Orientation program for hospital-based nurse practitioners.

The transition from student to practicing clinician is often a challenging and difficult period for many nurse practitioners. Newly graduated nurse practitioners commonly describe feelings of inadequacy in assuming clinical responsibilities, lack of support by team members, unclear expectations for the orientation period, and role isolation. This article describes the formal nurse practitioner orientation program implemented at the University of Maryland Medical Center, a large urban academic medical center, to facilitate the transition of new nurse practitioners into the workforce.

The expanding role of the nurse practitioner in an academic medical center and its impact on graduate medical education.

Purpose: Academic medical centers (AMCs) have used nurse practitioners (NPs) for the provision of direct patient care for many years. However, as more NPs are hired to fill in the void created by both the 80-hour work week and the increased demands on attendings' time, their role has evolved in terms of patient care and graduate medical education. We sought to evaluate the expanded role of the NP in our large tertiary AMC to help clarify the interrelationships with the patient care delivery model and GME.

Educating nurses for leadership roles.

As a result of the growing shortage of nurses and the dramatically changing role of the front-line nurse manager, leadership education for nurses is of critical importance. The purpose of the project described in this article was to design, implement, and evaluate an innovative model of nursing leadership development for students enrolled in registered nurse to bachelor of science in nursing or registered nurse to master of science in nursing programs. A guided "action-learning" course was designed that focused on both core knowledge and experiential learning.