The Diabetes Guessing Game

Expanding Our Knowledge About Types and Treatments

Written by: Ashley Williams, PA in Endocrinology It sounds like a bad joke, “Three people walk into a clinic. One pulls out an insulin pump, the second a bottle of pills and the third a carrot. When the front desk staff asks what they are there for they all respond, 'Diabetes.'” This depicts the great variation in types of diabetes and treatments for the disease.  Treatment is not quite as simple as it used to be. Since the discovery of insulin in 1922, w [...]

Providing Care for Long Term Patients

Recognizing Advanced Practice Provider Week

In “The Nurse Practitioner in Long-Term Care: Guideline for Clinical Practice,” White & Truax (2007) address the growing trend of utilizing the nurse practitioner in the skilled nursing facility to manage patients as well as to serve as a practical resource for managing conditions commonly encountered within the geriatric patient population. Within the nursing home setting, the nurse practitioner performs the initial admission assessment for new long-term care admissions, sub- [...]

A Closer Look at Liaison Psychiatry

Recognizing Advanced Practice Provider Week

Who we are: I am an ANCC-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who is part of the part-time Liaison Psychiatry service at UVM CVPH Medical Center.  Our team, consisting of two NPs and a psychiatrist, has been in service for almost four years now, and we have been quite busy! What we are: Liaison psychiatry specializes in the interface between general medicine and psychiatry, usually taking place in a hospital or medical setting.  The role of the consultation-l [...]

A Crucial Link in the Chain of Care

Recognizing Advanced Practice Provider Week

At CVPH, teamwork is a hallmark of providing the care our patients need every single day. Nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) are a crucial link in that chain of care. As a NP, I’m proud to be a part of the team that helps our patients achieve successful outcomes, and I want to share what this role looks like with you. Education and training prepare nurse practitioners and physician assistants to do many of the common health tasks that physicians do, including (but [...]

A Closer Look at Advanced Practice Providers at CVPH

Recognizing Advanced Practice Provider Week

This week we celebrate Advanced Practice Providers, or APPs, at CVPH. Every one of our APPs plays a vital role in the teams that care for our patients, and I wanted to pull back the curtain to give you a glimpse of what we do and how our roles started. To begin, APPs include nurse practitioners (NPs), certified nurse-midwives (CNMs), certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) and physician assistants (PAs). When you hear about certified nurse-midwives (CNMs), pregnancy and childbirth [...]

APPs: A Long History of Meeting Patient Needs

Over the past several weeks we have been celebrating CVPH’s Advanced Practice Providers (APPs). Our Nurse practitioners (NPs), certified nurse-midwives (CNMs), certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) and physician assistants (PAs) play an integral role in the high quality patient care provided here and throughout the region.  These important members on your health care team each evolved to meet the needs of their patients and community – which is in keeping with our prac [...]

What You Didn’t Know About Liaison Psychiatry

Who We Are I am an ANCC-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who is part of the part-time Liaison Psychiatry service at CVPH. Our team, consisting of two Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and a Psychiatrist, has been in service for almost four years now and we have been quite busy! What We Are Liaison psychiatry specializes in the interface between General Medicine and Psychiatry, usually taking place in a hospital or medical setting. The role of the consultation-liaison NP is [...]

Advanced Practice Providers Have an Important Role in Health Care

Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) are an important link in the chain of modern health care, though understanding who they are and what they do can be confusing.  Most APPs are either Nurse Practitioners (NPs) or Physician Assistants (PAs), but those are the easy names!  Every state licenses them separately and determines what their ‘title’ will be.  In some states NPs are called Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners (ARNPs) or Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (AP [...]

Nurse Practitioners in Long-Term Care

“The Nurse Practitioner in Long-Term Care: Guidelines for Clinical Practice”, White & Truax, (2007) addresses the growing trend of utilizing the Nurse Practitioner in the Skilled Nursing Facility to manage patients as well as to serve as a practical resource for managing conditions commonly encountered within the geriatric patient population. Within the nursing home setting, the Nurse Practitioner performs the initial admission assessment for new long-term care admissions, sub [...]

Being a Nurse Practitioner Offers Many Rewards

Being a Nurse Practitioner (NP) puts you in a position to practice in multiple venues.  My career as a Nurse was spent entirely in the Emergency Department.  I loved the pace but I really loved the riddle that often went along with each patient that came in.  As an NP I have had the great fortune to work alongside an incredibly smart physician and enthusiastic teacher in the field of Infectious Disease.  Some days can be just as fast paced as my ER days but now I’m more [...]

Focusing on the Big Three: Women’s Health and Fitness

I’m here on a crusade to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease with a focus today on half the population. Did you know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women in the USA? Although classically thought of as a man’s disease, it unfortunately takes its toll on us more estrogen laden humans too. It is actually estrogen that is thought to have some heart protective effects in younger women, but this effect fades away after menopause. Perhaps this is where th [...]