Nurse Practitioner Week calls attention to 'everyday heroes'

At one clinic, how many different nurses does it take to diagnose symptoms, read X-rays, write prescriptions or treat minor injuries?

The answer: Just one — a nurse practitioner.

Amherst native Rosie Taylor-Lewis, director of health services at Sweet Briar College and one of about 5,000 such nurses in Virginia, said that on a given workday a variety of care can fit a nurse practitioner’s job description.

Essentially, they’re everyday heroes, which was the theme for Nurse Practitioner Week, recognized in Amherst County from Nov. 7 through 13. The Amherst County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution.

“They provide patients with access to care and that makes them heroes in patient’s eyes,” Lewis said.

Nurse practitioners are masters or doctorate-prepared advanced-practice nurses and have served in the region since 1974.

Lewis recently completed her doctorate at Old Dominion University, though she’s been a nurse practitioner since 1993.

It’s an important profession, because of a growing patient pool that outnumbers doctors, Lewis said.

The new health care law will add to that pool with more people seeking medical attention, she said.

To reflect this need, one of the goals of the Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners is to update Virginia’s laws governing nurse practitioners. That hasn’t been done since 1973, Lewis said.

Nurse practitioners today take on more of a collaborative role rather than a supervisory role, Lewis said.

“We can see more because there’s more of us,” she said, comparing the number of nurses to doctors.

The term “supervision,” she said, “… seems to limit what we can do.”

“Oftentimes, it’s really busy … (and a doctor) can’t see but so many people in a day.”

Though she says the change is long overdue, concerns of a “turf battle” between nurses and physicians have stalled that change, which isn’t something she supports.

“That makes for bad medicine,” Lewis said.

“Yet I know they’re there, If I need their advice –– they will do so.”

Lewis has been a nurse practitioner for 17 years. That experience serves as a source of confidence and knowledge, which she draws upon to help physicians decide upon clinical judgments.

She has several examples, including when she treated a new diabetic at a clinic in Richmond.

The patient, she said, simply needed insulin. She wrote the prescriptions and sent the patient’s nephew to have it filled while she allowed the patient to rest in the clinic.

It was a different approach, she said, than sending her to the emergency room. Without insurance, the trip could have cost her patient about $2,500 or more.