There can be some confusion about the specifics of what certain jobs entail within the medical industry. Whether you’re looking to hire a nurse for the home or you’re looking to begin your education to become a medical professional, you should take the time to learn the major differences between a family nurse practitioner and an adult nurse practitioner.
Below we’ll list brief definitions of what a nurse is expected to do, what a family nurse does, and what an adult nurse does. The duties performed by an adult nurse and a family nurse overlap in a lot of ways but are near polar opposites in others. Read on and we’ll help you to avoid any possible confusion in the future with regards to what exactly you should expect of your nurse or your future career in the medical industry.
Basic Nursing Duties
To list all of a nurse’s duties would take volumes, but it’s safe to say that they are the backbone of the entire medical industry. Where doctors are expected to have very specific knowledge regarding child healthcare or the ears, nose and throat, or disease and illness, a nurse needs to have an intermediate knowledge of literally everything. Where doctors may need to carry a pager for emergencies, a nurse typically handles a half dozen or more emergencies every single day.
A nurse needs to be able to manage clerical duties as well as providing a humane and sympathetic touch in dealing with patients. They need to know how to administer a shot while cleaning the equipment and disposing of hazardous materials. Nurses are, without a doubt, the hardest working and most versatile people in the medical community.
Family Nurse Practitioners
Family nurse practitioners, or FNPs, are a special type of nurses that specialize in the bigger picture of health. It’s not just the family, though that’s a part of it. A family nurse practitioner needs to understand a person’s social and cultural background, they need to know what the patient’s religion has to say on blood transfusions and what people of their culture tend to eat. They need to know about the person’s financial and socio-economic background. A family nurse practitioner doesn’t simply worry about a family, they have to be concerned with everything that defines the context of their patient’s life and health, everything from whether their family has a history of heart disease to whether or not they’re drinking clean water at home.
An average salary of FNP is between $75,000 to $97,000 depends upon experience and area.
Adult Nurse Practitioners
An Adult Nurse Practitioner(APN) is the one that most of us will be talking to primarily throughout our adult lives. From adolescence to old age, an Adult Nurse Practitioner is there to help everyone who is not already being helped by another specialized be they a pediatric nurse or a geriatric nurse. If you are an adult and you’re not being covered by a special need, chances are that you’re going to be primarily talking to adult nurse practitioners.
The duties that both perform are largely the same, but the direction that they come at the job is a bit different. Where a family nurse will know more about the bigger picture, an adult nurse practitioner needs to be just as involved on an individual level.
An average salary of APN is between $80,000 to $120,000 depends upon experience and area.
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