Transcription:
What is a Nurse Practitioner?

Melanie Cole (Host): Nurse practitioners are quickly becoming the health partner of choice for millions of Americans as clinicians that lend clinical expertise in diagnosing and treating health conditions with an added emphasis on disease prevention and health management. Nurse practitioners can bring a comprehensive perspective to health care. My guest today is Jasmine Pega. She's a certified registered nurse practitioner at Meritus Health. Welcome to the show, Jasmine. So tell us what is a nurse practitioner? What is your training? What sets you apart from a nurse?

Jasmine Pega (Guest): Thank you for having me again. Nurse practitioners are masters or doctoral degree-trained nurses. They are trained beyond their initial professional career as a registered nurse. They also have courses that are clinical-based but also theory-based, and it can be in various settings. So, the education can be geared towards helping the nurse practitioner practice in a primary care setting, an acute care setting, or in long-term healthcare settings. It takes four years generally to prepare you to become a registered nurse. Nurse practitioner training is 2 to 3 years more than that.

Melanie: So, when somebody goes to the doctor -- and let's speak about pediatrics first of all because that seems to be one of the places that we see nurse practitioners, you know, showing up now in the practice -- and they say, "Oh well you can see the nurse practitioner." What does that mean for the parent? What can you do for that pediatric patient?

Jasmine: In a primary care setting, a nurse practitioner essentially does very similar things as a doctor would do. Nurse practitioners are put through a very rigorous training program. We undergo a rigorous national certification exam. We're periodically peer-reviewed. Our clinical outcomes are evaluated frequently, and we adhere to a very high standard of -- or high level of care, and we adhere to a code of ethical practices. So, we are trained to do and provide care for patients very effectively and efficiently and appropriately.

Melanie: So, have people ever said to you, Jasmine, “Well, I want to see the real doc?” or “I want to see the doctor? You know, I'm not sure I want to see a nurse practitioner.” Do you think there's a stigma surrounding nurse practitioners because it's such a sort of new but burgeoning field? And as I said in the intro, you know, millions of people are looking to you as their health partner of choice. Have you heard this before that they want to see the doctor? Do you feel there's a stigma?

Jasmine: Absolutely. I have heard personally, and I've had friends that I've heard that. I think the word nurse that's attached in front of practitioner throws people off because when they hear nurse, they automatically assume that you are a nurse, and your abilities and your capabilities are limited to the role of just the nurse, but nurse practitioners are much more than that. We bring a different perspective to caring for patients because most nurse practitioners, if not all, have experience in being a nurse. We are essentially nurses with more education and more training, so we come with a very holistic background. We are taught to be sympathetic and empathetic, and we are taught to look at many different avenues in aspect to what that patient needs and what that patient wants and what it is that they are struggling with. So, we are trained to take care of them in a very holistic approach, and we are also very good at providing prevention care and counseling, and we tend to have very high levels of satisfaction with patients because we're able to spend the amount of time that patients need to be spent with them, and we're great listeners.

Melanie: So, that was going to be my next question is disease prevention and health management, and we're hearing more and more about preventive medicine, Jasmine, and sometimes when the docs get busy, and they can't spend that exercises medicine kind of time with people, how do you make sure to have that time and to inform people? What are you telling people about the importance of nutrition, exercise, quality of sleep, vaccinations, all of these things that sometimes docs don't have time to spend that extra little time with patients?

Jasmine: I tell them about the importance of all those things because stress, nutrition, exercise -- those are all huge, huge factors in how it affects our health as a whole. So, it's something that I do take the time to go over with my patients and now that prevention is so huge with healthcare, it's important to bring and talk about those topics, and I think – I’ve noticed recently that insurance actually – a lot of insurance requires you to talk about those things because obesity is related to so many other disease processes. It's such a big risk factor and so is stress, and so is sleep. So, I talk with my patients about that, and I give them ideas and tips, and I educate them on how they can improve their quality of life and how they can make a difference in their overall healthcare. Primary care is -- there's such a shortage with primary care that I think NPs are filling in the roles of primary care providers because we're able to provide that holistic care and talk about obesity and talk about stress and talk about sleep so that we can prevent some of the more serious conditions that could be precipitated from that, and I think we're starting to do a good job as evidenced by patient satisfaction, of course, when they see nurse practitioners, and we’re also lowering healthcare costs by providing this holistic and preventative care. It reduces your emergency room visits, shorter hospital stays, and overall, like I said, cost of healthcare.

Melanie: Now, since nurse practitioners sometimes get subspecialties, or generally, what is yours, Jasmine, and as I understand it, they can go into dermatology or geriatrics or pediatrics or cardiac nurse practitioners. What do you want the listeners to know? What do you do?

Jasmine: Absolutely. I am trained as a family nurse practitioner, but I practice as an internal medicine nurse practitioner which means I only see adults, but the specialty areas do include acute care which means you can see nurse practitioners in an emergency room setting, an urgent care setting, or in a hospital setting where they could be your hospitalist. Adult health, family health -- family health, though, includes both kids and adults -- pretty much everybody from cradle to grave. Gerontology, neonatology, oncology, pediatrics and child health, psychiatry and women's health -- those are some of the major specialties. We also do subspecialties, so you might find a nurse practitioner in an allergy or immunology doctor's office, cardiovascular, dermatology, emergency, endocrinology, gastroenterology, hematology/oncology, neurology, occupational health, orthopedics, pulmonology and respiratory, sports medicine, urology. So, we do a lot of it.

Melanie: So, you guys are really all over the place --

Jasmine: Yeah.

Melanie: -- and really can help people. So wrap it up for us, Jasmine, for how nurse practitioners are now becoming a partner in healthcare for so many patients and what you want them to know.

Jasmine: I want to say that nurse practitioners -- we're more than just healthcare providers. We act as mentors; we act as educators; we act as researchers and administrators. We're involved in professional organizations. That's just much more than our job. We participate in other health policy activities whether it be at the local level, state level, national level, or even international level. We are big on maintaining our standards, and we are big on giving holistic care and quality care -- quality care. What I would say sets apart nurse practitioners from other healthcare providers is that we have this big, unique emphasis on health and well-being of the whole person. We look at the person as a whole and not just -- oh, they're just here for that cut on their wound, and they might be there for the cut on the wound, but we might notice that their blood pressure is elevated, or they look sad, or whatever else that might be. So, we focus on them as a whole, and we focus on health promotion, disease prevention, and education and counseling, also. We guide patients so that they can make smarter health and lifestyle choices.
We also help the nation by lowering costs with healthcare overall. So, I think we're becoming, and we are a great asset to our healthcare, and I want to let people out there know that they can trust us, and we are very qualified to do the job that the government allows us to do, and we are monitored very closely, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this today.

Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today. It's important information for listeners to hear. You're listening to Your Health Matters with Meritus Health, and for more information, you can go to meritushealth.com. That's meritushealth.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.