Petra Zickgraf

Graduated with ASN in May 2006 and received RN license in July 2006. I commenced my career as staff RN in an acute care setting hospital in Davenport, IA in the Nursing Clinical Support staff pool. This position required great flexibility and excellent people skills in regard to communication and cooperation on my part as I was performing my job in a different patient care area each day. It provided a great experience to me, being exposed to many specialties and challenges as a new graduate RN, dealing with the various patient needs and different staff daily. In February of 2007, I accepted a day shift position on the Cardiac Step-Down unit (CSU), given that my preference in nursing shifted toward cardiology. After I received my BSN in July 2008 I was ready to take on more leadership and supervisory roles within my unit. Functions I assumed: relief charge RN; skin champion, participating and educating staff in pressure ulcer prevention; I also joined numerous committees observing shared governance, such as being the chair for the Patient Partnership Council (PPC) and attending monthly Nursing Partnership Council (NPC) meetings and educating unit staff on policy changes and procedures through meetings and editing of the monthly unit newsletter. Further I became an active member of the Collaborative Documentation Group (CDG) responsible in facilitating CERNER electronic documentation for nursing and lastly, belonged to the monthly Nursing Journal Club to discuss research-based evidence in nursing to facilitate and improve patient care in all aspects to include nursing trends. In fall of 2010 I was accepted into the MSN Program at Walden University from which I graduated with my MSN in Education in August of 2012. In January 2011, I began a new part-time career as adjunct faculty to St Ambrose University, teaching clinical in the acute care setting to junior students in addition to my full-time position as a cardiac nurse. In April of 2013 I assumed the position of Nursing Educator for the cardiac step-down unit, the cardiac interventional unit and the cardiac outpatient unit, maintaining and providing education for 130-150 staff members at any given time. During that time I have created and provided many in-services for staff, participated in the bi-monthly nursing orientation performing the mock-code scenarios in the simulation education center, and co-created the mentorship program for new employees with an emphasis on promoting staff retention. The latest accomplishment during the calendar year of 2014 is my promotion to clinical nurse IV educator. Further I reviewed the current method of teaching the EKG rhythm interpretation class, constructed a proposal on an on-line interactive learning module on EKG rhythm interpretation which was accepted and was implemented in July 2015 (the start of the new fiscal year for capital expenditure purpose). I am proud of this accomplishment as it not only provided a financial savings of $10K annually to the organization, but also fosters high quality education to all staff needing dysrhythmia management as annual competency requirement. In October 2015 I relocated to Redding, CA. I accepted a travel RN position at Enloe Medical Center, Chico, CA for 13 weeks while I was looking for a new property and also a permanent position as RN educator. I accepted a position with VIBRA Hospital of Northern California as Clinical Educator on LTAC in February 2016. In March 2016 I acquired my new home in Redding, CA and following the move in April 2016 I attended a PCCN review in Detroit and received my PCCN certification July 2016. Starting in January 2019 I worked Full time as A D N instructor for Shasta College until I received an offer from Chamberlain University College of Nursing as Full Time B S N instructor for Complex Adult Health, which I accepted in July of 2019 and continued until July 2022; August of 2022 relocated Nashville, TN and accepted a full-time staff RN position with VUMC 7MCE to establish a work relationship with VUMC caring for patients post LVAD placement and transplants.

• 2022-05, Promoted to Assistant Professor at Chamberlain University College of Nursing
• 2021-09, Co-published article in SAGE Nursing
• 2016-07, PCCN certification
• 2015-05, Received award for one of 100 Great Iowa Nurses
• 2005, Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society

• American Nurses Association, 2008-01
• American Association of Critical Care Nursing, 2016-01

• PCCN, 2016-07
• ACLS, 2007-01
• BLS/CPR, 1989-01
• NREMT, 2003-01

• PCCN (2024-09)
• ACLS (Current)
• BLS (Current)
• CPR certified instructor
• Extensive clinical experience in cardiac care
• Multilingual (German, English, French)
• Experience with electronic documentation systems