[Note from the editors: Following is a post by a former Real Life in Retail Health blogger about this summer's American Academy of Nurse Practitioners conference. She has left the retail health industry but still wished to share her thoughts on this conference with our blog readers.] I attended all 5 days of the AANP national conference in ...

Do you have your disaster plan ready?? The avian flu spurred organizations to evaluate their disaster plans and to revise or add provisions in response to a national biohazard or infectious disease disaster. Our county health department has been holding meetings for care providers to assist them in developing individual disaster plans as well as ...

I am considering buying a new camera. After a visit to the camera shop and listening to several sales pitches, I have narrowed it down to choosing between two or three different models. To help me make my final decision I intend to do some research online. All I need to do is ''google'' the name of a camera to see what opinions and details are ...

Over the past year or so, nurse practitioner organizations have received less and less financial support from the pharmaceutical industry for various events at national and state conferences. This started as a result of significant shifts in marketing practices that have nothing to do with the NP profession, and now is also a reflection of overall ...

OK, I will admit it. I do not really understand economics and I don't really follow politics, and so I cannot engage in a meaningful conversation about the Economic Stimulus Plan. But here is what I do know and understand -- more and more patients are calling me or coming in to see with worry about how they are going to afford medical care ...

Monday's Bismark (N.D.) Tribune ran a positive article introducing the role of nurse practitioners with a DNP to the public. ''Nurse Who Is Also a Doctor'' featured nurse practitioner Stacey Pfenning, who has a doctor of nursing practice degree. Although the article might lead to some confusion among careful readers about whether a DNP expands an ...

A nice article about nurse practitioners showed up in the New York City edition of yesterday's New York Times. Although titled ''Yes, the P.A. Will See You Now,'' the article looks at both physician assistant and NP roles, and it does a good job covering education, salary and job experience. The reporter does once refer to NPs and PAs as ...

I have only anecdotal evidence, but it seems that there are a lot of new NP practices opening out there. In the past few weeks, I've received four Practice Snapshot surveys from NPs who've been in business just since the end of 2007 — two of whom I convinced to help me launch a private practice blog on this site, so stay tuned. I've also already ...

Angie's List has plans to let consumers rate their health care providers. The 12-year-old Indianapolis-based company maintains lists of consumer ratings for all kinds of local businesses and services. According to a company press release, the 600,000 list members have been asking for years to add health care providers, hospitals and insurers to ...

Now that evidence-based medicine has become the avowed ideal in health care, is the U.S. health system overeducating its principle practitioners? That's the question posed by Howard Spiro, MD, a professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine and director of the Program for Humanities in Medicine there. In his essay ''Why Not Nurse ...