A Nurse Practitioner is one of the most important professions in the health care industry. A NP is someone who was once a Registered Nurse but went on to receive a graduate level education to become a practitioner. What I mean by graduate level is either a Master’s degree or Doctoral degree. The men and women who endeavor into this career will be joining a profession that has been around for over 60 years now. These former RNs have been prepped through advanced education and advanced clinical training to be able to provide preventive and acute health care services to individuals of any age. Because of all this advanced training they are able to diagnose and treat illnesses.
Practitioners can prescribe medications, treat ailments and they can administer physical exams to patients. The way that practitioners are different from actual MDs is that a practitioner focuses on prevention, wellness and education of a specific patient whereas a MD works with many patients at once. Practitioners specialize in a number of particular health care areas such as adult care, family care, pediatric care, neonatal care, school/college clinical care, geriatric care, women’s health care, and psychiatric or mental health care. For 60 years, the Nurse Practitioner has been hurdling over the barriers that have been put in front of them in the health care industry.
NPs are allowed to practices in a huge array of places that can be both urban and rural. Places such as private offices, walk in clinics, community clinics, health departments, school/college clinics, hospitals, home health care agencies, nursing homes, and also health maintenance organizations. Depending on the state, practitioners can work practically anywhere that will employ them. Being in this position means being able to work collaboratively with others so that patient care is done correctly. As a practitioner, you able to obtain medical histories and perform physical examinations, practitioners can provide immunizations and other preventative child care treatments, and they can diagnose illnesses and treat them under the supervision of a physician.
Some more tasks of an NP is that they can identify diseases, treat diseases and manage those diseases that are chronic such as acne, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, and even patients who have HIV/AIDS. A Nurse Practitioner has the privilege of being able to provide prescriptions for patients who need medication, and the biggest privilege in my opinion that they have that RNs don’t is being able to perform patient procedures such as biopsies and sutures. This is a very fulfilling and rewarding career that will introduce you to a lot of new things and experiences.
