For over 30 years the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (the College) has demonstrated sustained leadership in the development of standards for specialist nursing practice in Australia; the original development of the first Standards for Nursing Care of Critically Ill Patients1 included input from 9 other specialty organisations in Australia. Evolution of the current Practice Standards for Specialist Critical Care Nurses2 (the Standards) spans three decades and, with each iteration being strongly influenced by systematic and strong research processes. As Gill et. al.3 have recently reported, the current Standards are used in a variety of different ways including (1) for evaluating the performance of nurses in the workplace, (2) for professional development and (3) to guide postgraduate education curricula.