Hello to all Nurse Practitioners. A special welcome to you if this is your first time reading my blog.
Today, I’m checking in to see how you are holding up in these continued crazy, unpredictable, unprecedented times.
Nurse Practitioners are getting hit harder than ever with overwhelming workloads and difficult work situations everyday.
I sincerely want to know how you are really doing.
- Are you overstretched and struggling to keep up at home, work, and socially?
- Constantly changing ambiguous role expectations?
- Running out of energy and time?
- Too many things left undone or done half-heartedly?
- Feeling guilty about not being able to do it all?
- Are you terrified you will have a melt down at any moment or get fired?
If so, remember, you are not alone.
Are you afraid to admit it? Again, you are not alone.
It’s okay if you are. A lot of us are still suffering in silence too.
In fact, there is a common fear among Nurse Practitioners that often keeps us from advocating for ourselves–for adequate resources and manageable workloads.
I have personally witnessed Nurse Practitioner colleagues getting fired, reprimanded or demoted for asking for manageable workloads. Management “let them go” citing they were “unable to perform the required duties of the job”.
In the past, I have seen this same scenario taken out of context and used as statistical evidence to try to “show” that Nurse Practitioners as an entire group are weak, inferior, and incapable of having full practice authority. I suspect that many of you are still afraid of this happening despite the changes in Full Practice Authority in some states out of necessity during the pandemic and shortage of providers.
As Nurse Practitioners in the trenches, we know that struggling to keep up with crazy workloads is not about lack of skill or expertise, or training, or time management or incompetence or (fill in the blank). It’s about a healthcare system that values production over quality care. That encourages unpaid overtime and seeing patients every 10-minutes over manageable workloads and healthy self-care.
Now, more than ever, we need to advocate for all Nurse Practitioners and stop tolerating this dangerous mindset that encourages putting up with unrealistic competing demands simply because “We have to meet production goals or benchmarks or (fill in the blank)”.
I envision a healthcare system that adopts mindsets that encourage sustainable values such compassionate self-care for all practitioners so we are better aligned to care for our patients.button
I’m taking action to reach this visionary system by helping Nurse Practitioners come up with a NEW way of being NP’s. Not just a better way, A WHOLE NEW WAY.
As a first step, I crafted a short 2 min read FREE downloadable PDF with the 5 Key Strategies that every woman needs to go from exhausted and overwhelmed to confident and fulfilled in their current role or to create and transition into one that is a better fit for their values and expectations.