Who are Advanced Practice Professionals?
Advanced Practice Professionals is the category of medical professionals and medical clinicians comprised of Physician Assistants as well as all Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) including Clinical Nurse Specialists, Certified Nurse-Midwives, and Nurse Anesthetists. Previously referred to as Mid-Levels or Physician Extenders, Advanced Practice Professionals and their professional associations and organizations are now more commonly using this newer term as such previous descriptors and categories are vague and non-descriptive of their actual scope of practice.
About Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs)
APRNs are with advanced clinical education, knowledge, and scope of practice. They define a level of nursing practice that utilizes expanded skills, experience and knowledge in assessment, planning, implementation, diagnosis, and evaluation of the care required. Nurses practicing at this level are educationally prepared at post-graduate level and may work in a specialist or generalist capacity. However, the basis of advanced practice is the high degree of knowledge, skill and experience that is applied within the nurse-patient/client relationship to achieve optimal outcomes through critical analysis, problem solving, and evidenced based decision-making.
APRN forms the basis for the role of nurse practitioner. The nurse practitioner role is an expanded form of advanced practice nursing which is specifically regulated by legislation and by professional regulation. Legislation may allow prescribing and referral, in addition to admitting privileges to health care facilities.
About Physician Assistants (PAs)
PAs are medical clinicians licensed to practice medicine with supervision of a licensed. A physician assistant is concerned with preventing, maintaining, and treating human illness and injury by providing a broad range of health care services that are traditionally performed by a physician. Physician assistants conduct physical exams, diagnose and treat illnesses, order and interpret tests, counsel on preventive health care, assist in surgery, and write prescriptions.
Physician assistants exercise autonomy in medical decision making as determined by their supervising physician. Physician assistants are educated in the medical model designed to complement physician training. Physician assistants are not to be confused with, who perform administrative and simple clinical tasks with limited college-level education in hospitals and clinics under the direct supervision of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants. Physician assistants must graduate from an accredited, two-year program and pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination to become a certified Physician Assistant (PA-C).
Life’s Too Short Not to Work Locum Tenens Jobs
Many advanced practice professionals seek locum tenens jobs when they are in a state of transition. They may be relocating to a new city or state, moving into a different specialty, or in between jobs for some other reason. Regardless, the choice to work temporary nurse practitioner jobs is usually, well, temporary.
But that’s not always the case.
When Phyllis took her first locum assignment ten years ago, she was not planning on making a career out of travel nursing jobs. She had taken a leave of absence from her permanent job due to an illness in the family. The locum job in New York would provide some income while she took care of her sister who was battling cancer – a battle her sister ultimately lost.
“It changed my perspective on life,” Phyllis explained. “Before she died, my sister told me that the purpose of life was to go places, see things and meet people. So that’s what I’ve done.”
After her sister’s death, Phyllis decided not to go back to her permanent job, instead pursuing nurse practitioner jobs in California, Arizona, and Hawaii – parts of the country she had always wanted to see. “Life is just too short to stay in one place,” Phyllis said. “That’s my perspective anyway.”
Phyllis is currently working as a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist and nurse practitioner at a state mental hospital in Savannah, Georgia. Like most advanced practice providers, she performs many of the same duties as a physician, including diagnosing patients and prescribing medicine. For this reason, temporary nurse practitioner jobs and clinical nurse specialist jobs are readily available. These advanced practice providers can often step in for physicians.
Demand for nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other advanced practice professionals is up. So for people like Phyllis, who are willing to go where the jobs are, opportunities abound. Ongoing locum work isn’t right for everyone, but for Phyllis, the choice to pursue ongoing travel nursing jobs wasn’t just a career decision, it was a defining moment in her life.
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