This blog is brought to you by ADVANCE and DNA. Editor's note: This blog post was written by Victoria Lazareth, MA, MSN, NP-C, DCNP, national chairwoman of the Dermatology Nurse Practitioner Society.She practices in the Division of Dermatology at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass. She is also ...

Our country is blessed to have medical regulatory boards that serve to protect patients and their providers. Some other parts of the world do not require a license or special privileges. Those countries just want help from anyone willing, and it does not always end well. So, the United States has a blessing and a curse. Since ...

Health system analysts and assorted other parties have been forecasting a primary care physician shortage for quite some time. An article published recently in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons predicts two additional shortfalls that could affect patient access to care: nurse practitioners and physician ...

Today just so happened to be my final day on rotations, and while it was depressing to say goodbye to the outstanding team I’ve worked with here on my elective, I have been so thankful for the invaluable experience I’ve gained. This entire week has been unreal, and there has been hardly enough time to digest that next week is the last week of my ...

This week I've been scheduled on nights, and it's been a completely different ER experience. While many of the chief complaints are the same as what I've seen during the day in the ER, the pace has been different. There is no doubt that things can get just as hectic at night as they do during the day, but for the most part, things usually tend to ...

It’s been almost 9 months since I was in the emergency room on rotation, and I am loving every moment of being back. I’m easily putting in 40 hours a week at my elective, and while many students are using their elective as an opportunity to relax a little before graduation, I am soaking up every last minute. It’s not that I’m not looking forward ...

The art of practicing medicine calls for repetition paired with real-life encounters. We do not learn how to be PAs in the classroom; we learn this skill in the field. The best part about clinical rotations for the PA student is the daily exposure and immediate hands-on opportunities. My last patient encounter was towards the end of April. There ...

Monday began the final rotation of my PA school career. It's certainly hard to believe how much has happened over the past 2 years, especially since the start of rotations. All of last week's testing went smoothly, and it was exciting to see how much easier the questions were, considering I've had the chance to learn hands-on in so many areas of ...

I recently started my geriatric/long-term care rotation, and with it I jumped back into hands-on patient care. So far, my time on this rotation has been extremely useful in that every patient I’ve seen has an extensive medical history. In one short week, I’ve already learned so much again in regards to physical exam. While my time in psych was ...

It's nearly the end of my final week here on my psychiatry rotation, and as I say my goodbyes to the patients I've grown close to over the last month, I'm feeling much differently than I'm used to. My preceptor made it clear on my first day to give my patients enough notice before my final day. She explained that students frequently come and go, ...