Nurse Practitioner

Being in my fourth year and almost 'ready' to enter the health care system as a health care professional, I feel like I don't know much about other members of the health care team. This is especially true for nurse practitioner. You hear about nurse practitioners working in hospitals or as part of the new family health teams. What exactly do they do? How do they differ from registered nurses? I hope you're curious, too.

Here is some quick info. After some more or less in-depth research I found that nurse practitioners are registered nurses, but with advanced education and training. The position was created to increase access to primary health care for all Canadians, as nurse practitioners, in many cases, provide the same care as doctors, but for much less of the taxpayer's dollars. Registered nurses working in remote areas were often working independently and saw the need to expand their knowledge to be able to address the needs of communities they were working in. Today nurse practitioners can work autonomously or in collaboration with medical doctors and other health care professionals. In Canada, to become a nurse practitioner, the registered nurse needs to obtain a certificate or Master's Degree in Nursing. The additional education and training allows nurse practitioners to diagnose and treat minor illness and injury, prescribe medication, order X-rays and lab tests.

Recently, the U.S. introduced some changes in this field - the new practice doctorate degree, the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). As of 2015, DNP will be the necessary level of education for the designation of nurse practitioner. I need to note here that DNP is not a PhD. DNP is a practice doctorate and was created in the U.S. to provide a vehicle for nurses to prepare for practice not for research. This change has sparked a debate on the Canadian soil. Shall we do the same? The debate goes on. For more on this visit http://npcanada.ca/portal. And for more information of nurse practitioners go to http://www.npao.org/phcnp.aspx.

But what struck me personally was the act of creating a practice doctorate. Could dietetics have a practice doctorate, too? One that would provide for practice excellence instead of research excellence for those who want to stay within the community and without the obligation to produce scientific knowledge?

Such doctorate could have a potential of extending the authority of practicing dietitians within the clinical and community settings. I wonder, though, if there is room for it. As in nursing, opponents say that DNP will not result in better outcomes of care as it is already excellent.

I was told that there is always room for improvement...