State Regulations for Advanced Practice Nurses - Essay Example

            APRNs, in contrast to APNs, have been given the license to practice freely, as long as they uphold the criteria set by the governing body that granted them the license (Mason, 2015). As per the legal considerations in the state of Georgia, the term Advanced Practice Registered Nurse entails a nurse who has attained the license to work and has spent nine more months training for a master’s degree in their field of interest, which includes courses that contain theoretical and practical aspects, with emphasis on clinical pharmacology. It is only after certification of the aforementioned that the nurse can be categorized as an APRN (Buppert, 2008). According to the code section 43 of the medical practitioner’s code, the scope of practice for APRNs also involves no restrictions with regards to the radiographic imaging or diagnostic tests and number of refills ordered. They also include the situations in which a certain prescribed drug should be administered (Code of Georgia, 2010).

            Moreover, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the state of Georgia allows only drugs under schedule III and schedule IV to be prescribed to patients. Schedule II drugs can be described only by the physician, whereas schedule I drugs are illegal in any case (Code of Georgia, 2010). Since schedule I drugs include marijuana and heroin, it is obvious that their prescription is illegal in any case. It has been observed that schedule II drugs including morphine, fentanyl etcetera have the greatest likelihood to be abused (Brown & Kaplan, 2012), therefore they are restricted by the state of Georgia to be prescribed by physicians only. This may impact clinical practice as during sudden onset of severe pain that cannot subside is encountered by a patient and the doctor is not available, the nurse’s limitations may hamper the quality of life for a patient. However, due to the problems of abuse being extremely common, it is a very efficient safety measure, as the likelihood of abuse of schedule II drugs decreases.

            The board that is responsible for allocating licenses to the APRNs in the state of Georgia is the Georgia Board of Nursing that provides licensure to practice nursing as a registered practice nurse (Code of Georgia, 2010). In the state of Georgia, four kinds of APRNs are recognized. These APRNs include nurse midwives, nurse practitioner, a clinical nurse who specializes in psychiatric and mental health, and nurse anesthetists (United States Government, n.d). The Board of Nursing in Georgia recognizes advanced nursing programs from universities in Georgia that are a part of the Technical College System of Georgia or the University of Georgia. There is a list of out of state universities that the board recognizes as well. Being originally from the state of Georgia myself, it is apparent that the University of Georgia and its Board of Nursing would best suit my needs.  An application for licensure exams can be issued, if registration as a licensed nurse has not been obtained yet. Thus, aspiring APRNs can register with the board in order to get certified and work to save lives.