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 ...

After being exposed to it for a while you begin to think ''medical English'' is your actual language, whereby everything you learned in school becomes a second language that you have to use with patients. This really gives ''English as a second language'' new meaning. I recently saw a license plate that read ''HCT436,'' and immediately saw it as ...

Working in the ER, I see a lot of life altering events. I frequently realize any one of these could happen to me or my family. I try hard not to bring my work home with me, but sometimes the feelings are hard to leave behind. I can see my family members in the faces of visitors or the eyes of the patient. When I call home just ...

I once saw an ad on TV showing a postoperative patient returning from surgery and being told ''the surgery went well, but you have cancer'' by her physician, who promptly leaves the patient in the hallway.  As nurses, part of your job will be to dispel any misconceptions patients are left with after their encounters with their physicians. ...

June 27th was National HIV Testing Day and the first day our clinic offered free HIV screening. We weren't really sure how the response would be, but it turned out to be fantastic. We saw 25 people between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. We had a real broad range of people walk through our door. Asians, African Americans Latinos, Whites; men and women from as ...

During my education in school as a PTA we did not use any books authored by PTAs. Why not? There weren't any available. But the athletic trainer book was more acceptable than one written by a therapist. Imagine that.  I am sure there are PTAs who enjoy writing, just look at ADVANCE magazine and there are articles written by assistants. ...

A couple of free resources that have recently become available are worth mentioning: First is PNP SOURCE, offered by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP). It is an online learning system and continuing education library that is free to members, with content specifically developed for the pediatric NPs. All ...

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 ...

I'm continually amazed that, 27 years into the AIDS pandemic, there are people who still think you can contract the disease through casual contact. I am not exaggerating the following stories: 1) I speak every couple of months at a nursing school. I talk about our program, the LPN's role, and AIDS education and awareness. I had a student ask me ...

Saturday evening, my family and another family saw a medical helicopter take off after collecting a patient. I later found out the helicopter was transporting a victim of a horrible accident on the Pennsylvania turnpike. The accident involved a car with one driver and an SUV with four young people returning from a trip to an amusement ...