A Nurse Practitioner's View

We find ourselves in the midst of a massive egg recall. Current estimates say that 500 million eggs have been recalled. The CDC is the place to go for the latest information on these recalled eggs and salmonella . Foodsafety .gov also is a great resource with updated information. Here is a link to the FDA site on how to identify if you are in possession of any of the recalled eggs. Food safety surveillance must be vigilant and people deserve to have access to reports, citations, and above all the ability to consume food that is safe from contamination. Who is to blame in all of this - governmental red tape, the food industry, the distributors, the FDA for lack of oversight? Politico has an article that suggests a slow moving Senate may be the culprit. Will this latest recall affect how/where you purchase food?

The NY Times reports on a significant health initiative that is part of the $787 billion dollar stimulus bill. It is specifically referred to as Comparative Effectiveness Research. A council will be formed that will study the effectiveness of current treatments including medications, procedures, medical devices and surgeries by examining the research. I imagine these will consist of systematic reviews of the research and will examine the validity of the studies conducted (including Confidence Intervals, p-values, etc.) This is a major step towards integrating evidenced based practice ( EBP ) and cultural competence into our practice. There is often a significant lag time before research actually impacts daily practice. I recall a wise professor of mine stating that it would take a clinician reading 3 primary research articles every day of the year to stay current. I am hopeful that we will ultimately see treatments and outcomes tailored to gender and ethnicity (it is a fact that certa...

There is lots going on in the world of health care lately and I wonder if we've reached the breaking point. We saw stories just this past week on insurance companies refusing to pay for hospital mistakes , on-line health records not having to comply with HIPPA laws, problems with access to health care and the primary care physician shortage , a move towards concierge medical practices (where physicians reject insurance companies and patients essentially pay a retainer to be a part of that practice), and finally, drug companies using ghost writers to make their studies appear better than what they actually are. Even more troubling is the lack of solutions to address all of the above. I constantly ask myself, when will this get better and what is it going to take? This a time when we need our elected leaders to take "ownership" of these issues and for some out-of-the-box solutions from the private sector. The status quo is no longer a viable option.

An article about the lack of physicians in rural upstate New York appears on the Albany Times Union website here , "An unhealthy situation for patients." Sadly, the utilization of nurse practitioners is not mentioned anywhere throughout the article. Don't get me wrong, yes we need more physicians in rural areas. Though, how innovative would it be to effectively use a resource that already exists, is willing and more than capable of alleviating the health care burden, than nurse practitioners. Lawmakers need to recognize this and support barrier-free nurse practitioner practice along with the offering of similar services as those focused on physicians. I hate to oversimplify things but according to my crude research: There are 19 physicians licensed in Schoharie county in upstate New York according to statistics from the State Education Department. There are 18 nurse practitioners licensed in the same county. If nurse practitioners were better utilized, the citizens of S...

Dr. Steven Lamm, author of the book, The Hardness Factor , writes a column on the Today portion of msnbc.com about the different attitudes between men and women seeking health care. Dr. Lamm writes, "After three decades of treating both sexes, I have concluded that many men simply don’t think to put doctor visits on their “to do” lists. They look upon going to a physician as some undesirable form of pampering, no matter how sick they are. In general, men are not all that good at taking care of their health, probably because they have not grown up with periodic medical exams. " There is no doubt that women seek health care earlier and more often then men. As a former college health provider, I would easily see 4 female patients to every 1 male patient. While Dr. Lamm attributes this difference to the "traditional masculine pattern," to which I largely agree, I have additional food for thought. Perhaps men aren't encouraged enough to bring up their concerns or wh...

Welcome to my blog! I've pondered creating this for sometime now as I've searched the Web along with other blogs for current nurse practitioner-related content and have been unable to find much. This is my attempt to provide accurate and current information regarding Nurse Practitioner practice. My main goal is to start a healthy dialogue among nurse practitioners, other healthcare professionals and patients alike. There are a lot of misconceptions, inaccuracies and feelings about what nurse practitioners can/can't and should/shouldn't do. I've come across dozens of blog posts that are just plain wrong and hedge on bashing the profession. I hope to clarify some of these misconceptions in the hopes of providing the best barrier-free care possible to patients alongside other members of the healthcare team. For those of you unfamiliar with a Nurse Practitioner, lets start with a definition from the American College of Nurse Practitioners: "Nurse practitioners (NP...