What is a Nurse Practitioner?

The role of Nurse practitioner is to provide individualized care that focuses on the patients’ conditions as well as the effects of the illness on the lives of the patients and their families. Disease prevention, health and wellness, and education are also priorities to the Nurse Practitioner as he or she strives to meet the needs of the patients’ that they serve. The NP collaborates with the physician to provide quality care, including  taking a history, physical exam, ordering tests for interpretation, diagnosis, and making recommendations for the treatment of acute and chronic disease.

With the ever changing state of Healthcare, many changes are coming to the role of the NP as well. Most states require the NP to work in collaboration with a Physician, while other states allow the NP to work independently. In both scenarios, the NP desires to provide needed healthcare services to the populations that are in need. Education for patients and families are a crucial part of the role of the NP. Disease prevention has become the focus of healthcare today rather than just the treatment of illness. This is an area that I believe that Nurse Practitioners excel in; providing education to their patients and families. The Nursing background has always been that of teaching and educating, which is further expanded in the role of an NP.

The Nurse Practitioner must be a licensed Registered nurse that has completed a Masters degree with a specialty in an area such as Family Nurse Practitioner, Geriatric Nurse Practitioner, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, and or Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. Many hours of clinical practice is also required. Board Certification is also required from a governing body such as the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, or the American Nurses Credentialing Center. This is obtained by application approval and examination. After meeting these requirements the NP then applies for state Licensure and prescriptive authority, within the state in which they desire to practice.
The goal of the Nurse Practitioner is to provide quality, comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate, care to the patients that he or she serves; and to be a resource to the community for diagnosing, managing, and treating acute and chronic diseases, to serve the community that they call home.

You may call for an appointment, NO referrals are required.