Family Nurse Practitioner

A family nurse practitioner (FNP) is a specialty area of an advanced practice registered nurse who offers care for medically stable patients of different age groups. An FNP holds a Masters or doctorate in advanced practice nursing. They provide healthcare to infants, children, teenagers, adults and geriatric patients.

To acquire a degree and get certification to be a family nurse practitioner, a student must pass an examination in family health. FNPs can earn additional specialty certification by further specializing in areas such neurology, gerontology, pediatrics or cardiology. After certification, one can work independently or under supervision by a physician. The work setting is diverse from private practice, physician office, hospital, local community clinics, and health departments to ambulatory care facilities.

Family care service at times works in close collaboration with specialists in non-familiar areas of health. Just like the other primary care physicians, an FNP can provide comprehensive continuing care in these roles.

Family Nurse Practitioner Health Promotion

Health promotion is the primary goal for advanced practice nurses including FNPs. Their activities include screening for diseases, prevention, and risk reduction to keep illnesses keep ailments such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or cancer at bay.

For children, pediatric FNPs engage in child specific health promotion activities such as nutrition guidelines, immunizations, and anticipatory guidance.

Family nurse practitioners also participate in women health promotion activities. Activities include contraception counseling, pelvic exams, and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

The reason why FNPs give much attention to health promotion is out of research findings that show it is possible to reduce morbidity, mortality and clinical expenses by embracing a healthier lifestyle to prevent disease. Health promotion is a philosophy by NFPs to influence their clients to form a character of participating in wellness plans to improve quality of life and increase the better functioning of body organs.

Family Nurse Practitioner Health Education

Family nurse practitioners are keen on helping their patients to avoid the threats to their daily well-being and long term health. Their advanced training enables them to know more about the risk factors that increase vulnerability to lifestyle diseases, childhood infections, and other infections.

Most FNPs work with families for a long time and learn the areas of their life that increase the risk of their health and design health education that suits their life. They also offer health education to prevent threats to families as well as communities such and drug addiction, psychiatry problems and communicable infections.

In addition to the health measures, NFPs extend the scope of health education to their clients to include safety. They teach them on issues such proper infant sleep positioning, exercises, health checkups, using seat belts and child car seats when driving.

Family Nurse Practitioner Disease Management

Family nurse practitioners can diagnose illnesses, prescribe medication and therapy. It is an approach for diseases that heal quickly. However, some members of the family in their care have long term illnesses. Such condition needs close monitoring and management. NFPs can treat and manage diseases as their training gives them the knowledge to:

For optimal service, family nurse practitioners usually manage the conditions of their clients jointly with other specialists when they deal with cases of long-term medical conditions.Their work includes diagnosing other possible illnesses, conducting examinations, ordering diagnostic tests and interpreting the results. In many cases, they will prescribe medication and provide counseling to motivate the patient.

FNPs graduate program training prepares them for above roles as their course emphasizes on providing primary care to multicultural and the underserved population. FNP training inputs specialist knowledge to students for them to be skillful in providing primary family-oriented care.Because of their ability, FNP service suits patients of all ages, genders and life stages.