As a future healthcare provider, I am learning a key concept when educating patients: be firm but kind; and it's ok to not get your point across. Many of the chronic diseases we face in healthcare require lifestyle changes and perpetual monitoring, which all hinge on our patients' vigilance. At a wellness class I teach once a month, I ...

The other day, I came across an article about Val Patterson, a man who was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. What made his story memorable was that before passing away on July 10, 2012, he wrote his own obituary. It was printed in his local newspaper and then throughout the world. Thousands of people have read it; hundreds have left comments ...

As NPs & PAs approached the holiday weekend (and with any luck, a few days off), and editor Michelle Perron Pronsati and senior associate editor Jennifer Ford arrived at the AAPA IMPACT conference, our social networks, community pages and articles buzzed with thoughtful comments and many heated opinions. Always a controversial topic ...

We sat in silence for what seemed an eternity. Her face was still, and she was holding back tears. She was uncomfortable. I was, too. Awkward silence engulfed us like dense, heavy fog. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. I tried filling the air with chatter: ''Nice shoes,'' I said. What's the meaning of silence? Is it just an empty space ...

During this final rotation I have the opportunity to participate in home-based primary care. This program is directly influenced by Dr. Mary Naylor’s research and application of transitional care from the hospital to the home. Patients enrolled in this program are visited weekly by an NP during the first 30 days of their discharge home from the ...

In watching the practice of prescribing psychotropic medications I am very hesitant about my own prescriptive practices and keenly observant of other practitioners. I am acutely sensitive to the issue. It seems like every other patient I see, irrespective of the setting, is prescribed SSRIs and benzodiazepines, and almost none of them are also ...

How much time is spent in patient education? How effective is it? Is it worth the time spent? Do we get reimbursed for it? These are all questions that we debate -- when we have time, in between doing all the other things that have to get done each day. We all agree that educating our patients is important and that we should do it. But we all ...

Many people seem to think it is strange to see a clinic in the same stores where they shop. It is a part of our job to sell people on this proposal and change this thought. How do we sell this idea of retail/convenient care to our community? As nurses we are pretty good at selling patients on what is good for them. How many times in your ...