Understanding the Role of Nurse Practitioners - Essay Example

"Understanding the Role of Nurse Practitioners" is a worthy example of a paper on care.
Braff in his article “Understanding the role of nurse practitioners” explains through interviewing several nursing practitioners and doctors the role of the advanced practice nurse. The nurse is trained almost in a similar way with doctors even attaining a Master’s degree and hence is capable of handling patients with less severe medical complications or those whose medical conditions are not recurrent.

There are states such as Arizona which have recognized the role of such nurses in offering medical attention similar to the doctors and are providing them with licenses to practice even in the absence of consulting physician. This has led to a reduction of the patient caseloads on the doctors as well as patients having to wait for days or even months to have to see a doctor while the same patient can be treated effectively by one of the over 14, 000 advanced nurse practitioner in the country with the same experience and qualifications as a physician.

In the journal article by Fairman et al, 2011, the most important role of an advanced nurse practitioner is the provision of primary care through community-based care. This means that the advanced nurse practitioner takes care of the patients at the community level who are not too sick to demand to see a doctor. What this does is ensure that many people get the health care they deserve without much hustle and at the earliest possible time. Community-based care also involves the advanced nurses going to the community level to see the patients or setting up health care centers near the communities and hence in the end they are on the ground to provide the first care needed before a patient is transferred to see a doctor hence saving the life or prolonging it.

The other role according to the same article is that advanced nurse practitioners are trained to provide transitional care. This is the care offered to patients in their death beds. These are patients who are in hospices and who do not require intense medical attention as that which necessitates a doctor to be present. This role is mostly carried out by advanced nursing practitioners that have specialized in that care or the care of the really sick patients who require regular monitoring, psychological therapy to prepare them for the transition as well as regular supply of pain medication and infection prevention drugs all of which can be handled by the advanced nursing practitioner. 

Lastly, the other role of advanced nursing practitioners but which is highly underutilized is their role as educators. According to the article by Bauer (2010), in addition to the roles mentioned above such as transitional nurses and community-based caregivers, advanced nursing practitioners are educators and this explains them working in a school-based environment. They even work in nurse-managed clinics, convenience clinics as well as have their own private practices. In these areas, they have the opportunity to tutor through practice as well as mentor students and nursing students as they are experienced in the field with a minimum educational qualification of six years.