Whether one considers nursing a calling or career, it requires skill, energy and dedication backed by professional training. With advanced practice qualifications, a registered nurse may work as a Family Nurse Practitioner, specialising in delivering patient care to children, adolescents, adults, and sen... Continue Reading
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Explore Career Whether one considers nursing a calling or career, it requires skill, energy and dedication backed by professional training. With advanced practice qualifications, a registered nurse may work as a Family Nurse Practitioner, specialising in delivering patient care to children, adolescents, adults, and seniors. Family Nurse Practitioners use a family-focused approach that includes prescribing tests, diagnosing and treating diverse medical conditions.
What are the typical responsibilities of a Family Nurse Practitioner?
A Family Nurse would typically need to:
Working conditions depend on the setting in which you are employed. Much of your work takes place in different departments and wards of the hospital or clinic, or you may work in educational settings. As a Family Nurse Practitioner, you may also choose to research in a laboratory, teach in a classroom or carry out administrative work in an office. Working conditions are typically maintained at legislated hygiene and safety standards in healthcare facilities.
Your work typically requires you to collaborate and maintain proximity with patients and a team of doctors, nurses and other medical staff. Close contact, particularly with patients, increases the risk of infectious diseases. Therefore, you will almost always be expected to wear surgical gloves and masks and other PPE (personal protective equipment) as per the situation. It is essential to follow guidelines for your safety.
Family Nurse Practitioners usually follow a set schedule and work full time. You will typically be expected to work more than 40 hours per week. More specifically, you will follow the hours set by the facility where you work. For instance, your timings will match the school calendar and daily school hours if you work in a school setting. Hospitals, emergency care units, and 24-hour clinics may also require you to work late hours, weekends, or holidays. Typically healthcare facilities follow a shift system, and you may need to stay on call to manage emergencies, particularly if you specialise in critical care or childbirth. If you work for a private practice, you may have a regular 9 am to 5 pm schedule, Monday to Friday.
Finding a new job might seem challenging. Family Nurses can boost their job search by asking their network for referrals, contacting companies directly, using job search platforms, going to job fairs, leveraging social media, and inquiring at staffing agencies.
Family Nurses may choose to practice solo or in a group practice. They may opt to be employed by healthcare facilities or work with them on an independent contractor basis.
Family Nurses are generally employed by:
Professional associations and organisations, national, such as the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), and international, such as the International Family Nursing Association (IFNA), are crucial for Family Nurses interested in pursuing professional development. They provide seamless networking and educational opportunities. Such organisations offer certification courses that Family Nurse Practitioners might need during their careers. Affiliated Family Nurse Practitioners can access conventions, seminars, and dinners where they can interact with peers, mentors, and other industry leaders.
To show their commitment to the long qualifying period, every applicant to a medical program needs work experience in their local hospital, doctor's surgery, nursing home, assisted living facility, or mental health trust.
Even a few hours spent over weekends in a healthcare setting can help aspiring Family Nurse Practitioners understand some of the physical and emotional demands of a medical career. Similarly, you can begin fostering essential skills through weekend training courses. Some teaching hospitals also offer work experience in their nursing departments, specifically for secondary school students interested in nursing career. Such experiences can strengthen your college applications.
Use the resources provided by local, state or national organisations, such as the Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA). HOSA offers academic and professional opportunities for aspiring Family Nurse Practitioners at the high school level. You can benefit from its competitions, weekend training, scholarships, and networking opportunities.
Read about the profession and interview or job shadow experts working in family nurse practice to prove your commitment to course providers and prospective employers. School nurses are a valuable source of tips and advice on how to approach nursing education, the pros and cons of the career, and how best to succeed.
It is helpful to work for one or two years as a registered nurse before applying for a nurse practitioner’s program to learn the ropes of the broad range of primary care techniques and nursing practices. The clinicals you undertake as part of the program will allow you to apply theory to clinical settings during direct interaction with patients in healthcare settings, building your skills to tackle advanced and real-life nursing practice. You will typically receive mentoring from a physician, physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner and also be evaluated by them.
An aspiring Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) must complete a master’s or doctoral degree program in nursing followed by FNP certification. More specifically, qualifying as an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN), which all FNPs must do, requires a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree or a PhD from accredited programs. An aspirant must initially be licensed as a Registered Nurse (RN) to apply for any of these programs.
Having acquired certification, licensure and work experience as an RN, you may choose the appropriate pathway and degree to become an FNP, depending on your academic background.
An accredited bachelor’s degree in nursing leads you directly to master’s level programs also in nursing. You may enrol in an in-person or online master’s degree program. Some programs allow you to focus on FNP training.
If you majored in a field other than nursing, you may opt for an accelerated program, which helps you qualify as an RN in the first year and later for advanced practice for a year or two. Although longer and more competitive than a standard master’s degree, the program avoids the need to acquire your first degree in nursing. While they mainly offer master’s level classes, you may also benefit from some bachelor’s level bridge courses in such programs.
You may head from a bachelor’s degree in nursing directly to a doctorate in nursing practice without an intermediate master’s degree in nursing. However, the program may require you to complete specific courses at the master’s level to cover the fundamentals of advanced practice nursing before taking on doctorate-level studies. The program would also entail learning about health policy and how to leverage research, advocacy, and education to influence healthcare organisations. A doctorate in nursing practice typically prepares you for clinical practice, while a PhD in nursing equips you to work in research and academics.
Another pathway is a time-saving concentrated program that takes RNs from their accredited associate degree or diploma in nursing to a program that offers them both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in nursing.
Bridge programs for RNs are available at various levels, allowing them to take steps to advance their careers without pausing their current work.
If you are an RN with a master’s degree in a field other than family care, you may enrol in an FNP certificate program to complete the coursework and clinical hours necessary to deliver primary care to patients in diverse age groups and treat acute and chronic illnesses. You could then apply for FNP certification.
Some courses that FNP programs typically cover include family planning, family counselling, family/lifespan nursing theory & care, advanced physical & health assessment, advanced pharmacology/ advanced pathophysiology, health promotion & disease prevention, differential diagnosis, disease management, nutrition, child development, adult & geriatric or senior care, family healthcare, acute & chronic illness management, sociocultural issues, health policy, health economics, statistics, and research methods & management.
In addition to coursework, FNP programs also require mandatory clinical, supervised patient care hours to fulfil certification requirements.
While the role of an FNP broadens your scope of patient care, you may still choose to specialise in family care within a branch of medicine, such as cardiology, paediatrics, orthopaedics, gerontology, ER/trauma, surgery, psychiatry, critical care, and diabetes/endocrinology. Or you may acquire expertise in dealing with a particular category or age group of patients.
Take college preparatory courses in high school, such as biology and chemistry. English and speech classes will help you develop your research, writing, and oral communication skills.
Family Nurse Practitioners must receive appropriate certification before applying for licensure to practice. Certification demonstrates your competence in a skill set, typically through work experience, training, and passing an examination. A combination of education, experience, and testing is generally required to gain certification, though requirements differ from region to region. Successful certification programs protect public welfare by incorporating a Code of Ethics.
An aspiring Family Nurse Practitioner must typically begin by receiving certification as a registered nurse (RN), having passed the relevant examination. On completing your FNP program with a master’s, doctoral or PhD degree with courses in physiology, health assessment and pharmacology, and having acquired the requisite clinical, supervised patient care hours, you may sit the relevant board certification examination for FNPs. This competency-based test provides a valid and reliable assessment of the entry-level clinical knowledge and skills of an FNP. The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) conduct the relevant exams that nursing professionals must pass to achieve FNP certification.
To enter academics, you must earn relevant certification as a nurse educator. The certification allows you to communicate your excellent professional standards, specialised qualifications and expertise in nursing practice to your colleagues, students, and academic and health care communities and serve as an exemplary leader.
On gaining a relevant master’s or higher degree, clinical hours and certification, you can begin the procedure of obtaining a license to practise as an FNP. Individual government entities conduct the licensing process. It typically requires the passage of an examination in addition to the fulfilment of eligibility requirements, such as a minimum level of education, work experience, training, or the completion of an internship, residency, or apprenticeship.
Check for any specific or additional requirements in your area. To keep your certification credentials and license valid, you must periodically renew them after fulfilling the mandatory requirements, such as earning the prescribed number of continuing education contact hours and clinical practice hours.
An employment background check can include but is not limited to a person’s work history, education, credit history, motor vehicle reports (MVRs), criminal record, medical history, use of social media, and drug screening.
Performance, experience, and the acquisition of professional qualifications drive career progression. Employees with consistently high performance levels may be eligible for promotion every two to three years.
Although broad-based family care is pivotal to the work of a Family Nurse Practioner, you may choose to specialise in a branch of medicine, such as geriatric practice or childcare. You may also diversify into managerial or leadership roles at hospitals or other healthcare organisations. Starting as a Family Nurse Practitioner might eventually allow you to progress to a Nurse Manager. Having acquired extensive experience and built a solid network, you may launch your private practice.
If you wish to enter the field of research, you may begin working as a Research Assistant or Clinical Data Coordinator. In the corporate world, you may also apply your research capabilities and experience to developing health-related products in the role of Product Manager.
There is also a range of freelance writing and editing opportunities for producing and reviewing clinical-based content, publishing blogs, providing expert medical opinion on various platforms, or creating and evaluating tests for credentialing services.
You may also look to schools and universities to hire you as an Instructor or Professor to provide in-person or online courses. You may also acquire certification to become a Nurse Educator.
There may be an occasional need for you to provide an objective opinion in court during cases of medical-legal claims.
Other roles you may branch out into include working outdoors as a Camp Nurse. You may also work on sea vessels as a Stew or Deckhand or onboard aircraft as a Flight Nurse, providing medical care to crew and passengers while also travelling to different destinations. You may even receive job offers from foreign service healthcare providers to work abroad.
If you wish to serve minority and low-income communities, you may run a mobile health clinic for which you may resort to fundraise through commercial financing, grants, corporate contributions, and service contracts.
Given the ongoing pandemic, you may provide online consultations through innovative telehealth platforms, which help you build a synchronous or asynchronous outreach to a greater number and diversity of patients and establish a relatively flexible schedule.
Candidates with the necessary skills, experience, higher educational qualifications in nursing with specialisation in family nurse practice, and relevant and mandatory certification and licensing have the best job prospects.
Continuing professional development (CPD) is essential for those employed in the healthcare sector to ensure their career progression and public wellbeing. It embraces several new learning objectives, educational methodologies, and novel technological developments, especially in education, management, and IT.
Remember that the periodic renewal of your registration, licensing and certification are typically mandatory for Family Nurse Practitioners and depend on fulfilling CPD requirements.
The recommended way to advance your nursing journey is to obtain higher degrees. Since, as a Family Nurse Practitioner, you already hold at least a master’s degree, you may opt to pursue a doctorate in nursing practice or a PhD in nursing, which can lead you towards new teaching, research and leadership opportunities and roles.
Attending training courses throughout your career helps you refresh your skills. Webinars, live conferences and online video or text-based courses that deliver high-quality and evidence-based are valuable resources to advance professionally. It is also beneficial to network with colleagues and other medical professionals. Join professional institutions, associations and organisations to avail of their mentorship programs or courses in building skills, such as leadership and communication.
You can also stay updated with the current trends and events in nursing by reading relevant publications, such as the International Nursing Review, which give you insights into current and future challenges and potential solutions and can be helpful for career advancement.
History of Family Nurse Practitioner
The nurse practitioner curriculum began in 1965 as a certificate program at the University of Colorado, US, to ensure primary care for children. It was also a response to bridge the gap between the insufficient supply of physicians and the growing demand for healthcare. What started as a certificate program evolved into a full-fledged master’s program during the 1970s and expanded beyond paediatrics to include families, adults, gerontology, women’s health, neonatology, and other branches of medicine. The 1980s also saw the formation of the Nurse Practitioner Association for Continuing Education (NPACE) and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). Currently, as many as 355,000 nurse practitioners practise in the US.
Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) vs Nurse Practitioner (NP)
Both Family Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Practitioners are essentially advanced practice registered nurses with master’s or doctoral degree qualifications in nursing and hold relevant and renewable certifications and licenses that allow them to practise.
An FNP is a subspeciality of the role of an NP. In other words, while all FNPs are nurse practitioners, not all nurse practitioners focus on family medicine, which involves both health promotion and disease prevention across the human lifespan. In other words, FNPs are trained to provide primary and specialised care for individuals of all ages. Hence, the scope of healthcare is flexible and comprehensive and focuses on benefits for the family unit in all aspects, including assessment, testing, diagnosis, prescription, and treatment provided to children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly.
On the other hand, NPs may choose from various specialisations, some of which may deal with a particular age group, such as adolescents, or a demographic, such as women, or a specific area of healthcare, such as cardiology, or a particular healthcare setting, such as a private clinic.
Nevertheless, FNPs may also choose a subspeciality within family care and practice to build their expertise.
Family Nurse Practitioner vs Home Care Nurse
Family Nurse Practitioners (FNPs) are advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) holding a master’s degree or doctorate in nursing and equipped with the requisite clinical training and certification that must be upheld through continuing education. They are medical professionals who specialise in providing family-focused care to patients across their lifespan. As primary care providers, they offer a broad spectrum of services, or they may acquire expertise and additional qualifications in specific areas, such as diabetes management. FNPs practise in diverse healthcare settings, such as community health centres, private practice and universities.
On the other hand, home care nurses are registered nurses, licensed practical nurses or nurse assistants who are typically self-directed rather than facility-based, and provide care at home for patients, most often after their discharge from a healthcare facility.
Full, Reduced & Restricted Practice for FNPs in the US
The rules and regulations prescribed by individual states determine the extent to which Family Nurse Practitioners may practise primary care. The three categories that the states fall into, as prescribed by the American Association Nurse Practitioners (AANP), are full practice, reduced practice and restricted practice.
Full practice states grant FNPs the authority to evaluate patients, diagnose medical conditions, order diagnostic exams, and provide treatments. Reduced practice states require collaboration between an FNP and another healthcare provider in a minimum of one aspect of practice. Restricted practice mandatest the supervision of an FNP by another healthcare provider in at least one aspect of practice.
Family Nurse Partnership in the United Kingdom
The Family Nurse Partnership program in the UK targets young parents, assisting and training them in making intelligent and critical lifestyle choices regarding their own wellness and that of their children. As part of the program, specially trained nurses begin working with parents in early pregnancy and continue their services until the child is two years of age. Services are offered through structured and periodic home visits.
Typically, a team consists of four family nurses, a supervisor, and a quality support officer. Together, they aim to improve pregnancy outcomes for young first-time mothers, facilitate labour management, reinforce child health & development, and strengthen parents’ economic self-sufficiency by helping them fulfil their work or academic aspirations.
A Family Nurse Practitioner’s holistic and empowering approach considers the entire family when designing interventions, whether in paediatrics or geriatrics or another area. Using empathy and innovative healthcare reforms, you can provide top-notch and evidence-based pharmacological and non-pharmacological care to patients of all ages and with diverse conditions, ensuring minimal disruption to their family life. After all, a patient may forget your name but never the hope, confidence and joy you made them feel.
Mastering the ability to handle chaos will always come in handy. Regardless of your work environment and case, embrace the flexibility and unexpectedness inherent in the role of a Family Nurse Practitioner.
Nurses walk twice as much during their daily shifts as the general population does, averaging four to five miles a day, making it imperative for them to wear comfortable shoes
What do Family Nurses do?
A Family Nurse would typically need to:
Accredited
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