Advanced Certification in Wound Care?

[Cideous]

Hey guys, need a little help.

I am interested in making a move from UC into Wound Care.  I am looking for a *credible* advanced wound care certification type course that will give me the leg up when applying for a wound care position.  Several of the jobs I have seen either recommend or require it.  I basically just googled wound care certification and got dozens of hits, but nothing that looked really credible.  So..

1.  Does anyone have experience in wound care who has went through a credible training course?  Hopefully not terribly expensive and counting towards CME cat 1's would be a bonus

2.  Any tips or recommendations would be appreciated.

3.  Is there a nationally recognized (legit) wound care organization that I should be looking to join?

 

 

I have taken care of lots of wounds, but only in a transactional UC setting, so I would like to become an expert so to speak at least didactically prior to applying seeing how everything is so competitive out there now.

 

Thanks!

Edited October 21, 2020 by Cideous

[Cideous]

Bump for any insight.   

[cc56]

I have nothing to add, I want to know also.  Lastly is there anyone who has done this?  Did you like the jump, is it a good area of medicine? 

[CPPAC]

I made the move from general surgery and urology to wound care earlier this year and absolutely love it. The hours are better with no call and you get to know the patient's as you improve their life through healing their wounds. There is a lot of frustration in it as with any specialty - DMII patient won't stay off his foot wounds or control blood sugar, pressure ulcer patient won't offload their backside, patient misses 2-3 weeks of appts in a row, etc. - but it's still very rewarding. 

This was an older post and I've found a coupld of credible certification bodies, but my problem now is that many require 2-3 years of wound care experience and/or do not include PAs as an approved licensed provider. I feel like this needs to be brought to the AAPA's attention so we can get PA added to that list so I will be doing that soon. Wound Care Institute and Wound Care Education Partners are two great resourses for certification courses. 

[Cideous]

I looked into this field pretty heavy and found most (if not all) companies were only hiring NP's.  It was very disappointing.  

[ventana]

On 10/2/2021 at 12:34 PM, Cideous said:

I looked into this field pretty heavy and found most (if not all) companies were only hiring NP's.  It was very disappointing.  

Direct pay might change this.   A lot easier to bill.   Will change Locums jobs for sure.  

[BirdDogPA]

Im in the same boat... wanting to diversify my practice from strictly emergency medicine to wound care. From what I see you have the ABWM and APWH who will both certify PAs plus a whole bunch of other "certification courses." Curios what PAs practicing in wound care have done or if y'all have received any additional certification?

[Cideous]

One other thing I found was that so called "wound care" companies are sketchy as heck.  I applied to two of them near me earlier in the year and after being offered a job I was stunned by how "fly-by-night" they were.  Not going to go into great detail, but I felt my license flapping in the wind just talking to them.  Btw, when you are thinking about going to work for someone like a wound care company, pull up a street view of their "corporate headquarters".  If it looks bad, it prob is.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Cideous

[PArockstar]

I am a new grad looking at an opportunity to get into wound care. What are your benefits/pros/cons? What do you like about it and has it been rewarding for you?

[PACali]

Following. 

I am also interested in diversifying my skills from only EM to some wound care. My EM company is expanding their practicing line to wound care. Anyone else would like to share their experience in wound care?  average pay? good work life balance? 

[CPPAC]

Second post here: If you're truly interested in wound care, please feel free to email me. It's a great specialty! Please read below as it may answer some of your questions.

catherinehphipps@gmail.com

I've now been practicing wound care in an outpatient setting for two years and love it (PA for 5 years total). I accept pre-PA students for shadowing and will be working with local PA schools to try to bring in PA students as a rotation to bring awareness to the specialty. I am located in Oklahoma if anyone is interested in seeing an outpatient clinic function but I cannot accept "virtual shadowing". Someone above was correct - this is largely a nurse and NP dominated field but there are PAs involved here and there. I HIGHLY suggest you try to shadow someone. Wound care is very take-it-or-leave-it. 

CERTIFICATION WISE: I'm currently preparing for the Certified Wound Specialist (CWS) exam. After consulting with other providers at the SAWC Fall conference in October 2022, I determined this would be the best option but it's hard and has a relatively high fail rate so I'm to get it done and over the first go. On another note, SAWC is a GREAT wound care conference to attend. 

I thought I would hate wound care and after three weeks decided I had found my calling within medicine. This job fell into my lap when I was asked if I could cover the clinic one day a week when they were hurting for a provider and only open 2 days per week. After 3 weeks I contacted administration to see what needed to be done to transfer from general surgery and urology to full time wound care and have since built up the most productive clinic within my hospital system with a great reputation in the community. 

*Please take me seriously when I say you likely don't know nearly as much as you think you do about wound care, no matter what specialty you're coming from. EM providers and surgeons are among the worst in terms of antiquated wound care methods and it is very easy to do more harm than good. Pros and cons are subjective...

• PRO - procedure based. If you love procedures, you are more likely to enjoy it. If you enjoy surgery, it's very similar but patients are awake, talking, and SOMETIMES feel what you're doing. Bett than surgery because usually get to sit down so your back isn't killing you! lol
• PRO - see the same patients every week. You build great relationships. 
• PRO - HIGH AUTONOMY but this is a variable of your clinic. I have my wonderful delegating physician who works in a family practice upstairs and does one 1/2 day of wound care per week (we do not work in clinic at the same time). We text occasionally, see each other rarely her but I have an open line of communication if I need it. This is a major part of my job satisfaction as I had relatively little autonomy in general surgery or urology.
• PRO - it's like a puzzle. Some patients just need something more advanced than a bandaid and some need your full attention every time they come in. Some just need to stop drinking their daily Four Loko they haven't mentioned over the several months you've been caring for them and their wounds will clear right up - this is a true patient case!
• CON - High rate of non-compliance. I didn't have to deal with it as much in surgery but used to it now. 
• CON - Getting to know patient's very well (with a high population of elderly pts) means losing patient's you've gotten to know well. 

Honestly, not many cons to me.

If you're already within a hospital system, find out if they have a wound care clinic. If they do and there is room for improvement (need another provider, need to open more days, etc.) MOVE IN ON THAT. If a wound care clinic is only open 2-3 days, they would benefit from hiring you. People get hurt on the daily and there is plenty of business in that realm. Wound care is VERY profitable when it's well-established and as a PA you are able to bring quite a bit of revenue. I can go on about this all day and don't mind reviewing contracts and helping with salary and benefits for OUTPATIENT CLINIC SETTING as I'm not familiar with travel care (honestly sounds miserable to me but it seems to pay well).

You should easily be able to see a 6-digit salary within full time outpatient wound care. I recommend an RVU-based bonus if you're able to work that in. Again, I'm more than willing to review contracts and can help with RVU thresholds here. For reference, my salary is around $125k and I was able to bonus into $200k - this is not typical and you should probably not anticipate this for multiple reasons but if I can make it happen for you, I'll try! Due to my level of productivity, my *RVU threshold* was increased this year but I'm still anticipating a decent bonus. 

*For reference, RVUs are like a point system for procedures and office visits. With an RVU-based bonus, you have a threshold where you must meet a certain amount before you start to bonus. Just for example, say you have a $100k salary with an RVU-based bonus that starts after your threshold of 3000 RVUs. Every RVU (or "point") you accumulate after that is worth a dollar amount ($25-35 per RVU) we will use $25 ofr example. It is feasbile to earn around 7000 RVUs per year in wound care depening on how much you like to work and how much volume you can handle (I am anticipating 6300-6500 RVUs and I work 3 full days and two half days, get home by 6pm at the latest and very rarely take any charts home).

Say you hit 3500 RVUs... you earned:

3500 earned - 3000 threshold = 500 RVUs over threshold
500 x $25 per RVU = $12,500 bonus on top of your $100k salary

If you're able to get 6000 RVUs:
6000 earned - 3000 threshold = 3000 RVUs over threshold
3000 x $25 per RVU = $75,000 bonus on top of your $100 salary

These are just examples and the last is very extreme but it happened to me, so never say "never"! 

 

PS - I don't use forums much so I quoted those who may benefit from this to get their attention in case you're wondering.

 

 

On 12/9/2020 at 2:09 PM, Cideous said:

Bump for any insight.   

 

On 12/22/2020 at 12:00 AM, cc56 said:

I have nothing to add, I want to know also.  Lastly is there anyone who has done this?  Did you like the jump, is it a good area of medicine? 

 

On 10/10/2021 at 11:23 PM, BirdDogPA said:

Im in the same boat... wanting to diversify my practice from strictly emergency medicine to wound care. From what I see you have the ABWM and APWH who will both certify PAs plus a whole bunch of other "certification courses." Curios what PAs practicing in wound care have done or if y'all have received any additional certification?

 

On 12/24/2021 at 10:29 AM, PArockstar said:

I am a new grad looking at an opportunity to get into wound care. What are your benefits/pros/cons? What do you like about it and has it been rewarding for you?

 

On 12/24/2021 at 6:43 PM, PACali said:

Following. 

I am also interested in diversifying my skills from only EM to some wound care. My EM company is expanding their practicing line to wound care. Anyone else would like to share their experience in wound care?  average pay? good work life balance? 

 

On 10/21/2020 at 1:29 PM, Cideous said:

Hey guys, need a little help.

I am interested in making a move from UC into Wound Care.  I am looking for a *credible* advanced wound care certification type course that will give me the leg up when applying for a wound care position.  Several of the jobs I have seen either recommend or require it.  I basically just googled wound care certification and got dozens of hits, but nothing that looked really credible.  So..

1.  Does anyone have experience in wound care who has went through a credible training course?  Hopefully not terribly expensive and counting towards CME cat 1's would be a bonus

2.  Any tips or recommendations would be appreciated.

3.  Is there a nationally recognized (legit) wound care organization that I should be looking to join?

 

 

I have taken care of lots of wounds, but only in a transactional UC setting, so I would like to become an expert so to speak at least didactically prior to applying seeing how everything is so competitive out there now.

 

Thanks!

 

[spensj]

@CPPAC Thanks for that information. Good luck with your CWS exam! I've been working in EM for 10 years but wanted to get additional wound care certifications. Would you recommend the AWCC or WCC as an introductory type wound care certification? They look fairly similar...

[CPPAC]

2 hours ago, spensj said:

@CPPAC Thanks for that information. Good luck with your CWS exam! I've been working in EM for 10 years but wanted to get additional wound care certifications. Would you recommend the AWCC or WCC as an introductory type wound care certification? They look fairly similar...

It’s been a while since I reviewed certification options so I had to go back and look at this. On a brief review it looks like AWCC requires  another certification (CWS included among the list) to be eligible to test and gain title/credential of AWCC (advanced wound care certified). Seems redundant to CWS honestly but their description is a bit confusing. 
Looking at eligibility it looks like you would be eligible for the Preceptor Program if you have only worked ER - I didn’t look into what that entails but it’s seems more drawn out and hints at needing to find a preceptor. By no means am I saying you aren’t knowledgeable (ER people are a gift) but I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly deep advanced wound care is and that seeing, treating, suturing, dressing wounds even for 10 years won’t necessarily be applicable to a wound care certification (all practices are different so I’m trying not to be all-inclusive). The certification process is largely underestimated and there’s no “introductory” cert  

For reference, I met an ER doc at a conference last year who was switching over to full-time wound care for better work-life balance after 20+ years ER and trauma, docs without borders, and ski med patrol and he was baffled how in depth wound care was after just the first lecture we sat through. Said he had no idea it was so detailed, there are so many dressing options, DDx, tests to order, how important knowledge of nutrition is, all the labs needed, etc. He said “I thought this would be a step toward retirement but it sounds like more work”.

I have been doing this for 2years full time after 3 years of what I thought was “wound care” with my general surgery team and it’s still a lot working on the CWS to make sure I pass the first time. When I moved to specific full-time wound care it was brutally eye-opening how the vast majority of providers have no idea how to correctly treat wounds. I whole-heartedly encourage all providers to seek more education on wounds because wounds so common but for most who are not full-time wound care it will be a steep uphill battle. It will feel like learning a whole new specialty because you are. It’s a challenge but wound care is great and an amazing skill to add. I recommend the WCPC Virtual conference or ordering the ABWM book for review. You will have to get familiar with things you likely don’t use - hydrocolloids, alginates, foams, hydrogels, skin subs etc that is not routinely kept in an ER due to cost, terminology, etc. You will have to learn a lot that will make you a better ER provider but won’t necessarily be applicable to your ER practice because you aren’t in a wound care clinic, if that makes sense. 
 

Overall I recommend trying to get some part-time specific wound care experience. I believe you need 2 years part-time minimum to qualify for most certifications. You may end up loving it and quitting ER, you never know! 
 

Sorry for the novel! 

Edited January 24, 2023 by CPPAC

[ohiovolffemtp]

7 hours ago, CPPAC said:

You will have to learn a lot that will make you a better ER provider but won’t necessarily be applicable to your ER practice because you aren’t in a wound care clinic, if that makes sense. 

For someone who is going to stay in EM, what would be a good way to learn the high yield things that that would:

• Avoid doing things that would make chronic wounds worse when we see them in the ED.
• Do the best initial care of new wounds, or is that typically not where standard EM practice falls down.