Nurse Practitioners and their Duties

| Wednesday, February 29, 2012
By Carol Hawker


The advanced practice nurses who've received master's level detailed training are called Nurse Practitioner (NP). These nurses are concentrated on special area of focus. NPs work in hospitals, long-term care facilities or health-care agencies as clinicians. They may practice independently too. Click here to read some more about CNA training.

Nurse Practitioner might diagnose and treat a wide range of acute and chronic illnesses and wounds. They can counsel patients and develop treatment plans. They may also prescribe medicines and demonstrate lab results. NPs work with patients getting over harsh sicknesses in acute care nursing, kids in pediatric nursing, people suffering psychological trouble or illness in psychiatric nursing and in other health care facilities.

Duties of Nurse Practitioner

* Diagnose and treat illness

* Perform physical exams and obtain medical history

* Prescribe medicines

* Give immunization and other preventive child care

* Teach patients about their medical care

* Interpret diagnosing tests such as x rays, EKGs, blood test

* Prescribe physical therapy massage, massage therapy and other helpful exercises

* Perform medical processes such as biopsy, casting, suturing, cryotherapy

* Identify and treat chronic sicknesses like diabetes and arthritis

Where do Nurse Practitioner works?

Nurse Practitioners specialize to provide medical care to under-served populations. This allows NPNs to practice in urban and rural areas. Some places where NPs work are:

* Private healthcare offices

* Clinical settings

* Health Departments

* College/school clinics

* Hospitals

* Health Maintenance organizations

* Nursing homes

NP Certification

National certification is offered through various nursing organizations such as the American Nurses' Organisation, Pediatric Nursing Certification Board, and others. These organizations require NPs to finish an authorised master's-level NP programme before taking the certification exam. The exams are offered in specialty areas, such as:

* Acute care

* Adult nursing

* Family nursing

* Geriatrics

* Pediatrics

* College nursing

* Female health care

NPs need to show evidences of continuing education to be authorized. Some nurse practitioners might use the certification APN rather than NP. This indicates an advanced practice nurse that also can include clinical nurse specialists, certificated nurse midwives, and nurse anesthetists.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment