What’s the Difference Between a Registered Nurse and a Nurse Practitioner?
By: Mountain-Pacific Quality Health
November 15, 2022
The nursing profession focuses on patient observation and care. Often known as the backbone of any hospital, clinic or other health care facility, nurses provide vital care and support to patients. Health systems employ many nursing professions and specialties. In honor of National Nurse Practitioner Week, let’s look at nurse practitioners (NPs) versus registered nurses (RNs).
Every nurse practitioner is a registered nurse, but not every registered nurse is a nurse practitioner. In a broad view, the differences between these two roles are in
- education, training and degrees earned.
- job duties.
- practice authority.
A registered nurse needs a bachelor’s or associate degree. Every nursing program requires clinical experience. After graduation, a nurse must pass a national exam required by every state. Registered nurses provide and coordinate patient care, often tending to a patient’s primary care during their stay in a health care facility. Registered nurses’ duties include:
- Assessing and observing patients
- Logging patient medical history and symptoms
- Administering and monitoring medications, intravenous lines (IVs) and other treatments
- Caring for wounds, such as cleaning and bandage changing
- Drawing blood, urine samples and other body fluids for lab work
Registered nurses can work in many care settings, including schools or cruise ships. While both registered nurses and nurse practitioners can support health care in a variety of environments, nurse practitioners usually practice in a clinical setting.
Nurse practitioners complete the same education as a registered nurse, but then go on to complete a master’s or doctoral program. They also must receive advanced clinical training. Nurse practitioners work with other health care professions to provide a full range of care. In some states, they can work independently and have their own clinic, providing many services a physician does. The duties of a nurse practitioner include:
- Evaluating medical and test results
- Observing patients
- Managing nurses and other staff
- Performing routine and detailed exams
- Working with patients to manage chronic conditions and treatment plans
- Prescribing and monitoring medications
- Ordering diagnostic tests and operating some medical equipment
Although these two nursing professions differ in their scope of duties, they both have the same end goal: to provide the best care possible for their patients.
Leave a Reply