Last year at this time, I attended the signing of a key law expanding NP privileges in Pennsylvania. Milling about before the ceremony, I was buttonholed by a dental hygienist hoping to spread the word about the valuable work those practitioners do. Gov. Rendell was signing another law that day eliminating the legal requirement that dental ...

The article starts out promising good PR for nurse practitioners: ''Peggy O'Donnell, a Lynbrook nurse practitioner, knows a thing or two about picking a good primary care physician.'' This is O'Donnell's opportunity to explain that an NP often can be your primary care provider — and even better, that there are studies that show that NP care is ...

Family nurse practitioner Anne Boston Parish, owner of Queen Street Clinic in Alexandria, Va., has just published a book outlining the secrets of her clinic's success. Confronting America's Health Care Crisis: Establishing a Clinic for the Medically Uninsured (AuthorHouse 2008) recounts how Parish started her clinic with a mortgage on her home and ...

OK, it's free country, but ... The February 20 episode of Wife Swap (8pm EST on ABC) features Maryland nurse practitioner Jill Phillips, who swaps families for a couple of weeks with a former Hooters waitress. I saw a single episode of the cringe-inducing reality TV show when the series first aired. I found it abusive and exploitative. The ...

Follow nurse practitioner Lois Wessel's lead and make national policy briefings your second job. Wessel wrote a touching and informative article for Tuesday's Washington Post, explaining her position at a mobile health clinic in Silver Spring, Md., and the barriers to care the U.S. health system throws up before her mostly immigrant patients. ...

A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry opining that retail health clinics sell NPs short when they emphasize that NPs will treat only minor illnesses. A column by Mary O' Neil Mundinger in Forbes magazine may be the public relations remedy to that perception. Mundinger, who is dean of Columbia University's nursing school and who pioneered the ...

Among the many interesting and motivating tidbits ACNP president Susan Apold shared at the organization's clinical conference was some background on a strategy that organized medicine seems to have adopted toward NPs. Here's a Wikpedia description of the strategy, which is called FUD: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric ...

  Next week is Nurse Practitioner Week. Des Moines pediatric NP Jennifer Hill has the perfect celebratory activity: Give an interview about NPs to your local news outlet. Check out her interview with the Des Moines Register. Here's a portion: Q. What are misconceptions about nurse practitioners?A. The first misconception is that a nurse ...

  With every news article I read about the latest clinic opening in a retail store, I search for the NP perspective — did they quote an NP or someone from an NP organization, I hope? I feel like the perspectives have been pretty balanced lately: Typically the story runs with an MD stating his fears about continuity of care and the ...

  Opening my Providence (Rhode Island) Journal this morning (OK, online), I saw yet another report on physician objections to retail or convenient care clinics. The same article, but with different names, has been showing up about once a week somewhere in the country for the past 3 years. The article always cites physician charges that ...