I guess I don’t really understand where they might fit in to an emergency room scenario. My experience with Nurse Practitioners is as a person that can take on some basic GP tasks to lighten the load.
For example, on of my kids has asthma and uses a regular inhaler. Instead of taking doctors time, they can book you in with the Nurse Practitioner to get a new prescription. That makes sense to me.
I do see that here, Nurse Practitioners are given a much wider scope including being able to assess test results and make a diagnosis, though I didn’t exactly read all the material thoroughly (heaps on info in the downloads on the right on this page, in case someone reading is interested).
It does say they need 4 years of experience and 300 hours of clinical learning (from what I can tell, they decide they want to be a Nurse Practitioner and they enter a programme of focused learning in a clinical setting). This seems at least more than what is required where the other user lives so I feel a little better, even if 300 hours is only like 7 weeks, at least they need that 4 years of experience 😅
That “clinical experience” can usually be fulfilled by shadowing and supervised practice like medical students and medical residents have to do isn’t actually required for NPs. Also, in most places, those 4 years of clinical practice can be as an MA or CNA, not necessarily an RN. The education and certification requirements for NPs are wildly inconsistent which I think is actually more dangerous than a standardized lower level of education.
I guess I don’t really understand where they might fit in to an emergency room scenario. My experience with Nurse Practitioners is as a person that can take on some basic GP tasks to lighten the load.
For example, on of my kids has asthma and uses a regular inhaler. Instead of taking doctors time, they can book you in with the Nurse Practitioner to get a new prescription. That makes sense to me.
I do see that here, Nurse Practitioners are given a much wider scope including being able to assess test results and make a diagnosis, though I didn’t exactly read all the material thoroughly (heaps on info in the downloads on the right on this page, in case someone reading is interested).
It does say they need 4 years of experience and 300 hours of clinical learning (from what I can tell, they decide they want to be a Nurse Practitioner and they enter a programme of focused learning in a clinical setting). This seems at least more than what is required where the other user lives so I feel a little better, even if 300 hours is only like 7 weeks, at least they need that 4 years of experience 😅
That “clinical experience” can usually be fulfilled by shadowing and supervised practice like medical students and medical residents have to do isn’t actually required for NPs. Also, in most places, those 4 years of clinical practice can be as an MA or CNA, not necessarily an RN. The education and certification requirements for NPs are wildly inconsistent which I think is actually more dangerous than a standardized lower level of education.