Her goal is simple, yet ambitious: to change the face of Canadian health care. As a nurse practitioner (or what the media has dubbed "super-nurse") and past-president of the Nurse Practitioners' Association of Ontario, Paula Carere could do just that.
A day in the life of a nurse practitioner
It's an overcast Wednesday morning and Carere is sipping coffee as she looks over the schedule of patient appointments. In 20 minutes, people will begin filing through the doors of Lang's Farm Community Health Centre in Cambridge, Ont. Carere is ready for whatever comes her way, thanks to the 33 years she has spent in health care. Carere graduated from the University of Ottawa with a bachelor of science in nursing.
After working as an intensive care unit nurse and director of patient services, she felt she wanted to take a different tack with patient care and enrolled in the nurse practitioner program at Laurentian University. "I didn't want to focus just on illness," she explains. "I thought I could serve patients best by concentrating on prevention through support and maintenance of healthy behaviours. When I became a nurse practitioner in October 1998, it allowed me to take an independent leadership role to help in this way."
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First into her examining room this morning is a mom, with her 18-month-old toddler, 10-year-old twins and tween daughter in tow. It's shot time – another round of immunizations for the youngest and flu shots for everyone else. While the needles are prepped, Carere asks Mom how the kids are doing. The eldest is being treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the younger ones are complaining about ear troubles. Carere has followed the kids' health since before they were born and she knows the family's medical history without having to consult their charts.
When Carere is out of the room weighing and measuring the kids, Mom, without being prompted, says, "Paula is great. We love it here. We've been to other clinics, but we like this one best." Before she leaves today, she'll schedule flu-shot appointments for Dad and her other three kids, too.
Page 1 of 4 – Is visiting a nurse practitioner appropriate for you? Discover some of the health care duties a nurse practitioner can perform on page 2.
