The evolving role of the acute care nurse practitioner in critical care

Acute care nurse practitioners in oncologic critical care: the memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer center experience

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly being used to fill the physician-staffing void in intensive care units. This article describes the initiation and role development of our collaborative physician-NP critical care medicine (CCM) program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The challenges that our program encountered with recruiting, training, transitioning, collaborating, communicating, and addressing end-of-life issues are detailed in this article. Finally, we delve into the emotional impact NPs have on this new role and propose future directions to strengthen the CCM NP model. We hope that this descriptive article of the development of our CCM NP group will allow others who are seeking to cultivate their own CCM NP teams to benefit from our experience.

Discrimination of educational outcomes between differing levels of critical care programmes by selected stakeholders in Australia: a mixed-method approach

OBJECTIVE

This study was designed to prioritise educational outcomes for three levels of postgraduate speciality critical care nursing programmes.

BACKGROUND

Postgraduate speciality education has proliferated within Australia over the past 20 years. However, there is little agreement regarding the expected characteristics, or relevant priorities, of these characteristics of graduates successfully completing these programmes of study.

METHOD

This study used a mixed-method approach comprising two phases. Initially a survey was mailed to volunteers between March and June 2005 to obtain priorities in educational outcomes for graduates of critical care programmes. This was followed by a stakeholder focus group in May 2006 to refine expected outcomes.

RESULTS

Survey respondents rated educational outcomes that described professional and legal aspects of practice to ensure safe patient care as highest priority for programme graduates. Although most educational outcome statements were considered important for graduates from all levels of courses, increasing levels of practice was described for increasingly higher levels of programmes from Graduate Certificate to Masters Degree.

CONCLUSION

This study provides an emerging description of the priorities of critical care nursing programmes, with priority given to professional and legal aspects of practice. Further delineation of priorities is necessary to inform ongoing educational development.