What is a Nurse Practitioner?
A nurse practitioner, or NP, is an autonomous, licensed, board certified, clinician that focuses on managing people’s health conditions and preventing disease in a holistic and thorough manner.
How are Nurse Practitioners different from Physicians?
Nurse practitioners, like physicians and physician assistants, are trained be primary care providers and manage patients independently.
Nurse practitioners can write prescriptions, provide preventative medicine, treat acute ailments, and manage chronic conditions.
In some states, Nurse practitioners are supervised by physicians who review and provide feedback on clinical decisions. A growing number of states — 22 at last count — have already implemented full practice authority to nurse practitioners allowing them to open their own private practices.
Training and expertise
I have a doctorate degree in nursing practice and completed a clinical residency similar to the educational requirements of a physician. My degree and specialty are in family medicine and I’m trained to provide services to adults, geriatric patients, women’s health services, and pediatrics.
My training and career experiences have been in both inpatient and outpatient medicine, and include critical care, emergency medicine, and adult primary care across the lifespan.
Why Should Patients Choose Nurse Practitioners?
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that NPs provide high quality healthcare. In fact, in a study by the American Academy of Nurse practitioners, evidence suggests that patients under NPs have higher satisfaction, fewer unnecessary ER visits, lower overall cost of care, fewer hospital readmissions, and fewer preventable hospitalizations compared to patients under doctors.
Anne Guerinoni is a primary care nurse practitioner at Circle Medical. You can book an appointment with her online.
