When it comes to the nursing field, there are different courses being offered by nurse practitioner schools online. There is such a thing as a family nurse practitioner program which allows nurses to act as doctors as they diagnose, treat, and counsel patients and this is an advanced study in the field of nursing. The family nurse practitioner program covers a vast area of study; however, the basics are as follows:
Here, advanced anatomy and physiology are two of the topics that this kind of nursing program comes with. As this course is developed for individuals who have undergone a bachelor’s degree in nursing, this course will serve as a brief review of the human anatomy and physiology. In this case, the smaller aspects of human body systems will also be studied.
The thing about a family nurse practitioner program is that primary care is also a subject that is tackled. Graduating with a bachelor’s degree, this means that you already have the fundamental knowledge in line with primary healthcare. In line with primary healthcare delivery, you will learn all about advanced techniques with this course.
Providing treatment to any patient relies on the assessment that has been made on his or her condition and this is what a nurse practitioner program focuses on. A course called advanced health assessment will introduce you to various methods used for making patient assessments. What you have here is something that will brief you on the fundamentals of health assessment as well.
Although family nursing involved dealing with patients both young and old, most of the patients that you will get are generally older. Due to this, your basic courses will include subjects such as adult and geriatric care. This will cover how to assess, diagnose, treat, and evaluate patients that are older than 12 years of age.
Another subject that you will deal with is advanced pathophysiology and it will teach you about patient diagnosis. For every patient, you need to focus on the pathophysiology of the condition so that the right diagnosis and treatment can be provided. When it comes to this, pediatric and adult diseases are both part of the game.
The kind of work done by family nurse practitioners involves medical prescriptions and because of this, they also have to take up a course in advanced pharmacology. During the undergraduate study, nurses are more focused on the nursing care aspect in giving drugs. It is the full specifications of medicines that should be learned by nurses who want to be nurse practitioners as they will provide patients with prescriptions.
The thing about a family nurse practitioner program is that it relies heavily on research. The thing about this is that all students have to come up with a thesis. Students have to depend on critical thinking, practical skills, as well as research methodologies.
Clinical hours are important in this case because you are dealing with work that is hands-on. You need enough experience in a medical facility when it comes to this. You really need practice in healthcare when it comes to this.
When it comes to this, courses differ based on the discretion of nurse practitioner schools. You may also choose to specialize in other fields in nursing. Even if you decide to concentrate on a particular nursing area, you will be taking up subjects like pathophysiology and health care as well as anatomy and physiology.