Meet the Professionals Bridging Care and Community

It can be difficult to know what to do when you first start to suspect you have a health problem: do you Google it, and “self-diagnose” (to be clear, this is not to be recommended unless you enjoy giving yourself a mortality scare). You don’t want to bother anyone (naturally) – what if you’re wrong, and you waste their time? 

This is the beauty of the Family Nurse Practitioner as a niche within the medical framework: these widely knowledgeable professionals act as the link between the community and the medical establishment and are well-equipped to ensure that people get exactly the care they need. 

This article aims to shed a bit more light on how they do this, as well as how you might be able to join them.

What is a Family Nurse Practitioner? How Do You Get There?

Alright, alright – hold your horses. These are both great questions, but you’re going to need more patience than that if you’re considering pursuing a career in this line of work. 

Family nurse practitioners (FNPs) are medical professionals trained in caring for people of all ages, throughout their lives, within a family dynamic. They operate in a variety of medical settings, from as institutional as in and around hospitals to as personal as undertaking home visits. 

Most of the time, FNPs serve as what is known as a “primary care provider” – a critical role which, as the name suggests, makes them the first port of call for any medical issues a family in their care might encounter. This involves a huge number of challenges in itself – a FNP might within one day be called upon to make diagnoses, administer vaccinations, conduct tests (and then analyse the results of said test), write, assess, and reconsider personalised care plans, and conduct a public health information session – even before considering that unlike many other specialisms within nursing and the medical profession more generally, 

FNPs are not limited to treating one particular age group, gender, affliction, or any other category. They are, as the name suggests, Family Nurse Practitioners, and thus provide primary care to a staggering variety of patients. Now, don’t fret – this is not to say that they are solely responsible for the treatment of difficult and specialised medical conditions, should they arise. It is merely to try and illustrate the incredible breadth of medical knowledge that FNPs possess, and thus to explain the (now understandable, I hope) astonishing amount of training these valuable members of the community undertake in order to reach a point where they can practice. 

A Day in the Life

As you may have picked up from the previous section, it is pretty difficult to characterise – or even come up with an example of, for that matter – any kind of quintessential or typical day in the life of a family nurse practitioner. The very nature of their ministry means that inconsistency is more or less the only constant, other than the energy, attention to detail, and empathy with which good FNPs will approach each of the puzzles they might encounter over the course of their day. \That said, an example day for an FNP working a day in a clinic, for instance, might look a little like this:

You arrive at the clinic at 7:30, and get everything prepared for the day ahead – you run through patients with your colleagues and assistants, work out what accommodations are likely going to be necessary for today’s line-up, and get ahead on charting and paperwork if you can, which will allow you to focus more on your patients during your actual appointments.

Then, at 8, your appointments start: three fifteen-minute-long sessions per hour (allowing for an extra fifteen minutes of spare time should appointments overrun or an urgent task present itself). These appointments will tend to be a mixture of check-ups, tests, recurring treatments for chronic conditions, and performing specific procedures (for instance, installing an IUD or administering an MMR vaccine), and will go on until about midday.

At this point, it’s time for a well-earned break: have some food, and try (although it’s difficult) to take your mind off work a little bit and relax. The amount of break varies from clinic to clinic, but will almost always be between 30 and 60 minutes, so make the most of it and try to recharge: it’s a worthwhile investment from everybody’s perspective. After this, it’s back to appointments until (generally speaking) about 4.30, allowing you half an hour to tidy up, finish off any paperwork, and be out and about again by 5 pm.

Jack of All Trades, Master’s in Nursing: the Benefits of a Swiss-Army Medic

The main benefit of the role of Family Nurse Practitioner, both for them and for their patients, is the flexibility that is so fundamentally integral to their practice. 

It’s such a powerful thing from a patient’s perspective to be able to go and see a professional for low-level or confusing issues that you aren’t sure who you’d otherwise present yourself to with: the breadth of their knowledge is both highly reassuring and makes them an invaluable triage point between the community and otherwise unapproachably specialised surgeons and other medical professionals. An FNP’s ability to treat a broad range of issues means that such specialist skills are able to be utilised only when truly necessary, too, making the whole system considerably more efficient.

From the point of view of an FNP, the flexibility of your role makes it such that every day is different – the best thing you could say about a job, really. It is satisfying work, in a role which locates you firmly in the heart of the healthcare system, so if that’s important to you, it may well be worth looking into training programmes.