Dr.DianeM

Capitals

G'day Dr.DianeM. I saw your edit on Nurse practitioner, and wanted to let you know I'll be reverting some of it back to the original version. The only reason I say this is that Wikipedia has quite a particular capitalisation style to be used in articles. You can find details of it here: MOS:CAPS. One example is that when expanding an acronym, caps aren't necessary:

• RN (registered nurse)
• CNP (certified nurse practitioner)

and so on. Section titles only have an initial capital, the remainder of the words are lowercase.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions (I'll see it if you reply here), or ask someone in the nursing or medical projects. Cheers, Basie (talk) 11:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but many of those should, in fact, be capitalized, in my opinion. For example, I am a Family Nurse Practitioner in Pennsylvania; my legal title, in the state of Pennsylvania per the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing, is "Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner," abbreviated "CRNP." In other states, such as Florida, it's "Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner," abbreviated "ARNP." I am a Family Nurse Practitioner-Board Certified (FNP-BC) by the ANCC. Additionally, graduate-level education programs, such as the Master of Science in Nursing, are always capitalized, as are the specialty-specific tracts one majors in, such as "Family Health Nurse Practitioner" (the name of my program at the University of Pennsylvania), because they're formal titles. When I earned my doctorate, as it was listed as, and as it says on my diploma, it's "Doctor of Nursing Science," not "doctor of nursing science." They are official titles, degrees, credentials, etc., which are used to designate professional positions and licensures, some of which are mandated by state Boards of Nursing to be written in a certain, specific manner. I won't revert the article again, because it will likely just get changed back, but I do believe they should be capitalized as they are titles, not just an abbreviations spelled out. Dr.DianeM (talk) 05:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Diane. If you look at the article you'll see I left degree name caps intact, but used acronyms after the first instance. As to titles, you may be right about the certifications in the list. I have a Chicago Manual of Style kicking around here and it has this to say:

8.22 Exceptions to the general rule. In formal contexts as opposed to running text, such as a displayed list of donors in the front matter of a book or a list of corporate officers in an annual report, titles are usually capitalized even when following a personal name.

The list of titles seems to fit that description, though I would tend to leave them lower case in the general run of text unless attached to someone's name. Here's the quote from the manual:

8.32 Other academic designations. Names of degrees, fellowships, and the like are lowercased when referred to generically.

a master's degree; a doctorate; a fellowship; master of business administration (MBA)

So in actual fact I goofed by leaving the caps in degree names! It's a minefield, and I don't think anyone expects perfection... just consistency with other articles, particularly other medical articles. Even that can be pretty hard to achieve! I'll return some of the caps in the list format, but I think we'd better leave most of the body text the way it is. Cheers, Basie (talk) 06:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello, again. Thanks for the reference. However, my main "concern" is still regarding the specific, formal and legal titles granted with licensure by state Boards of Nursing. For example, the state in which I am licensed, Pennsylvania, again grants a "Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner" (CRNP) license to those RNs who qualify for the license. In Pennsylvania, I hold three licensures--Registered Nurse, Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner and Prescriptive Authority--all granted by the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing, all written in this manner on each specific license. As such, my official, legal title is "Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner" and my official, legal abbreviated credential is "CRNP." As stated in the rules and regulations set forth by the Pennsylvania Department of State - State Board of Nursing:

21.261. Designation of CRNP; authority to use CRNP.

(a) A registered nurse who has satisfactorily met the requirements set forth in this subchapter and in additional rules and regulations that may be jointly promulgated by the Boards shall be designated on his license "Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner (CRNP)," in the area for which qualified.
(b) A nurse may not practice or offer to practice as a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner in this Commonwealth or use the abbreviation CRNP unless authorized to do so by the State Board of Nursing.[1]

Likewise, in most states in the U.S. nurse practitioners have specific, legal titles they must use, which must be listed and written in a mandated format, again governed and regulated by that state's Board of Nursing. Examples of these titles are "Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner/ARNP" (Florida), "Certified Nurse Practitioner/CNP" (Illinois), and the list continues with titles such as "Advanced Practice Registered Nurse/APRN," "Nurse Practitioner - Certified/NP-C," "Advanced Practice Nurse/APN," etc. I do understand what you are saying in regards to not referencing a specific person or anything, but at the same time, "Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner/CRNP" isn't a generic term or certification/credential for any NP in the country to use. As mentioned in the NP article, it is a specific legal title and licensure which is granted by only the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing and Alabama State Board of Nursing (as far as I know).
Personally, I don't think anyone is particularly going to care if the titles are capitalized. As a nurse for 30+ years and an NP for 15 of those years, it's been my experience that, more often than not, people do capitalize their degrees, licensures and certifications. I also believe the appearance is much more professional than, just, "master of science in nursing - adult nurse practitioner." One of the largest certifying bodies for nurse practitioners, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, also capitalizes all of their certification titles and credentials, which can be seen at www.nursescredentialing.org. For example, for an NP practicing Family & Community Medicine such as myself, they would most likely be certified as a "Family Nurse Practitioner" which is, through the ANCC with certification, titled "Family Nurse Practitioner - Board Certified" (FNP-BC). Plus, on the list of certifications offered on the right side of the site, when you click "Nurse Practitioners" under "Choose a Specialty," the list is: "Acute Care NP," "Adult NP," "Family NP," "Pediatric NP," etc. Incidentally, on www.medilexicon.com and www.dictionary.com, when you enter the many credentials and abbreviations for nurse practitioners, their results are also listed in capitalized format (i.e., on mediLexicon, enter "ACNP" and the first result is "Acute Care Nurse Practitioner"). Again on a curriculum vitae, we list degrees, licensures and credentials in capitalization, because they're often formal and/or legal titles granted by a branch of the government, plus it helps call attention to same, as it's more professional looking and something we want others to notice.
Now, with all of this said, I could be completely wrong, but it is my personal opinion that--even if not the formal, correct format--many of the titles should be capitalized. I hold a doctorate and two Master of Science in Nursing degrees, plus a BSN and AAS in Nursing--I am an RN, a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner, a medical professional, but I do *not* hold any degrees in literature, english, education, et al nor am I an author or writer (writing two theses and a dissertation was painful enough)...so again, I could be wrong, lol. Thankfully, this is only a Wikipedia article which can be changed by anyone, at any time, to include (or erase) anything they'd like; it's not a professional publication, therefore I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. :-) And with that said, feel free to consider anything I've said, particularly in reference to the legal titles and licensures granted by state Boards of Nursing, or disregard all of it, lol. Either way, thanks for your time and take care.
Dr.DianeM (talk) 09:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Warm regards,
-Diane
Diane M. Fautz, DNSc, MSN, RN, CRNP, FNP-BC

Hi Diane. I think we're talking about two different things here. It depends very much on context. On sites such as mediLexicon and dictionary.com they are not writing encyclopaedia articles, but presenting short-form definitions. A CV has the same sort of goal, and besides in that context you want people to be stopping in awe over your many qualifications!

In the body of an encyclopaedia article, a lot of capitals tends to break up the text giving it That CamelCase Look That Arrests The Eye And Provides Emphasis! ;) This seems to be one of the reasons why sites that publish very large quantities of text, such as Wikipedia, opt for the lower case approach more often than not. Cheers, Basie (talk) 10:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I should add, I would hate it if this little exchange discouraged you from adding further content to the article. Your contribution is very welcome! Sometimes I get bogged down in practicalities, I'm a bit of a geek that way ;) Cheers, Basie (talk) 10:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey again. Yeah, I understand what you are saying and, as I said, I'm fine with leaving it the way you currently have it. On the other hand, I, personally, feel at least some of them should be capitalized, and I also believe it does look better, but again, that's just my personal opinion. That said, I'm not the only one writing the article, nor am I the only one reading it, and I'm willing to compromise, to have that team spirit, and leave it as you have it. And trust me, this exchange isn't going to prevent or discourage me from writing future additions, edits or new articles. In my long career, I've been a Professor of Human Anatomy & Physiology and Pathophysiology of undergraduate college students, plus I've held nearly every type of management position imaginable from Vice President & Associate Chief of Staff, to Department Chair, to Chief Nursing Officer, Director of Nursing, Nurse Manager and the list continues; if I can deal with pissed-off, sleep-deprived college students, bitter, underpaid, overworked and under-appreciated, employees, staff and colleagues, precepting nursing and medical students including interns doing a Family Medicine residency, et al, I can certainly handle a minor disagreement between peers on the format for listing credentials, degrees and certifications in a Wikipedia article, lol. In fact, this minor "disagreement" is a welcomed change from the disagreements I deal with in my job. ;-) Luckily for me, but unfortunately for the staff, as VP/Associate Chief of Staff, I have the final say and it's my way or no way...I'm not so lucky with you, LOL. Oh, and by the way, incidentally, there IS an entire Wikipedia article devoted solely to nursing credentials--called "List of nursing credentials--which can be accessed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nursing_credentials -- This entire page, of which I don't believe I've contributed any material to, at least not that I can remember, seems to agree with me, because the entire list is in the capitalized format (i.e., "FNP - Family Nurse Practitioner"). Now, if you're going to change that to all lowercase, good luck and have fun with that, because it's over 100 credentials long. Further, and perhaps I shouldn't tell you this because you may change it, I pretty much wrote (rewrote and greatly expanded) the "Advanced Practice Nurse" article on Wikipedia and I did write a list of common credentials, again in capitalized format. So if you want to change both of those pages, you have your work cut out for you...especially with the "list of nursing credentials" page. And I certainly understand getting tied up with practicalities; I'm a perfectionist, a Virgo, a first born, and a control-freak...this just happens to be one thing I'm going to let slide and be okay with you changing it to how you want it, lol. Dr.DianeM (talk) 09:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Take care,
Diane