. There was little money to pay for civilian nurses. I was a new graduate; they didn’t want to hire me. I worked as a nurse free of charge, because I wanted to be sure that when I did return home I would be employable. I perfected many of the skills I learned in school and looked forward to one day earning a paycheck for those skills.

How does this circle get completed?

When I return home form the trip to Vermont with my daughter, my husband and I will prep for a trip back to the same town we lived in Germany and we will visit some of our old haunts and hopefully discover some new ones.

And, I get to teach a CDI Boot Camp at the hospital on the hill where I once volunteered all those years ago, how awesome is that?

So, August is my “full circle month.” When I started the journey more than 30 years ago, I had no understanding of where it would take me. Clinical documentation improvement was not even a known career option. I did not anticipate that my original avocation would take me to six different hospitals and countless different roles in healthcare. I did not know I would grow to comfortably speak to large rooms full of people, become an author, or be a leader in my profession.

When I give advice to young nurses and other young professionals, I tell them to enjoy each turn of events your life takes, and to accept the challenges. You learn from each challenge and this learning is what leads you to the next opportunity. Each new skill, new experience adds a brick on the wall that will be your life. Celebrate each one of these bricks and take time to see how they have combined to create the person, the professional you are now and know the wall will only grow in complexity and experience as you live each day. 

Editor’s Note: Prescott is a CDI Education Specialist at HCPro in Danvers, Massachusetts. Contact her at lprescott@hcpro.com. For information regarding CDI Boot Camps visit www.hcprobootcamps.com/courses/10040/overview.