ST. GEORGE – Dr. Carole Grady, Dixie State College’s Dean of Nursing and Allied Health, was selected to serve as an item writer for the upcoming National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensure Examination. Grady was chosen last week to participate by the Utah Board of Nursing and National Council of State Boards of Nursing to serve on the item development panel for the exam.

Grady, who was nominated on the basis of her clinical and nursing expertise, is one of 12 nurses from across the country to be selected for this assignment. She was named DSC Dean of Nursing and Allied Health in July of 2010, and has served on the nursing faculty at DSC for over 10 years.

Grady currently instructs students in DSC’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, which received initial accreditation from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission this past April. Grady, who also works as a women’s health care nurse practitioner, earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from the University of Rochester, and completed her doctorate of philosophy in curriculum and instruction at Utah State University in 2006.

NCSBN, headquartered in Chicago, is responsible for developing and administering the NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN licensing exams. All nurses in the United States and its four U.S. territories must take the NCLEX. The licensing exam identifies those candidates who demonstrate minimal competence to practice nursing at the entry level. Passing the NCLEX exam is one of the requirements necessary for attaining a nursing license.

Nurses interested in contributing to the profession through volunteering to serve on NCLEX item development panels, should apply by completing the application online at www.ncsbn.org.