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.
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 ...
Osteoporosis management is more than calcium and vitamin D. In primary care you'll see patients who already carry a diagnosis, or who just screened positive on a DEXA. The real skill is knowing when to treat, which therapy to choose, and how to monitor safely.
Who needs treatment
Start therapy if a...
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 ...
Perimenopause is the stretch of months to years before menopause, when ovarian hormones fluctuate and cycles turn irregular. A lot of these patients will ask you about hormone therapy, and for the right candidate, HRT is safe and very effective for vasomotor and genitourinary symptoms.
The tricky pa...
A patient finally says they're ready to quit, and you want to set them up with a real plan before they leave the room. Quitting is hard. The plan doesn't have to be. Here's a simple, evidence-based approach that pairs combination NRT (patch plus short-acting) with varenicline or bupropion when appro...
We've spent the last couple of weeks building insulin regimens. This one is the practical layer: the tips, scripts, and supply details that make prescribing insulin painless and keep the pharmacy from calling you back.
1) Know your concentrations and containers
- Most insulins are U-100 (100 units/m ...
You got fasting glucose under control with basal insulin, but the A1c is still high or post-meal readings are spiking. That's the moment to add prandial (mealtime) insulin. Here's how I layer it in without overcomplicating things.
When to add prandial insulin
- Fasting glucose is at goal but A1c rem ...
Starting insulin makes a lot of us nervous. It did for me too. The good news is that basal insulin is the simplest place to start, and a clear workflow takes most of the fear out of it. Insulin is individualized, but here's how I start it safely and confidently.
When I consider insulin
Start insulin...
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...
