🌲 See where you are. Thank those who lit the way. Choose your next branch.
🌲 The Evergreen Tree
Read it from the ground up. Licensure is the roots. The four core items, in order, are the trunk. The Nine Gardens are the branches, where your verified supplemental credentials can grow. Recognition is the crown.
🪔 Who lit your lamp
Every nurse carries a light someone else handed on. Here is one line of it, from Nightingale to you. 🥷 Each person here gets our Flourishing Nurse Ninja salute: a thank-you, not a title, membership or endorsement.
🪔 🥷 Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)
Lit the lamp of modern nursing and taught that the nurse’s work is to put the person in the best condition to heal.
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📜 🥷 Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, HWNC-BC
Nightingale scholar and author of Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer. Co-developed the Theory of Integrative Nurse Coaching, published in 2015 in Nurse Coaching: Integrative Approaches for Health and Wellbeing, and co-founded the Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy.
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🕊️ 🥷 Susan Luck, RN, BS, MA, CCN, HWNC-BC (1948–2022)
Co-developed the Theory of Integrative Nurse Coaching and co-founded the Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy. In loving memory.
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🌿 🥷 Bonney Gulino Schaub
Co-developed the Theory of Integrative Nurse Coaching.
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🏛️ 🥷 Margaret Erickson, PhD, RN, CNS, APHN-BC, SGAHN
Executive Director of the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation since May 2000, stewarding the board certifications in items 2 and 3.
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🌱 🥷 Karen Laing, DNP, APRN, AGPCNP-BC, DipACLM, HWNC-BC, CHES, FPCNA
Created and teaches Lifestyle Nursing, item 1.
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🌳 🥷 Elizabeth Sult, BSN, RN, NC-BC, and 🥷 Thomas Sult, MD, IFMCP
Teach Functional Nursing, the fourth and final item.
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🥷 The founder’s own lamp
Nathanael Elijah Smith’s lamp was lit by 🥷 Barbara Porter, RN, his first nursing boss, and by the Pensacola Christian College nursing faculty, including 🥷 Miss Lorraine Bushey, MSN, RN.
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🫵 You
The nurse who carries the lamp next, to the patients, families and colleagues in front of you today.
A line of gratitude, not a formal teacher-to-student record or an endorsement. Roles are from the Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy team page, the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation leadership page and Nursology’s entry on the Theory of Integrative Nurse Coaching, checked October 30, 2026. See everyone we thank →
🌟 Nurse spotlight · November 2026
🥷 Karen Laing, DNP, APRN, AGPCNP-BC, DipACLM, HWNC-BC, CHES, FPCNA created Lifestyle Nursing: A Lifestyle Medicine Framework for Nurses, the first item in the Flourishing Nurse™ formula. Tap play to hear her introduce it with sound; her interview plays next.
A new spotlight each month, chosen from the nurses we thank and shown only with a public video or article of their own. Next on our list for December 2026: 🥷 Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN. A spotlight is our gratitude, not an endorsement of this site.
🖨️ My printable pathway map
One page to print, fill in by hand and bring to a mentor or a break room: the roots, the four core items, room for your own branches, and your next step.
- ☐ Roots: current, unrestricted RN or APRN licensure
- ☐ 1 · Lifestyle Nursing course (Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy)
- ☐ 2 · Holistic nursing board certification (American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation)
- ☐ 3 · Nurse coach board certification (American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation)
- ☐ 4 · Functional Nursing course, the fourth and final item (Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy)
- 🌿 My branches: optional supplemental credentials, each recorded once, verified with the issuer
A planning page only. Marking it verifies nothing and awards nothing. Browse supplemental certifications →
📖 Garden stories
One short story for each Garden, showing how a specialty nurse or team member brings it to life. Tap a Garden to read.
🥦 Nutrition · Certified diabetes care and education specialist
Maria sits with a grandfather who wants to keep cooking his family’s black-bean soup. Together they plan a version that fits his goals and still tastes like home.
🚶 Movement · Rehabilitation nurse
After his stroke, Daniel’s goal is simple: reach his tomato bed again. His nurse turns every therapy session toward that one walk to the garden.
😴 Sleep · Heart failure nurse
Rosa mentions she now sleeps sitting up in a chair. Her nurse makes sure the care team reviews it that week, instead of waiting for the next visit.
🧘 Mindfulness · Addictions nurse
Before a hard phone call with his son, James learns a three-breath pause. He decides when to use it; his nurse simply makes sure he has it.
🫂 Relationships · School nurse
The school nurse knows a first-grader’s family by name. When asthma flares at recess, the plan everyone agreed on is already taped inside the classroom door.
🎯 Purpose · Nurse manager
A unit leader rebuilds the schedule so night-shift nurses get protected sleep between shifts. Turnover on the unit starts to fall.
🏘️ Community · Case manager
Before booking a clinic visit, the case manager checks that the bus actually reaches it on Tuesdays. It does not, so she finds a route that will.
🌍 Global Impact · Infection preventionist
At a family shelter, an infection preventionist teaches handwashing in three languages, and the children teach it back to their parents.
🕊️ Faith & Compassion · Certified hospice and palliative nursing assistant
In his last week, Mr. Okafor asks to hear his favorite hymn. The nursing assistant plays it, holds his hand, and tells the family he smiled.
These stories are made up for teaching. They describe no real patients and are not clinical advice. Each nurse works within their own license, role and supervision.
🌎 En español: la fórmula Flourishing Nurse™
🪪 Requisito previo: licencia vigente y sin restricciones de enfermero(a) registrado(a) (RN) o de enfermero(a) de práctica avanzada (APRN).
- 🌱 Completar el curso Lifestyle Nursing de la 🥷 Dra. Karen Laing en la Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy.
- 🌿 Obtener y mantener una certificación de enfermería holística de la American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation.
- 🧭 Obtener y mantener la certificación de enfermería como coach (nurse coach) de la American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation.
- 🌳 Cuarto y último elemento: completar el curso Functional Nursing de la Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy, impartido por 🥷 Elizabeth Sult, RN, y 🥷 Thomas Sult, MD.
🏅 El reconocimiento Official Flourishing Nurse™ lo define el fundador y solo se otorga después de que una persona verifica los requisitos, con su permiso. No es una licencia, ni una certificación nacional, ni nuevas siglas después de su nombre. Los cursos y las certificaciones se imparten en inglés y sus nombres se mantienen como los publican sus organizaciones.
🙏 Con gratitud a las enfermeras, los enfermeros y los educadores de la Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy y de la American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation. Vea a todas las personas a quienes agradecemos →
Created by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM, October 30, 2026. Professional education, not individualized medical advice. Linked organizations and the people we thank have not endorsed this site.
