Nationalize licensing

I’m frustrated and angry. After completing both my associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing at the U of A, I served more than a decade in critical-care areas of northwest Arkansas hospitals before moving in 2002 to Washington state with Multicare Health Systems. I married in 2004, stopped renewing my Arkansas license, and worked an additional two decades, primarily in critical-care settings in Washington hospitals.

Years of long shifts and middleof-the-night calls for post-anesthesia care eventually slowed to two to three days a week, and I enjoyed semiretirement surrounded by Mount Rainier wilderness. “CiCi” Florence Rigney, RN, was still working for Multicare at age 95 until the pandemic. I have no intention of being employed that long, but I love my work and had no intention of stopping.

I coaxed my spouse to let me return “home” to Arkansas, arriving for unprecedented heat last summer, and I myself was slammed with covid. Rather ironic since, despite close proximity to hundreds of unvaccinated patients, I had previously been spared. When I recovered enough to apply for my Arkansas license, I realized that due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to verify the 1,000 hours required to renew my “delinquent” Arkansas license. I begged to be grandfathered in, sent explanations, pay stubs, and letters from my previous employer. Despite the dire need for nurses, without that one form I was unsympathetically assured that the only way I could renew my license was to take a “refresher course” costing over $2,000, complete 40-plus classroom hours, and 80 hours of unpaid supervised clinical time, only to make less than half my Washington wages.

Therefore, I’ll keep my Washington license and work two months a year there. Worthy of investigation, it is high time to nationalize criteria for nursing license recognition and renewal.

SUSAN McGOWAN

Fayetteville