Course on Gender and Women’s Health for Nurse Practitioner Students

A women’s health nurse practitioner (WHNP) provides comprehensive care to women from menarche through senescence. Nurse practitioner curriculum prepares competent WHNPs by integrating both practice and clinical knowledge in the context of women’s values. We developed a course that focused directly on how the social, cultural, and political context of women’s lives, both past and present, has influenced women’s health to provide students the opportunity to fully immerse into these issues. This article reports on the development of and student responses to a course focusing on gender and women’s health issues as part of the curriculum for a WHNP program.     

Teledermatology: A Tool for Nurse Practitioner Practice?

Teledermatology is the practice of dermatology from a distance and can be used in several ways. This emerging technology has the potential to impact the current health care delivery system and provide dermatology care to a greater number of patients in underserved areas. Current research shows that the diagnostic concordance rates and accuracy rates are high, but there are also limitations with teledermatology use. Nurse practitioners have the potential to become active participants in the practice of teledermatology and ensure the provision of dermatology services to underserved populations.     

A Nurse Practitioner’s Guide to Airline Medicine

Several factors make commercial aircraft travel hazardous to passengers who may be sick or vulnerable to the strenuous environmental conditions of a modern jet airliner. These risk factors can expose a practitioner’s license if the practitioner volunteers to help a passenger who is having a medical emergency aboard an airliner. Understanding the history of medical emergencies during flight, the pathophysiology encountered by passengers, and, subsequently, the legal basis of medical emergencies aboard a commercial airline can be a very valuable process for any health care practitioner. A Good Samaritan law can be a useful piece of legislation for any practitioner.     

Managing Myelodysplastic Syndrome and the Nurse Practitioner’s Role

Patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) require expert, consistent monitoring and management of their blood counts, disease status, and treatment regimens. Understanding how MDS presents and progresses as well as understanding treatment options and how to implement them on an individualized patient basis is essential for patients to receive optimal care. Nurse practitioners play a central role in the care of MDS patients. They have an opportunity to develop trusting relationships with their patients and are crucial parts of the health care team in helping to coordinate care, facilitate treatment, improve quality of life, and avoid life-threatening complications of the disease.     

Can Patient Use of Daily Activity Monitors Change Nurse Practitioner Practice?

Expanding markets of empowered health care consumers have spurred entrepreneurs to develop innovative fitness devices designed to be worn on a daily basis. The purpose of this article is to discuss challenges, usability, and privacy issues and highlight physiological and psychological parameters of 5 common fitness devices for clinical use in advanced practice. Nurse practitioners can educate patients on the use of these devices for health promotion or therapeutic interventions to foster self-management of chronic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity. Future research on clinical applications of activity monitors is needed with large samples representing diverse populations.     

The Nurse Practitioner’s Role in the Management of Gender Dysphoria Among Youth

Gender dysphoria can occur at any age, although young children often explore gender identity through dress-up and play at age 3. Youth experiencing gender incongruence need access to health care providers who are aware of medical interventions for gender reassignment and the importance of follow-up care. Nurse practitioners (NPs) need to be well versed on issues surrounding gender identity while providing culturally competent care. NPs must have a thorough understanding of treatment options for gender dysphoria, including pubertal blockade and cross-sex hormone therapy. NPs must consider possible implications of treatment delay in order to establish the most appropriate treatment plans.     

Novice Nurse Practitioner Faculty and the Online Educator’s Role

Nursing programs continue to transition or establish online education programs in response to the need for nursing faculty to teach in postlicensure to higher educational degree programs. Recruitment efforts target experienced nurse practitioners (NPs) in clinical practice who may be considering an academic role. Before the acceptance of the novice NP faculty role, the components of the role, faculty development resources, extent of orientation, and role expectations must be discussed. Limited preparation to online education environments jeopardizes the recruitment and retention of qualified NP faculty. This article reviews strategies for successfully acclimating novice faculty to online teaching.     

Where Do We Go From Here?: The Impact of COVID-19 on Practice Readiness and Considerations for Nurse Leaders

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted nurses transitioning to practice in a variety of ways over the past 2 years. Analysis from the Versant Database comparing new graduate nurses (NGNs) from 2018–2021 revealed a widened practice gap for NGNs in these specialty areas of practice: critical care, perinatal, and emergency. Additionally, NGNs achieved 100% competency validation sooner in 2020–2021. The analysis also revealed greater diversity of NGNs who participated in a transition to practice program in 2020–2021. Based on these findings, this article proposes recommendations for nurse leaders to consider as NGNs transition into the workforce.     

Evaluation of a Mentor’s Training Program for Nurse Practitioners

Novice nurse practitioners continue to face challenges with transition into practice. Formal mentorship has been posed as a possible solution; however, literature suggests that mentors need adequate training to facilitate a meaningful experience. This project assessed the value and feasibility of a newly developed mentor’s training program. Six nurse practitioner evaluators were asked to review and evaluate the proposed training program before implementation. The evaluators found most of the program’s content and resources valuable, with only minor modifications suggested. Program components, curricula, findings, and recommendations for the future are discussed.     

Fall Prevention Program in the Community: A Nurse Practitioner’s Contribution

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are members and leaders of health care teams who address population health needs in the community. This brief report describes an 8-week fall prevention program delivered by an NP and health care team for older adults attending 2 community senior centers. The fall risk score was the nursing outcome, and a 1-group, pretest-posttest design was implemented. The NP provided a weekly class with evidence-based education on fall risk factors. Using paired t test analysis, fall risk scores improved significantly (P < .05). NPs can collaborate to reduce fall risk and improve health outcomes.     

A Workshop To Develop Nurse Practitioner Competencies in Women’s Reproductive Health

Reproductive health is a central component of nurse practitioner education. Training opportunities in reproductive health have been limited by multiple factors. This article reviews the background on women’s reproductive health assessment and the outcomes of an intensive workshop to give students opportunity to demonstrate competence in sexual health history taking, pelvic examination skills, and clinical analysis of common reproductive health concerns. Students overwhelmingly reported that the workshop increased their competence and confidence in reproductive health skills. This reproducible workshop fits well into the emergence of competency-based nurse practitioner education.     

Effect of Low Birth Weight on Women’s Health

PurposeThe theory of the developmental origins of health and disease hypothesizes that low birth weight (≤5.5 lb) indicative of poor fetal growth is associated with an increased risk of chronic, noncommunicable disease in later life, including hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and osteoporosis. Whether women are at greater risk than men is not clear. Experimental studies that mimic the cause of slow fetal growth are being used to examine the underlying mechanisms that link a poor fetal environment with later chronic disease and investigate how sex and age affect programmed risk. Thus, the aims of this review are to summarize the current literature related to the effect of low birth weight on women’s health and provide insight into potential mechanisms that program increased risk of chronic disease across the lifespan.MethodsA search of PubMed was performed with the keywords low birth weight, women’s health, female, and sex differences; additional terms included blood pressure, hypertension, renal, cardiovascular, obesity, glucose intolerance, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, bone health, reproductive senescence, menopause, and aging.FindingsThe major chronic diseases associated with low birth weight include high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, impaired glucose homeostasis and type 2 diabetes, impaired bone mass and osteoporosis, and early reproductive aging.ImplicationsLow birth weight increases the risk of chronic disease in men and women. Low birth weight is also associated with increased risk of early menopause. Further studies are needed to fully address the effect of sex and age on the developmental programming of adult health and disease in women across their lifespan.     

Cost-effectiveness of Nurse Practitioner–Led Regional Titration Service for Heart Failure Patients

Nurse practitioners (NPs) have demonstrated improved outcomes for patients with chronic heart failure (HF). In regional Australia, cardiac NPs have been introduced to improve chronic disease management, primarily medication titration, for patients with HF, aiming to achieve best practice standards of care. Evaluative research methods including a comparative cost analysis of the NP HF clinic and usual care were used. This research is unique in contributing to the growing body of research demonstrating the value of NP-led clinics for regional areas where attracting and retaining experienced health professionals is challenging.     

Effect of 3-keto-1,5-bisphosphonates on obese-liver’s rats

Obesity is associated with an oxidative stress status, which is defined by an excess of reactive oxygen species (ROS) vs. the antioxidant defense system. We report in this present work, the link between fat deposition and oxidative stress markers using a High Fat Diet-(HFD) induced rat obesity and liver-oxidative stress. We further determined the impact of chronic administration of 3-keto-1, 5-BPs 1 (a & b) (40 μg/kg/8 weeks/i.p.) on liver’s level.In fact, exposure of rats to HFD during 16 weeks induced body and liver weight gain and metabolic disruption with an increase on liver Alanine amino transférase (ALAT) and Aspartate aminotransférase (ASAT) concentration. HFD increased liver calcium level as well as free iron, whereas, it provoked a decrease on liver lipase activity. HFD also induced liver-oxidative stress status vocalized by an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) as superoxide radical (O₂), hydroxyl radical (OH) and Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂). Consequently, different deleterious damages as an increase on Malon Dialdehyde MDA, Carbonyl protein PC levels with a decrease in non-protein sulfhydryls NPSH concentrations, have been detected. Interestingly, our results demonstrate a decrease in antioxidant enzymes activities such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidases (GPx) and peroxidases (POD).Importantly, 3-keto-1,5-bisphosphonates treatment corrected the majority of the deleterious effects caused by HFD, but it failed to correct some liver’s disruptions as mineral profile, oxidative damages (PC and NPSH levels) as well as SOD and lipase activities.Our investigation point that 3-keto-1,5-bisphosphonates could be considered as safe antioxidant agents on the hepatic level that should also find other potential biological applications.