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:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:44 — 68.1MB)
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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
