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Tuesday, November 5, 2024
HomeHealthPediatric Nurse Practitioners taking care of our kids #NAPNAPCONF

Pediatric Nurse Practitioners taking care of our kids #NAPNAPCONF

Since Tuesday, I’ve been attending the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) 36th annual conference on pediatric health. NAPNAP was the first professional society for nurse practitioners and is the professional home for more than 8,000 pediatric nurse practitioners (PNPs). There are over 1500 PNPs attending this conference – including students eager to network with the most clinically advanced PNP leaders in their field.

There are acute care and primary care PNPs. I’ve sat in on conversations with PNPs who work in the most rural counties throughout America and heard what it’s like to be the sole provider of pediatric care to impoverished families living within a 300 mile radius. I met PNP hospitalists who work in neonatal intensive care units in major public hospitals in densely populated cities.

It can get lonely being a health care provider so this meeting not only provides them with access to clinical practice knowledge and updates on state-by-state Full Practice Authority legislation but connection to each other. They say it revitalizes them.

On today’s Healthstyles hear my interview with Mary Chesney, PhD, RN, CNP, FAAN, Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. Dr. Chesney is the President of NAPNAP.  The discussion includes NAPNAP’s position and the status of Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) reauthorization currently in discussion in Washington and her leadership in changing archaic laws by passing state legislation on Full Practice Authority for NPs.

You can listen to the interview with Dr. Chesney here:

 

Kristi Westphaln, PNP, MSN, is a pediatric nurse practitioner and expert in trauma with over 15 years experience in the emergency room. Westphaln is passionate and compelled to speak out on something too many people don’t want to hear – that many pediatric head injuries are preventable. Pediatric head injuries may result in long term disabilities or even death. She’s on a mission and you can hear it in her crystal clear no-nonsense approach when she tells us simple age-appropriate injury prevention strategies.

You can listen to her interview here

Healthstyles is produced by the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College and can be heard Thursdays at 1 PM on WBAI Pacifica Radio in NYC at 99.5 FM and streamed live at wbai.org

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k_westphaln@yahoo.com

Kristi Westphaln, MSN, RN, PNP-PC, is a San Diego-based pediatric nurse practitioner with a passion for all things pediatric. She has been in the nursing profession for 15 years, with 11 years of PNP expertise in the areas of pediatric primary care, pediatric emergency health care, pediatric trauma and child abuse. Ms. Westphaln will be producing for the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement a series of elementary school-based health education podcasts and will continue her work in radio with “HealthCetera.” She currently serves as the legislative/health policy chair for the San Diego chapters of the National Association of Pediatric Nurses (NAPNAP) and the California Association of Nurse Practitioners, and she was recently honored as a 2017 National NAPNAP Advocacy Scholar. She anticipates completing her PhD in nursing from the University of San Diego in May 2018 and aspires to pursue post-doctoral education in the pediatric health policy research arena. Her research interests include child health promotion, social capital, health care access and use, home visitation and health disparities/social justice.

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