What is CNL? Clinical Nurse Leader

CNL stands for Clinical Nurse Leader. It is a specialty certification issued by Commission on Nurse Certification (CNL).

What it is: Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) is a specialty certification. aacnnursing.org/cnl
Who issues it: Commission on Nurse Certification (CNL). aacnnursing.org/cnl
Who may hold it: Open to registered nurses. aacnnursing.org/cnl
Current status: Currently offered by the issuer. aacnnursing.org/cnl
Where it prints: Printed after your name, in position 5 of the standard display order. ANCC: how to display your credentials
How you get it: You need an active RN license with no current board discipline, and you must be in the last term of, or have graduated from, an accredited CNL master's or post-master's program with at least 500 clinical hours (300 of them in a CNL clinical immersion), and then you pass a 140-question, 3-hour exam. Renewal is every 5 years with 50 contact hours and 2,000 hours of professional practice, and no retest is needed. Source: Commission on Nurse Certification (CNL)
Good to know: Commission on Nurse Certification; missing from the research aacnnursing.org/cnl

How it prints on your résumé

A rendered example of how this prints is added when the résumé engine export is connected.