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Critical care nursing sometimes happens so fast it’s hard to recognize great work because the next challenge is already at these fine nurses’ feet. But when the American Academy of Nursing named its new fellows, it shined the light on two extraordinary critical care nurses, one in Missouri and one in Minnesota. Thomas S. Ahrens, RN, CNS, CS, and Mary Fran Tracy, RN, PhD, CCRN, CCNS, were recently inducted into the American Academy of Nursing.

To be selected as fellows in the American Academy of Nursing, nurses must make outstanding and broad contributions to health care. They also must show strong potential to have a continuing influence on nursing practice and health policy that is aimed at improving the lives of Americans. Clearly, the academy made two fine choices with Ahrens and Tracy.

Ahrens, a research scientist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, is an expert critical-care clinician, researcher, and educator. His work has impacted many areas of nursing practice, including hemodynamic monitoring, sedation, and mechanical weaning protocols. He is an internationally acclaimed expert in hemodynamic monitoring and has enhanced the knowledge and improved the clinical practices of nurses across the country. His books Hemodynamic Waveform Analysis and Essentials of Oxygenation are widely used clinical guides; in fact, Essentials of Oxygenation received an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year designation.

Ahrens is an advocate of advanced practice nurses and their roles in influencing patient care through the use of research and evidence-based practice. He is also a strong advocate for families of critically ill patients and has helped to design several websites to help families during hospitalization. He has designed a novel communication program to better match patient and family wishes with a patient’s plan of care that a number of hospitals across the country are implementing.

Tracy is a critical care clinical nurse specialist at Fairview-University Medical Center in Minneapolis and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. Tracy stood out to the American Academy of Nursing for her leadership in advanced practice nursing. She was cofounder and charter president of the Minnesota Affiliate of Clinical Nurse Specialists, which was the first national affiliate of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists. Tracy helped revise the legislation regarding advanced practice nursing in Minnesota and has made a great impact with her presentations and publications about advanced practice nursing.

She is also known for her work with complementary and alternative therapies in critical care. Tracy conducted a national survey of critical care nurses’ attitudes and use of complementary therapies and she has published widely on the topic.

Tracy and Ahrens are both members of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), where they have served as active members. Ahrens served on the board of AACN and contributed to the development of a critical-care curriculum in nursing and the clinical nurse specialist role in critical care. Tracy and Ahrens were among the 63 new fellows inducted into the academy in November at the annual meeting and conference held in Washington, DC.

The American Academy of Nursing was established in 1973 under the Aegis of the American Nurses Association to recognize nurse leaders who have achieved extraordinary accomplishments in their nursing careers. Currently, there are approximately 1,700 nursing leaders in education, management, practice, and research who are members in the American Academy of Nursing. Membership is by invitation only and applications undergo peer review to establish evidence of outstanding contributions to nursing. For more information about the American Academy of Nursing, visit www.aannet.org.

Ruth Kleinpell, RN, PhD, FAAN, is a contributing writer for NurseWeek and Nursing Spectrum.