The Nurse Practitioner Mentor Blog
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.
A blood pressure comes back at 184/118 and the room gets tense. The question isn't the number, it's whether this patient goes home with a med change or straight to the ED. Here's how to tell hypertensive urgency from emergency fast.
Definitions at a glance
Hypertensive urgency
- BP greater than or eq ...
A patient tells you the statin is making their muscles ache and they want to stop it. The job here is to figure out whether this is true statin intolerance or something else, without giving up on lowering their ASCVD risk.
What counts as statin intolerance?
- Definition: the inability to tolerate at ...
Abdominal aortic aneurysms are usually silent until they rupture, and a rupture is almost always catastrophic. The upside is that one ultrasound at the right time can catch it early. As primary care providers, we're in the best spot to do that.
Who should be screened
- Men age 65 to 75 who have ever...
You've got a patient in the borderline-to-intermediate risk zone, and the statin conversation could go either way. A coronary artery calcium test is the tiebreaker that turns "maybe" into a clear decision you and the patient can both stand behind.
What is a CAC test?
It's a noninvasive, low-dose, n...
You've decided a patient is a good candidate to come off warfarin and onto a DOAC. The tricky part is the handoff, keeping them anticoagulated the whole way through without overshooting into a bleed. Here's how to do it cleanly.
If you want the warfarin side first, start with warfarin basics and dos...
You inherit a patient who's already on warfarin, and now you're the one managing the INR. Some of these patients have a coumadin clinic, but plenty rely on their PCP. Here's a clinic-friendly guide you can use today.
DOACs like apixaban and rivaroxaban are often easier to manage, but warfarin isn't ...
A patient tells you their heart's been racing or skipping. Most of the time it's benign, but a few of these are the ones you can't miss. Here's the approach I use in clinic to sort them out fast.
Step 1: Are they symptomatic at the visit?
If they're symptomatic in the office:
- Get an EKG right away ...
A patient's lipid panel comes back, the LDL is elevated, and you have about ten minutes to decide whether this needs a statin, a recheck, or just lifestyle counseling. Here's how to make that call quickly and document it cleanly.
Dyslipidemia vs. hyperlipidemia: the terms
- Dyslipidemia is the broad ...
