Print/echo CP CCK field in a node

I have a CCK field in the content profile content type called field_firstname. I'd like to print that out as part of a PHP statement. I tried:

<?php $node = content_profile_load('uprofile', $account_id); ?><?php print check_plain($node->field_firstname[0]['value']); ?>

but that doesn't seem to work. What should I be doing differently.