What differentiates good nurse practitioners (NPs) from great nurse practitioners?
Great providers truly care for their patients.
Patients, and people in general, can tell when they’re not valued or when their health is not valued.
They can tell when they’re just another number, another patient on your long list of patients to see today.
Show you care and actually care about your patients. This sounds basic but it’s so key.
Caring can be difficult in times of stress, overwhelm, or burnout, but it’s critical to thriving as a provider and creating healthy therapeutic relationships with your patients.
If you’re not caring for your patients, or your patient’s aren’t seeing that, they aren’t going to share with you information you need when doing assessments. This will make your job difficult in treating them and they won’t receive the care they need.
The way you care for your patients may differ from how another provider shows they care.
You might show you care by making sure you’ve engaged in self-care yourself so that you’re empathetic and fully present when with your patients.
For other providers, showing they care might look like intently listening to what their patients are saying, giving their full attention with verbal and non-verbal cues.
Other providers might show they care by consciously and genuinely validating patients’ feelings and experiences.
There’s no one right way, just be sure to show you care about your patients as you treat them.
This makes all the difference in the world.
If you’re looking for advice and coaching on the transition into practice, we’ve got lots of tips, templates, and guides for nurse practitioners (NPs) seeking to enter practice with clarity and confidence.
