It's a given that Judy Lee Graham-Garcia, MN, FNP, ACNP, CRNA, RN, is brainy. That explains graduating summa cum laude with a BSN, followed by a master's degree in nursing and then nurse anesthetist school while working as a family nurse practitioner and raising three children.

But it's publishing that she finds especially gratifying in a career defined first by advanced practice as a staff nurse anesthetist at East Georgia Regional Medical Center in Statesboro, and second by a mile-long list of awards, academic honors, professional affiliations and poster presentations. Graham-Garcia's byline has graced the American Journal of Nursing, Journal of Transcultural Nursing, American Journal of Critical Care, Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Journal of Gerontological Nursing and the Journal of Perianesthesia Nursing, among others.

"I've made contacts nationwide because of articles I've written," she said. "One reason nurses should publish is we want to add to our body of knowledge. To do that, we have to write and publish. If you're on a career track where you're looking at graduate work or you're already in advanced practice or you want to pursue doctoral studies one day, then that's expected."

Staff nurses, though, shouldn't overlook the opportunity to publish because "they're at the bedside and they're the ones that see the problem and see things that need to be addressed," she said.

For instance, it may be a bedside nurse who notes that patients are consistently cold when they return from surgery. Investigating the cause, effect and remedy is the stuff of which enlightening articles are made.

"Just a handful of staff nurses are going to go out there on their own and publish an article," said Graham-Garcia, who wasn't published until after she earned her master's degree. But there are ways for those without graduate degrees to get into print, most often as a co-author.

"Mentoring is so important," Graham-Garcia said. "You need somebody to take your hand and say, 'OK, let's go through this together. This is how you do it. These are the hoops you go through.' "

Essentially, that's what she did, although at the highest level. Graham-Garcia, 43, paired with her graduate school preceptor. "We were both old critical care nurses," she said. They applied and were accepted for six months of research and writing under the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses' Wyeth-Ayerst Nursing Fellow Reporter Program. The result was Graham-Garcia's debut article, "The Value of Urgent Smoking Cessation Interventions Prior to CABG," in May 2000 in an annual supplement to the AACN Journal.

To this day, when she has an idea, for instance an article concerning blood clotting, she may call her mentor, Georgetown University Professor Janie Heath, Ph.D., ANP, ACNP, RN. Graham-Garcia will write a draft and e-mail it to Heath, who then will rewrite it. Whether writing with Heath or other colleagues, the back and forth "is just a lot of fun," Graham-Garcia said.

She also has partnered with George Mensah, MD, chief of cardiovascular research at the CDC in Atlanta. They were colleagues at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Augusta, Ga., where he encouraged her to write about ways health professionals could use a newly published CDC book that examined racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

"He knows how to write," Graham-Garcia said, which goes to the heart of her advice for nurses involved in research or with any idea for an article. Find someone in a school, someone in the community or a colleague who shares your enthusiasm and embraces your idea. Then figure out an appropriate publication.

Read your target publication's articles to get a sense of its "voice" and write in that style. Some editors want a query letter describing a proposed article, and others want a full manuscript, so find out what the guidelines are and follow them, she said.

That's good advice for peer review journals, as well as the popular media, such as newspapers and nursing magazines. "It's OK to write for magazines. I've done that and I'll do it again, but that's not going to get you a faculty position," if that's your motivation, she said.

Graham-Garcia has taught as nursing school faculty, as a lecturer and in presentations throughout her career and said that, at times, she thinks she'd like to have a Ph.D. by the time she's 50. But for the next three or four years, she wants to concentrate on her anesthesia practice, a longtime goal that she said combines the best elements of her nursing experience.

Anesthesia is more hands-on nursing than her work with Mensah as a nurse practitioner in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery, and it has the adrenaline moments of the critical care she practiced with Heath and others. "In anesthesia, you have your very high intensity moments," she said. "I was an ER and critical care nurse for years and although I don't want to be in an emergency situation all day long, every day at work, it's kind of fun when you have a moment when something happens."

Of course, there are reasons to write other than for career advancement. Some are as practical as a paycheck. "I worked at the VA for a long time and they'll actually give you a step advancement, which is a pay raise, and a bonus when you publish. They really promote things like that," she said.

"It's also a good way to network and get your name out there if you want to be recognized as an expert in a particular area," she said.

Then there is the psychological bonus.

"It's kind of nice to see something you've done come out," said Graham-Garcia, who has three articles under review and plans for more. "I was on the Internet one night and I had gone on Google to find something. My name popped up with the University of North Carolina. I thought, 'This is strange, I have no affiliation with them.' Well, they were using one of my articles in one of their undergraduate nursing classes. There was an assignment about that article.

"That was like a really big 'Wow!' " she said.

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