Primary care nurse practitioners are one of the most important elements in a medical setup. What is it that they do, why is their role considered to be so important and them so indispensable? In the following story, we will concentrate on this very factor and help you understand the workings of the profession better.
Any trip that you've taken to the hospital, for yourself or someone close...think back to it for a minute. Remember how you had to fill forms, describing the details of what the ailments were? And then someone came along to help you with the x-rays or blood tests, or whatever else was required.
The point being, before the doctor even came by, a lot of the preliminary things were taken care of by someone. That someone being a primary care nurse practitioner. And these are only a fraction of the main duties that fall under this category. In that way, the nurse practitioner is one of the main elements of the medical world.
In this following story, we will look through some of the main duties that this type of nurse practitioner is expected to follow through and the factors that determine what a nurse practitioner does.
Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Duties and Responsibilities
The word primary care should help to give you a fair idea of the basic crux of this profession. Primary care refers to the care that is provided for in the primary stages of an injury. Let us get into more details of this profession and what it entails in the following section.
→ When the patient enters the hospital, the nurse practitioner is responsible for jotting down the complete details of the ailment that they are suffering from.
→ This will help them draw up a plan which will help the specialist on duty understand the condition of the patient and they can therefore, start out a treatment plan for them.
→ In most cases, the nurse practitioner has a specialized degree that enables him/her to diagnose the patient's ailments and make a report of the same. Thus, making the task of the doctor on duty simpler.
→ Most states in the USA allow the primary care nurse practitioner to administer and prescribe several medication forms. In that manner, the nurse will work more on the same lines of a doctor. (Though it is to be understood that the role of the doctor is in no way negated. The final diagnosing powers remain with the doctor.)
→ One of the main duties of the nurse practitioner is to carry through with all the preliminary rounds that precede the actual treatment.
This can include a number of practices like noting the family history of ailments and conditions to determine if a condition is generic or not, taking blood and urine tests, checking the blood pressure and the heart rate, taking x-rays or any other reports that are required to carry through with the treatment.
→ Another very important part of their duty is to respond to the calls that patients make to inquire about certain conditions and ailments. It might seem like it is not a very important task, or that it does not require any skills to answer calls and answer a few mundane questions.
But the point of the matter is that it requires a very mature person to answer all those questions from worried relatives with sensitivity and maturity, to dispel all their doubts and give them the assurance of bringing the situation under control.
→ They have to collaborate with other medical facilities from other health institutes and provide for referrals as well as take help when required.
→ If they have the necessary and required degree, whereby they are in a position to prescribe certain treatment forms, then they might be asked to carry that through. These will then go on to include several forms of physical therapies, caring for babies through prenatal treatment and the like.
→ They have to keep the patients informed about the varied treatment forms that can be used for their condition and provide details of the same for them.
Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Salary
Why does the salary become an important factor to take into consideration when it comes to explaining the elements of the job description? For the simple reason that if there are people who are looking to get into this line of work, then there is a need to know the kind of figures that can be made in this job.
Many people might have an interest in this work, but their final decision might also be guided by the salary figures.
In that direction, here are the figures of the salary range of this profession:
The average nurse practitioner salaryrange falls in the range of US $107,000 - US $125,000 (approximately). It is to be noted that there are several factors that guide this range and depending on those factors, the salary can change.
These factors include the city of work, the kind of education that has been undertaken, the area of expertise and/or any special degree that has been studied and the years of experience. This salary range will be comparatively lesser when a person has just started out and will increase as the person gathers more experience.
This comprehensive study of the varied factors that guide the primary care nurse practitioner, mainly the duties and the salary range, will have given you a fair idea of what this job entails and the details of the same. Hope it has helped in clearing your doubts and has been a source of determining the career direction that you should take up.