Past Issue: October 2011 Vol. 10, No. 9
Hispanic women with limited English proficiency (LEP) who live in the United States, relative to other populations in this country, tend to have low rates of cervical cancer screening. As a result, they are at a higher risk for a late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis and related mortality. Although the… Read More
NPs treating women with a high-risk pregnancy are responsible for educating both their patients and other healthcare professionals about optimal care for these patients. In order to do so, NPs must be up to date on the latest options available for pregnant women who are at increased risk for giving birth… Read More
The purpose of this article is to present a synthesis of research regarding polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis and management, particularly with respect to an intervention called the group medical visit (GMV), which is advocated to enhance care for women with this chronic disease. Objectives… Read More
One of the most challenging questions that nurse practitioners or other diabetes educators can ask is: “How can I get my patients to do what they are supposed to do?” For NPs, taking care of patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) entails devising treatment plans, providing patient education, and monitoring… Read More
For decades, electronic fetal heart monitoring (EFM) has generated varied and inconsistent interpretation by nurses, nurse-midwives, residents, and physicians. These inconsistencies have prompted a need for an adjunctive technology to enhance EFM interpretation and minimize human error, thereby enhancing… Read More
Other Features
Unity is Just Good Business
Since it is customary for nurse practitioners (NPs) to encourage each other in the workplace,
... Read MoreFrom the Editorial Co-Directors
Exploration
Lately I’ve been thinking about how we humans often limit ourselves by being almost too comfortable with our lives, our assumptions, our experiences, and even the scientific findings we read about. We want to know, and when we think we do know, we stop right there—limiting other possibilities.
What if we were to keep on delving into the possibilities? Do we really know why teens have unintended pregnancies? Or why women stay in abusive relationships? Or do we just have statistics? Do we know why women suffer with more depression, immune disorders, and other conditions than men do? Are we satisfied with studying what is, rather than delving deeper and asking why? Oftentimes research stops or at least slows down once a “cure” is found, without understanding what the cause of the condition was in the first place.
Medical treatments offer great benefits in treating conditions ranging from pain to depression to cancer. Medical cures are essential. But what if we could explore further and pin down the cause of these conditions? Ultimately, it probably won’t be as simple as deciphering an individual’s genetic code. We already know that people with similar or even identical genes can have very different outcomes for the same conditions. What accounts for these differences? What sparks the cascade of effects that causes a gene to turn on or a condition to manifest itself? What causes the underlying vulnerability? We know, for example, that HPV causes cervical cancer. But few women infected with high-risk HPV types ever progress to cancer. Why? The more we know, the more there is to know.
Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a greater emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention, including the prevention of unintended pregnancy. These recommendations are based on guidance from the Institute of Medicine’s report Clinical Preventive Services: Closing the Gap. This is a great opportunity for nurse practitioners, who have always had health promotion and disease prevention at the heart of their practice, to consider how they will address new challenges lying ahead. Prevention strategies cannot be fully successful if we do not understand exactly what we are preventing.
The more I know, the more I realize I need to learn. It is exciting to think that we can try to fill some of these knowledge gaps in our lifetime. And it is thrilling that we have more questions to ponder, more possibilities to contemplate, and more fields to explore.
Susan Wysocki, WHNP-BC, FAANP
President and CEO, NPWH