How to List Your Nursing Credentials (With Examples)

Your nursing credentials and how you display them are incredibly important. They indicate that you have the education and certification to do a particular type of nursing. This article will explain how to properly list them and include examples to show you exactly how yours should be written.

“Having a standard way ensures that everyone—including nurses, healthcare providers, consumers, third-party payers, and government officials—understands the significance and value of credentials,” says the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) , a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association (ANA).

To help avoid any confusion as to which designations should get top billing, there is a specific procedure for displaying your credentials in a uniform way. This is a step-by-step guide to understanding and displaying your nursing credentials (as recommended from the American Nursing Association).

Let’s use the example of this nurse: Margaret Miranda, MSN, RN, APRN, OCN

1. Start with Education

Immediately following someone’s name, start by listing the highest earned degree. Educational degrees are the most important because they are permanent. Once you earn them, they stay with you throughout your professional life.

If you’ve earned a non-nursing degree, that is usually not included unless it’s somehow directly related to your nursing job. One example of a relevant, non-nursing degree might be if you are a nurse manager and you earned your MBA.

If you do wish to list a second degree, it should follow your highest nursing degree. Using the example at the beginning, Margaret Miranda has a Master of Science in Nursing; thus, the letters MSN follow her name.

2. Licensure

Next up is your licensure (e.g. “RN” “LPN”). To be a practicing nurse, your educational accomplishments are not enough. You must become licensed. Therefore, you must include if you’re an RN or an LPN immediately following your degree. Margaret Miranda is a Registered Nurse; therefore, the letters RN follow her educational degree (MSN).

3. Specialty

If you’ve gone on to earn any additional advanced nursing specialization, you’ll want to list that designation next. These acronyms might include things like APRN (Advanced Practice Registered Nurse), NP (Nurse Practitioner), and CNS (Clinical Nurse Specialist). Margaret Miranda is also an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse; therefore, the letters APRN follow her licensure as an RN.

Some nursing specialties also require national certification from an accredited certifying body. Some nurses decide to take a particular certification that sometimes shows a higher level of knowledge in that specialty and that’s where this next credential listing comes into play.

Examples of national certifications include Oncology Certified Nurse (OCN), Family Nurse Practitioner-Board Certified (FNP-BC) Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN) and Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist-Board Certified (AGCNS-BC). If you have more than one certification, you can either list them in order of relevance to your current practice, or in the order you obtained them.

Margaret Miranda is also an Oncology Certified Nurse (OCN), so the letters OCN follow the letters APRN.

So now that you know the order in which you should list your nursing credentials, what will your signature actually look like written out? Here’s an easy rule to remember: Credentials should be comma-separated from your name and each other, and they do not include periods. Returning to our prior example:

 Margaret Miranda, MSN, RN, APRN, OCN

While it’s not necessary to include a laundry list of credentials every time you sign a check or your kids’ homework, you’ll need to use them when you’re on the job. Most importantly, you include your credentials on any legal medical documents you sign, including prescriptions, medical charts, and patient records.

Another time you should list your nursing credentials is if you submit a paper to a nursing journal, since it’s important to show that you have expertise in the subject you’re writing about.

Nursing is all about being well-educated, keeping patient care skills fresh, and achieving career goals through certification. As you keep tacking on more and more professional accomplishments, don’t be shy about adding more letters to your signature. After all, you worked hard to earn them, representing all of the knowledge and experience you’ve accumulated over the years.

Dawn Papandrea is a Staten Island, NY-based freelance writer who specializes in personal finance, parenting, and lifestyle topics. Her work has appeared in Family Circle, WomansDay.com, Parents, CreditCards.com, and more.