Clinical excellence for nurse practitioners : the international journal of NPACE
-
Appendicitis during pregnancy is a serious medical condition that requires diagnostic accuracy. If diagnosis is delayed, there is an increased incidence of perforation and peritonitis, which can lead to fetal and maternal mortality and morbidity. ⋯ This article discusses the incidence of appendicitis in pregnancy, the signs and symptoms, as well as laboratory and radiologic tests used in diagnosis. The risks to the mother and fetus, along with surgical and medical interventions, are also discussed.
-
Clin Excell Nurse Pract · Mar 1998
Standardizing faculty evaluation of nurse practitioner students by using simulated patients.
Biases related to variations among patients and settings may be reduced by having faculty evaluate the clinical skills of students as they interact with simulated patients. The Student Clinical Performance Scale is a rating scale developed to standardize assessment of videotaped simulated patient encounters with family nurse practitioner students. ⋯ The findings demonstrate the importance of a rigorous approach to developing and testing instruments that guide measurement of clinical competence. The use of simulated patients to evaluate nurse practitioner students provides opportunities to assess a wide range of attributes and holds promise for assessing advanced clinical skills in controlled educational environments.
-
The role of the nurse practitioner in the tertiary care or hospital setting has become well established during the course of this decade. With the introduction of a national certifying examination for acute care nurse practitioners in 1995, it is important that the word acute be defined in a way that is acknowledged universally. ⋯ This article presents the conflicting use of these two terms in the literature and provides a rationale for recognizing the differences. It is suggested that the definition of the word acute, as it is used in the title acute care nurse practitioner, be reexamined, and that either the content or the title of the certifying examination for acute care nurse practitioners be reconsidered.