If there is a doctor in the house, you may still prefer to see an NP, in order to find them check out the 11 best states for nurse practitioners. After having scarlet fever three times as a child, I learned that when you are sick it is best to go to the doctor. Truly, I’m a thought leader in the healthcare industry. Give me a lollipop! Sitting in a white room with an old dusty art print of sunflowers I first learned about what a nurse practitioner was–the person who taught me, of course, was a nurse practitioner.
A nurse practitioner is an advanced nurse who does not need the director oversight of a physician. In 18 states they can practice medicine independently. They can prescribe drugs, examine, treat and diagnose. In my experience they are great–and have more accessible schedules than doctors. However, they don’t always have the best taste in art prints.
Nurses are important as doctors to the healthcare system, although there are paid less than the doctor, they still have bigger paychecks than most the other occupations. In some cases, as with nurse practitioners, they have the responsibilities of doctors and those are the situations where nurses have a master degree and advanced training–though they do not often have as many hours of clinical training as someone who attained MD. Here is a handy comparison chart.
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According to Bureau of Labor Statistic, NPs have duties like: take and record patients’ medical histories and symptoms, diagnose health problems, give patients medicines, evaluate a patient’s response to medicines, counsel patients, etc. There are also different ranks of advanced nurse practitioners and those are: nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners. Nurse anesthetists can make a better salary than some doctors–so even pay is a gray area for differentiation. Is seems like in some ways they’re all the same underneath those pastel scrubs.
Nurse anesthetists, in particular, give anesthesia to patients, and during this process she of he has a duty to inform a patient about symptoms that will have–for me those would include smelling a smokey cherry scent and then sleeping. Because of the importance of this specific type of nurse practitioners, they must be available 40-50 hours per week and work night or day shifts. Nurse midwives can take care of women during pregnancy, as well as during the postpartum period and also prescribe birth control. They often have to be available during the whole week for 10 hours per day. He or she will usually work three or four shifts per week. Nurse practitioners will also work up to 24 hours shift, to be sure that all patients are receiving adequate care and they are not too tired. Although, from the amount of work they do each shift, they are likely still pretty damn tired.
We have already written several articles with similar topics and now it is time to discover the best place in the USA for nurse practitioners. The United States is the huge country with a lot of people and nurses deal with a large number of patients on a daily basis. So, for them, it is important that hospital that they work is managed very well so they can do their job properly, because a mistake can cost a human life. Keeping that in mind, the most important indicators for this articles are: salary, living costs and quality of living (good schools, access to transportation and other amenities, and the number of jobs available for nurse practitioners). In this list, we won’t focus on the quality of living because it’s up to each individual to decide what they like or dislike. For example, do they want a work in a city with a lot of museums, entertainment or something else? And if you are looking for that kind of list, and are interested in the places outside the US, check out 16 Best Places to Live for Nurses in 2017!
According to United States Department of Labor, 136,060 nurses practitioners work in The United States and the average salary is 135.830$ per year (65.30$ per hour). This site has also provided detail information about salaries ranged by states, so we will sort those data and combine with the data we got through Meric, concerning living cost information.
In some places, nurses are paid less, but those places have a better place on the list because of the low living costs. For example, nurses in California have the biggest salary in the United States, but California is not on our list at all, because of higher living costs in the state.
Before the list, we have to point out that Vermont has not been taken into consideration because of a lack of data on United States Department of Labor site. Sorry Vermonters!
Here is the list of 11 best states for nurse practitioners:
