Liz is a Family Nurse Practitioner in Durham, NC. Her career is split into both inpatient and outpatient services. Although not the typical track to become a nurse, Liz background in Human Services has given her an incredible foundation for dealing with patients and their families.
Transcript
>> I'm Liz. I'm a family nurse practitioner down in Durham, North Carolina. I'm currently working at Duke University House Center as a Nurse Practitioner in the Endocrine Service so, I actually am have a unique position in that I rotate inpatient and outpatient. So, for one month I do inpatient diabetes mentoring, all new diagnosis diabetes patients. So, any kids that get diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, doing a lot of education working with the family, explaining what they need to look for like what's coming up down the pipeline for their life with diabetes. And then, any new usually tends to be 40 year old white male had a heart attack then we find out he had diabetes, so, doing a lot of education with them, as well. So, any new diagnosis diabetes patient inpatient and then the nice thing is that I get to follow up with them outpatient and then also get kind of a smattering of stuff other than diabetes with like thyroid and pituitary tumors and adrenal gland insufficiency. So, for a month I'm inpatient and then I do a month of outpatient clinic work, which is kind of a nice I don't get bored ever because I get to rotate in and out in 2 different things. On the inpatient side, which I prefer actually the inpatient, is I come in like 8 in the morning and I'm checking, I do a lot of data entry of what different ones blood I have my stack of usually between 7 and 15 patients I'll see when I'm on the inpatient side of what their blood sugars were the night before, how much insulin they got, and it's kind of we have these nice I'm very organized and meticulous and so I have made a very meticulous sheet and writing all their sugars in for like an hour and then I go on round in the hospital and I talk to all my patients. How was your night, I see you had a blood sugar that was like 250? Did you have a snack? Are you lying? Did you lie to the nurse, did you eat a snack? And just kind of like finding out what happened, if there's anything that went wrong. And where the challenges are, you know, if they're being discharged for that day, like what kinds of things we need to talk about and really doing a lot of education pieces with them, making sure that they're comfortable before they go home with what their diagnosis is. And then the outpatient side, it's mostly just I see 8 patients in the morning and 8 patients in the afternoon. And it's doing it's a half hour with each patient. Usually, mostly diabetes, doing a lot of So, you did really well. Let's check what your A1C is. Did you bring your blood sugar log in? What have your challenges been this month? Like, really kind of helping them troubleshoot any issues that come up and making sure that we've got their numbers where we need them to be.
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