The Nurse Practitioner Mentor Blogย
Learn. Grow. Simplify Your NP Practice.
Weekly blog posts with practical tips, clinical pearls, and real-world guidance for new nurse practitioners in primary care.
The first 90 days aren't about knowing everything
The first 90 days in primary care are not a knowledge problem. You passed boards. You know the medicine. What actually gets built in those first three months is a handful of habits that carry you through the visits where you don't have every answer ...
Who actually needs a statin, and how to start that conversation
A statin is clearly indicated for anyone with known cardiovascular disease, diabetes with additional risk factors, or an LDL of 190 or higher. For everyone else, the decision comes down to a 10-year (and increasingly, 30-year) risk esti...
The first visit after a new type 2 diabetes diagnosis
The first visit after a new type 2 diabetes diagnosis has one job: confirm the diagnosis, get the baseline labs that will actually change treatment, start one medication the patient can realistically take, and set a follow-up window. You do not ...
How to read a CMP without feeling overwhelmed
A comprehensive metabolic panel has 14 values, but you do not have to read them one at a time. The simplest approach is to check for anything critical first, then look at the results in a few related groups instead of top to bottom. That is what turns a ...
How to read a CBC without missing anything
The safest way to read a CBC is to look for anything dangerous first, then work through the white cells, the red cells, and the platelets, and always read the numbers against the patient in front of you. Going value by value from the top of the panel is how...
You finish a full day of visits, open the portal, and there are 40 messages waiting. For a lot of new NPs, the inbox is the part of the job nobody warned them about. Refill requests, long symptom stories, results questions. Without a system, it eats your time and your energy. Here's a workflow that ...
A patient's labs come back with a mild bump in ALT or AST, and they feel fine. This shows up constantly in primary care. The job is to sort hepatocellular vs cholestatic patterns, rule out the dangerous causes, and decide when to refer. Here's a workflow you can actually use in clinic.
What the num...
A patient steps on a nail, or a pregnant patient asks if she really needs another shot. These are the Tdap moments that come up in clinic. Here's a quick guide so you can give the right booster at the right time.
Tdap vs Td: what's the difference
- Tdap = tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis.
- Td ...
A patient asks if they need the shingles shot, or tells you they already had shingles years ago so they're probably fine. Both come up constantly. Here's a quick guide so you can answer with confidence.
Who should get the shingles vaccine
- All adults 50 and older, even if they've had shingles befor ...
A 66-year-old comes in for a physical and you're trying to remember which pneumococcal vaccine to give, and whether their old PPSV23 counts. This is one of the more confusing vaccine schedules. Here's how to keep it simple in clinic.
Who needs pneumococcal vaccination
- All adults 50 and older, rega ...
