Description

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses with additional education, advanced knowledge and nursing experience, and a specialty of practice. They provide a range of health services to patients and deliver preventive and continuous care toward the management of patients’ health. Nurse practitioners work in conjunction with physicians and collaboratively with other nursing colleagues and health-care providers, or they may work independently. They are employed in community health centres, hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, and rehabilitation centres. Nurse practitioners may specialize in primary healthcare or acute care.

Job Titles

• Advanced practice nurse
• Extended class registered nurse
• Nurse practitioner

Main Duties

• Examine patients and take their medical histories and consult with physicians and other medical practitioners to evaluate patients’ physical and mental health
• Order laboratory tests, X-rays and other diagnostic procedures
• Inoculate and vaccinate patients
• Advise patients and their families on health care including health promotion, disease, illness and accident prevention
• Collaborate with members of an interdisciplinary health team such as family physicians, therapists and nutritionists to plan, implement, coordinate and evaluate patient care in consultation with patients and their families
• Perform a patient advocacy role
• Prescribe and administer medications
• May co-ordinate or manage primary patient care.

Workplaces

• Clinics
• Community health centres
• Hospitals
• Rehabilitation centres

Skills

• Social Perceptiveness
• Coordinating
• Critical Thinking
• Decision Making
• Instructing

Abilities

• Problem Identification
• Deductive Reasoning
• Inductive Reasoning
• Information Ordering
• Memorizing

Personal Attributes

• Analytical Thinking
• Attention to Detail
• Collaboration
• Concern for Others
• Service Orientation

Similar Occupations

• Managers in health care (30010)
• Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine (31100)
• Specialists in surgery (31101)
• General practitioners and family physicians (31102)
• Other professional occupations in health diagnosing and treating (31209)
• Registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses (31301)
• Physician assistants, midwives and allied health professionals (31303)

Source: OaSIS