Being a nurse means working in one of the most fast-paced and demanding careers in the world. But nurses who love what they do say that it’s because it’s a hugely rewarding and satisfying line of work. Nurse practitioner is more essential than ever to fill the gap caused by the shortage of primary care physicians. These key health professionals enjoy more independence and autonomy than registered nurses. In many states, they are able to run their own clinics, diagnose conditions, and prescribe medications to patients.
Nursing is expecting to see a lot of growth over the next decade. We are currently experiencing quite a severe nursing shortage due to high demand. World aware of the demand for new nurses and nurse practitioners due to Covid.
If you’re interested in nursing or want to advance your career, you can take the advantage of the demand.
There are essential qualities and skills that you will need to succeed.
Table of Contents
Excellent Communication Skills
You will need to be able to communicate effectively with your patients. You have to be polite in situations where a patient might be feeling upset, unwell, or fearful.
Nurse practitioners have excellent communication skills which allow them to help patients and provide the best possible standard of care.
Being good listeners and asking clarifying questions are key to success as a nurse practitioner.
You’ll be responsible for providing your patients with more information about their health. You can also them about any health conditions that you are helping them manage. You’ll be providing patients with counseling regarding caring for their own health and wellbeing.
Nurse practitioners are also often responsible for mentoring and training student and trainee nurses; another situation where excellent communication skills are absolutely essential in order to get the best results.
Critical Thinking Skills
If you’re already a registered nurse, you’ll know just how important it is for the professionals in this field to be able to make the best decisions on their feet. You need to know how to thrive when working under huge amounts of pressure. How to make sure that the stress doesn’t get to you and hinder your decision-making process.
Even in highly stressful situations, nurse practitioners need to be able to stay calm, think clearly and critically, and make the best decision in the best interest of their patients. Along with being able to keep a level head in high-pressure situations, many nurse practitioners need to think critically when it comes to healthcare policymaking; something that these professionals are often highly involved in as a key advocate for their patients.
Coupled with excellent communication skills, a nurse practitioner who can think critically will be able to come up with ideas that will successfully improve healthcare.
Empathy and Compassion for Others
A good nurse practitioner is somebody who has the ability to put themselves in their patient’s shoes. Being able to see things from your patient’s viewpoint and imagine how they are feeling and what they will need at that moment will help you to get better results from your work and build trusting relationships with your patients.
Nurse practitioners need to be able to demonstrate to their patients that they are somebody who they can trust with their care. Being genuinely compassionate, having no judgment, and prioritizing the needs and the best interests of the patient are skills and qualities that come naturally to the best nurse practitioners.
You need to be able to completely empathize with patients who may be in pain and feeling scared and have empathy for their families and what they are going through too.
Being compassionate and compassionate towards others is important for a nurse practitioner, and it also helps you get further.
When applying to a nurse practitioner school, you may be asked to give an example of where you have demonstrated genuine empathy for a patient in your career in the past.
A High Level of Self-Confidence
Nurse practitioners are typically left to work independently with a lot of autonomy, so having a lot of self-confidence in their abilities is key. Nurse practitioners are committed to keeping their knowledge updated. It will help them to be sure that they always have the most current information and their skills are up to scratch.
Being confident in your own skills and knowledge as a nurse practitioner is something that will typically come naturally with more practice and experience, but you can help yourself by dedicating your time to learning more and improving what you know on a regular basis.
Along with confidence in their own abilities, a good nurse practitioner is confident that they will be able to ask for help from others in the event of not being sure. There’s no room for self-doubt for nurse practitioners who are often trusted to make key decisions for their patients and work independently.
High Ethical Standards
In most parts of the US, nurse practitioners are trusted to get on with the job on their own. Because of this, a good nurse practitioner needs to be somebody who holds themselves to the highest ethical standards.
Doing everything with integrity and always doing the right thing regardless of the situation should be something that comes naturally to a good nurse practitioner.
In your work, you will need to adhere to a framework of ethics in everything that you do, both inside and outside of the workplace. It is important to hold yourself accountable to good ethical standards at all times. You will need to be prepared to call out unethical behavior if you see it. You have to strive for higher standards in your place of work, leading the way to provide the best patient care.
The most successful nurse practitioners are individuals who are highly committed to a humanitarian approach to their work and prioritize upholding the dignity of their patients.
Physical and Mental Strength
At every level of the nursing profession, nurses require to stay physically and mentally strong. It will help them in order to keep up with all of the demands of the job.
Nurse practitioners may often find themselves in stressful and demanding situations. It involves being under a lot of mental pressure to make the right decisions for their patient. It may be a physically demanding situation when helping a patient out.
Good nurse practitioners completely understand the importance of taking the time to look after themselves both physically and mentally to ensure that they’re able to keep up with their work and be successful.
Dedicating to your patients is necessary for the techniques you teach. Being self-aware so you know when to take a break or get some support is crucial.
Committed to Learning
Any nurse knows that when it comes to education, it’s never a one-and-done deal in this career path. As a nurse practitioner, you will have typically obtained a lot of advanced training and qualifications to get here, but even with all those achievements, the best nurse practitioners know that there’s never going to be a day when they stop learning about their job.
The healthcare industry is one of the most dynamic in the world. It changes with the introduction of new technological advances, new medical research, and new treatments.
As a nurse practitioner, you will need to commit to learning new things on a regular basis. You can study a new disease like the COVID-19 virus this year, or can learn how to administer new treatments to the patient with certain conditions. You can master new technology and equipment introduced to your field of healthcare.
A good nurse practitioner isn’t ready to ever stop learning and embraces the constant change in the industry as a great opportunity to build new skills and expand their knowledge base.
Adaptability
A key nurse practitioner skill is to learn the ability to quickly adapt to new situations. A nurse practitioner is a little more predictable than working as a registered nurse. Good nurse practitioners know that anything could be happy when it comes to the medical field. You might come to accept sudden emergencies that will require quick thinking and adaptability.
The healthcare industry is very dynamic, with new things coming out every day so nurses face a lot of change.
Whether it’s new software for securing patient records, new equipment for diagnosing or treating certain conditions, or new healthcare policies and rules that affect nurse practitioners, being flexible in changing circumstances is a key skill that any nurse practitioner would struggle without.
Strong Leadership Skills
Nurse practitioners are not only responsible for patient care; they also work on supervising and managing other healthcare professionals or mentoring student and trainee nurses on the job.
For a successful nurse practitioner, it’s important to develop strong leadership skills. This skill will help in a clinic setting that is taken care by nurse practitioners.
A good nurse practitioner proficient at motivating others, leading teams well, and commanding respect from others.
As a nurse practitioner with your own clinic, you’ll also need to get on the administration side of business leadership. You will need to hire the right employees, scheduling, come up with workplace policies, and more.
Detail-Oriented
As a nurse, you will already know that there is no room for mistakes and errors in this profession. Nurse practitioners can’t afford to do half a job or make avoidable errors due to a lack of focus.
A good nurse practitioner is proficient at motivating others, leading teams, helping people work well together, and commanding respect.
Somebody who is very meticulous about doing everything correctly will make a good nurse practitioner. This is especially true for nurse practitioners who work independently since there is more pressure on them. These nurses ensure that they are holding themselves accountable and everything they do is done right.
With a shortage of both nurses and primary care physicians in the US, more nurse practitioners to required.
Working as a nurse practitioner is an excellent career goal to have. It is important to work on developing key qualities and skills for nurse practitioners. It will help in increasing salary, increase job demand, and increase the respect that comes with being a nurse practitioner.
