My Pitbull

If you ever wondered what a typical nurse practitioner’s work day is like then you are in for a treat. This essential guide to a day in the work life of a nurse practitioner gives you a good idea of what these medical professionals do. Not every nurse practitioner will have the same daily schedule but this is how most nurse practitioners spend their days.

Check For Messages

The day starts off with checking messages. It may not be glamorous but it has to be done. Voice mail, written messages, and email must all be reviewed. Any action that these messages require is taken at this time or plans are made to handle it later.

Check Labs And Write Lab Letters

Next, the nurse practitioner checks up on any labs from the previous day. Lab letters will be written now to provide patients with instructions. Any further action that must be taken because of lab results will be in these letters.

Start Seeing Patients

Now that all of that is out of the way, the nurse practitioner can start seeing patients. Usually, a nurse practitioner will spend anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes with each patient. The patient is called to the examination room where the nurse practitioner will review the patient’s history.

The NP will then ask about any symptoms the patient has and will conduct a physical exam. The NP will talk about how to treat symptoms and may prescribe new medication or continue a current prescription. This is when the NP will educate the patient about their health conditions and any new prescription medications. At this point the nurse practitioner will ask if the patient has any more questions or concerns before moving on to the next patient to repeat this process.

Office Time

After all the patients have been seen for the morning then the nurse practitioner will return to their office to check for messages, write any necessary referrals, do paperwork, and return phone calls. This is the time for the NP to catch up on paperwork and review patient records.

Lunch Break

Nurse practitioners have to eat sometime.

Do It All Again

After a lunch break that may very well be spent working on paperwork, the nurse practitioner starts the cycle from the very beginning. If there are new messages to attend to then they will do so. Labs and lab letters will be done if any labs have come in that were not available in the morning. The nurse practitioner will go on to see more patients and to spend more time in their office completing all the paperwork that comes with the job.

This is the essential guide to a nurse practitioner’s work day. It may sound neatly ordered but it usually is anything but that. Sometimes patients demand more time than you might expect and other parts of the day may take longer than expected too. The only thing missing from this account of the typical day in this job is that something unexpected will probably happen and throw everything else off schedule.

Thomas Rheinecker blogs about how to discover the best accelerated nurse practitioner schools.