Expert Interviews, Guides & Advocacy Issues in Nursing

Despite Nightingale’s beliefs that nursing was the duty of “proper ladies,” the dire need for skilled nursing care led to the proliferation of nursing programs that predominantly served poor and working-class women who wanted a respectable profession. In fact, nursing education in America was founded in part to empower and employ lower-class women.

Advocacy is woven deeply into the nurse practitioner role. It’s a part of the job that’s never finished. Advocacy can occur at a micro level, by advocating one-on-one for a particular patient, or at the macro level, by lobbying for policy changes; it’s often a mix of the two. For many NPs, advocacy is about an issue close to their heart, one connected to underserved patients who deserve additional support. For two NP experts, the issue is children and youth in foster care.

Nursing, at its core, is the profession of caring for others. However, compassion, an essential trait for nurses, extends beyond caring for needs. According to researcher Beth Lown in a paper published in the Association for the Study of Medical Education Journal, “Compassion involves recognition, understanding, emotional resonance and empathic concern for another’s concerns, distress, pain and suffering, coupled with their acknowledgment, and motivation and relational action to ameliorate these conditions.”

Advocacy is woven deeply into the nurse practitioner (NP) role. It’s a part of the job that’s never finished. Advocacy can occur at a micro level, by advocating one-on-one for a particular patient, or at the macro level, by lobbying for policy changes; it’s often a mix of the two. For many NPs, advocacy is about a particular issue close to their heart, one connected to underserved patients who deserve additional support. For Dr. Kelli Garber, the issue is telehealth.

The nursing profession now stands at a crossroads. It may follow the Chilean example, preserving ethical autonomy and resisting political capture, or it may repeat the more familiar Western European pattern of capitulation, seeking renewed legitimacy through compliance with state authority. History suggests that professions often choose survival over resistance, allowing regimes to reshape expertise from within.

Nurse practitioners and other nursing professionals operate in a diverse landscape of cultures and languages. Understanding a patient’s cultural background and language proficiency is essential to effective healthcare delivery. It fosters mutual respect and trust and enhances patient satisfaction and adherence to treatment plans. However, not all nurses are aware of the importance of cultural and linguistic awareness.

When a profession elevates figures like Nightingale and builds a culture around her mythology, it sends a clear message to Black nurses: “You do not matter. You do not belong. Your position will always be tenuous.” Those messages solidify into culture—and culture becomes policy. The dynamics at play are not anomalies; they reflect the intersection of power, race, and lateral violence embedded in our most prestigious institutions and workplaces.

While one in three nurses has outstanding student debt (with an average balance of $47,000), the good news is that there are loan forgiveness and repayment programs to help RNs and APRNs get out of debt and into financial freedom. Read on for a guide to student loan repayment and forgiveness options for RNs and APRNs.

Malpractice insurance, also known as professional liability insurance, protects nurse practitioners (NPs) from claims of negligence or incompetence, covering some or all of the costs of defending against such claims—and it’s more important than ever.

If you are a nurse practitioner (NP) in one of the 23 states that do not have full practice authority, then you will need a collaborative agreement. These agreements, which can go by several different names, detail the working relationship between an NP and a supervising physician.