Expert Interviews, Guides & Advocacy Issues in Nursing

While three out of every four RNs are burdened with educational debt, 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.

Under popular value-based care models, nursing rates are wrapped into the bigger hospital bill, making their contributions to business revenue invisible. Hospitals are rewarded for understaffing nurses because nurses are viewed as a cost in this financial model, no different than the gauze they use to wrap a wound or the IV pool they hang medications on.

Since the height of the pandemic, the number of nurse entrepreneurs has increased significantly, and the trend shows no sign of slowing, thanks in large part to the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which have made finding creative and lucrative business ideas easier than ever.

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.

Coined by the Nursing Executive Centre of the Advisory Board, the experience-complexity gap describes the dangerously widening difference between the average nurse’s knowledge today and the rapidly increasing complexity of the patients they serve and the technology they must oversee. Put simply, patients have never been sicker, the technology required to keep them alive has never been more involved, and the nurses overseeing their care have never been less knowledgeable and experienced, through no fault of their own.

The decision to switch careers is a significant one. It’s an opportunity for someone unhappy with their current path to align their professional life with their personal values. For those who identify as empaths drawn to a career that offers learning, growth, and the chance to make a real difference, nursing could be their calling.

NPs in states that offer the most practice autonomy will find the easiest path to opening their own practice. Whereas NPs working in states with restricted practice must find a supervising physician to collaborate with them.

The nurse would start with an assessment, form a nursing diagnosis, and start their plan. Afterward, they would implement the planned nursing interventions and evaluate if they led to optimal patient outcomes.

For many NPs, advocacy concerns a particular issue close to their heart, one connected to underserved patients who deserve additional support. For Dr. Jessica Peck, the issue is the fight against human trafficking.

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.