How Certification Exams Reflect Current Practice.

Certification exams are often the least understood aspect of certification processes. This article delves into the development of certification exams, highlighting their crucial role in assessing the knowledge and skills required for effective job performance. It explores how exams are meticulously crafted to align with specific job tasks, knowledge areas, and skill sets within various nursing specialties.

Nurse Practitioner Certification Examination Development: From Reflecting Clinical Practice to Ensuring Lifelong Learning.

Objective: Certifications in psychiatric-mental health nursing promote safe practice by psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs) and nurses (PMHNs) and help protect the public from harm. This protection begins with the development of an examination that meets rigorous national education, practice, and accreditation standards and reflects PMHNPs' or PMHNs' clinical practice. Achievement and maintenance of a certification is a journey that involves a commitment to lifelong learning and the improvement of the field of psychiatric-mental health nursing through involvement in the examination process.

Health outcomes and healthcare utilization of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders living with HIV in Hawai'i: A mixed-methods study.

Objectives: Past research shows mixed outcomes in terms of HIV-related disparities among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHOPI). This study investigates HIV-related disparities among NHOPI living with HIV in Hawai'i.

Design: An explanatory sequential design was utilized.

Matchmaking facilitates the diagnosis of an autosomal-recessive mitochondrial disease caused by biallelic mutation of the tRNA isopentenyltransferase (TRIT1) gene.

Deleterious variants in the same gene present in two or more families with overlapping clinical features provide convincing evidence of a disease-gene association; this can be a challenge in the study of ultrarare diseases. To facilitate the identification of additional families, several groups have created "matching" platforms. We describe four individuals from three unrelated families "matched" by GeneMatcher and MatchMakerExchange.

Ketogenic diet efficacy in the treatment of intractable epileptic spasms.

Objective: To determine the efficacy of the ketogenic diet in controlling epileptic spasms after failing traditional antiepileptic medication therapy.

Methods: This is a prospective, case-based study of all infants with epileptic spasms who were referred for treatment with the ketogenic diet at our hospital between 2009 and 2012. All subjects continued to have epileptic spasms with evidence of hypsarrhythmia or severe epileptic encephalopathy on electroencephalography despite appropriate medication treatments.