Nurse Practitioner: A Case Study

The primordial role of a nurse practitioner is to provide primary care to whoever needs it in the presence or absence of a physician. Such role has been acknowledged several times, as the number of physicians often do not surmount to the number of patients that they have to attend to. For this reason, NPs are given a separate training to ensure that they have the capacity and ability to handle different situations. In the recent decades, a new role for NPs has set into the medical world as the population of older adults grows at a very fast rate. Wolff, Burrell and Smith (2012) estimated that 10,000 adults are added to this number every day. This statistics account for adult whose age is from 65 and above. It is even projected that by 2030, this population will balloon from the current 12% to a staggering 20%. While Auerhanh and others (2010) claim that every NP has somewhat been an adult-gerontology NP (A-GNP), it is still undeniable that this group of people require special attention given that their conditions may not be as simple as those that an NP can encounter. The rise of new NP roles has always been driven by the demand for such specialized needs. For instance, it has been widely accepted that children’s needs are different from that of adults, thus, physicians would specialize on …show more content…
Addressing the shortage of geriatricians: What medical educators can learn from the nurse practitioner training model. Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Auerhanh, C., et al. (2010). Ensuring a nurse practitioner workforce prepared to care for older adults: Findings from a national survey of adult and geriatric nurse practitioner programs. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioner, 24.
Wolff, J.K., Burrell, E.K. & Smith, N. (2012). Enhancing the Capacity for Care of the Elderly by Nurse Practitioners: A Report of Colorado’s Experience. International Journal of Nurse Practitioner Educators, 1,