What Will You Learn on a Family Nursing Practitioner Course? A Short Guide

If you are a registered nurse who wants to advance your career, you may be considering looking into training as a family nursing practitioner.

Like most areas of nursing, this field is growing rapidly, and there are struggles globally to meet the demand. So, as with a general nursing role, if you take on this additional qualification, you will never be out of work.

But as this is an advanced course, you may be wondering what it is that you will learn on the course. In this very short guide, you will be introduced to some of the core areas that you will study.

Medical Ethics

Medical ethics is a big part of healthcare overall, and when it comes to an online FNP degree from Ulndy, this is no different.

Medical ethics broach areas such as what to do when a patient is refusing care or how to manage scenarios where they may be unable to state what they want you to do for them. It also helps you to look at common ethical issues relating to families and different cultures. So, this is a big area that is important as you move up the ranks of nursing.

Pharmacology

Nurses in a general setting are only able to prescribe certain medications, but with this additional qualification, the medications you can prescribe will enhance. As such, you will need to learn about the different medications, drug interactions, and prescribing guidelines.

You will also need to learn about drug side effects and how to spot a potential issue with medications based on these side effects. So, once again, this is a huge area of nursing study, which will require a lot of flashcards to memorize!

Healthcare Policies

There are healthcare policies the world over relating to everything from family medicine to infectious disease control and public health. And depending on the state that you live in, it may differ greatly from the state you trained in as a registered nurse. Once you are qualified as a family nursing practitioner, whether you are overseeing a ward or a clinic, you will be required to ensure that all of your staff adhere to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, as well as being familiar with the specifics of the area where you are practicing.

Preventative Medicine

A great deal of medicine is preventative, but when you are working in a hospital ward as a registered nurse, it is based on responding to health issues, not preventing them. Therefore, a lot of your studying will be based on learning about preventative medicine relating to common health ailments and the prevention of disorders from getting worse.

Communication

It sounds odd, but even on a course at this level, there will be a lot of focus on enhancing your communication skills.

This will extend to areas such as written communications, medical note-taking, discharge letters, and so on. Of course, you will also be taught some staff management skills to help you when you are fully trained to successfully run a ward or clinic.