preview

Family Nurse Practitioner

Better Essays

Family Nurse Practitioner

Family Nurse Practitioner
Healthcare in the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s experienced an upheaval with the expanded availability of the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the increased specialization of medicine. The shortage in providing health care coverage to low-income women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities gave clinically experienced nurses the opportunity to fill the primary care void. This was accomplished with the introduction of the first Nurse Practitioner program. The NP program was co-created in 1965 by a nurse educator, Loretta Ford, EdD, RN, PNP, and a physician, Henry Silver, MD, at the University of Colorado as a non-degree …show more content…

The curriculum includes courses in anatomy and physiology, psychology, pharmacology, and must complete an average of five hundred supervised clinical hours (Steiner, McLaughlin, Hyde, Brown, & Burman, 2008).
After graduation these newly graduated family nurse practitioners seeks licensure to begin their practice from the state they intend to practice in. “The State Boards of Nursing regulate nurse practitioners and each state has its own licensing and certification criteria”, so depending on the state further certification may be required. The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and the American Nurses Credentialing Center are two credentialing bodies that offer further certifications. Family nurse practitioners graduate with Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and a Master of Science in Nursing degree. At this point it is time for the newly licensed and certified FNP to seek employment (Remedy Health Media, 2001).
Even after half a decade there remains a shortage in primary care providers with only a reported one forth of medical school graduates seeking residencies in family practice, pediatrics, and obstetrics/gynecology. The FNP is a qualified clinically competent healthcare member that can fill this void in primary care in this cost-sensitive society. Despite barriers like the lack of third-party reimbursement, prescriptive authority, and hospital admission privileges the projected employment

Get Access