A family nurse practitioner often sees complicated patients. There are two types of patients on a daily basis. The first is the younger patient who is usually seen for sick visits such as sore throat, ear infection, cough, and urinary tract symptoms. The other type is more complicated and has many morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipids, and COPD, usually in a combination of them. This patient is often labeled as noncompliant.
It is also a battle trying to obtain old records to see what testing has already been done or if there are any conditions that they forgot to tell me about. Sometimes they have been treated for a condition that they weren’t even aware of. Imagine that!
Education is one of the things that Nurse Practitioners do best. My patients have often told me that they learned more in 15 minutes than they have been taught in several years. It’s very important to explain disease processes in easy to understand terms. Too often we forget to “come down to the laymen’s level.” Too much information at one sitting can be too much to focus on and the patient will tune you out. Consider bringing them into the office for separate teaching visits. I am currently working on finding easy to understand patient education handouts.
I am a Family Nurse Practitioner that works in a rural setting providing care to many types of patients. I see pediatric patients all the way up to geriatric. I really like seeing entire families and learn something new every day about family dynamics. I enjoy the different aspects of being a Nurse Practitioner. Some of them include:
Teaching- I teach my patients about their health conditions and how to better take care of themselves. I encourage all of my patients to “help me help you!” This engages the patient and lets them know that their health is ultimately their responsibility. The old saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink” is very true on our profession. This leads to some frustration at times!
Clinical investigation- This is the part of being a Nurse Practitioner that I learn the most from. Every day patients present with a mystery of some kind. Sometimes, it’s a really difficult process to finally put a name to a diagnosis because of very similar symptoms to other diseases. You must remain open to all potentials and never arbitrarily rule out things right off the bat. This is also the scariest part of my job because of the fear of misdiagnosis. I would NEVER want a patient to have a bad outcome because I missed an important clue to their problem. This is one reason why I take so much time with my patients. Yes, it makes me run behind, but I think they really appreciate it when it’s their turn.
Appreciation- I enjoy receiving the thank yous for taking such good care of my patients. I look forward to a smiling face coming back to tell me that they feel better than ever. There is also nothing better than seeing smiling children’s faces when they run up to hug their favorite NP. It still inspires me and gives me goose bumps and I pray that I never lose that feeling.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about why I enjoy my practice and look forward to any comments! Please feel free to let me know if there are any subjects that you would like to see covered.
Until next time, Stay healthy and happy!
I read recently about trying to improve doctor/nurse relations and the person’s director said that nurses should pay more attention to what doctors like to eat or drink. Maybe nurses should go back to being the handmaidens? I don’t think so!
I think to improve doctor/NP/nursing relationships, we need to respect one another and each other’s differences first. Giving us bribes of coffee, chocolate, sodas etc. really won’t change our moods. All we want is to have the right information at the right time for the right patient in a relevant manner. Nurses need to also remember that as primary care providers, we are responsible for hundreds of patients. We have many patients to care for at one time and we must keep them all straight. That’s why it’s important for you to give us the short and sweet info (the really important info!). We’ve already had several calls and have taken care of several things before your call happened.
Not too hard???
We Doctors and NPs also need to remember what it’s like out there taking care of 7-10+ patients on the floor, along with dealing with the families and the upper management at the same time for 12 hour stretches. If we all work together, things will move smoothly and the MOST important things will happen. Professional behavior is of the utmost importance. This is the only way that doctors, NPs, and nursing staff can keep from breaking the system. We all know that it’s broken enough already!
Let’s all work together!
