Nurse practitioners get well deserved recognition

Helen Adams
November 14, 2018
Nurse Amber Davis and nurse practitioners Carmen Dooley and Carlene Speaks
Nurse Amber Davis and nurse practitioners Carmen Dooley and Carlene Speaks look over a patient's chart. Photo by Sarah Pack

Neonatal nurse practitioner and manager Carmen Dooley works 12-hour and even some 24-hour shifts at MUSC Children’s Health, caring for the tiniest patients on campus and supervising her team. But she’s not complaining about the long hours. In fact, “I love it,” she said.

As South Carolina celebrates Nurse Practitioners Week, Dooley and her fellow NPs are getting some love back from the state. Earlier this year, the governor signed a law giving them more prescribing power and authority.

Today, leaders from MUSC Health gathered in Ashley River Tower to honor them. That included Paula Brooks, director of advanced practice nursing at MUSC. She played a role in getting the legislation passed and called it a turning point for the state.

“The law removed mileage restrictions, changes in the number of nurse practitioners who can work with physicians at any time and increases the medications we can prescribe,” Brooks said. “It allows us to move toward practicing to the fullest extent of our education, our training, our licensing and our experience.”

Dr. Phillip Warr, Kelli Garber, Paula Brooks, Debbie Bryant,
Advocates for nurse practitioners celebrate with a proclamation from the governor. From left: Dr. Phillip Warr, interim chief medical officer; Kelli Garber, nurse practitioner and telehealth specialist; Paula Brooks, nurse practitioner and director of advanced practice nursing; and Debbie Bryant, associate dean for practice in the College of Nursing.

It’s a sign of the increasing importance of nurse practitioners in a state that doesn’t have enough family doctors, especially in rural areas. With their prescribing power and medical management expertise, nurse practitioners can fill the gaps. 

But Dooley said not everyone understands what nurse practitioners do. She routinely needs to explain her role to her patients’ families. “A nurse practitioner is a nurse who has gone back to school in a specialized area,” she tells them. “So for me, it was neonatal nurse practitioner. I have a master’s degree. Some people have a doctorate. It just depends. It’s either two or three years above your nursing degree.”

As a nurse practitioner, Dooley works with doctors to medically manage the care of babies born at MUSC Children's Health. “A lot of it is fast-paced. It’s critical care, so we attend the deliveries of pre-term and full-term high-risk deliveries. We get to do procedures and figure out patient management for really critically ill patients. We can run a resuscitation. We’re all certified and skilled to do that.”

Most of the nurse practitioners in the neonatal area work 14 12-hour shifts a month. “I’m the manager, so I have some funky hours. I do one clinical shift a week,” Dooley said.

She manages 20 people. “They’re awesome, collectively. I have not regretted for a minute that that’s the field I chose. I believe most of the other neonatal nurse practitioners I work with feel the same way. We love our job and the people we work with. We have a great team.”

 

About the Author

Helen Adams