Nurse practitioner continuing education is required for every licensed nurse practitioner. As a continuing education company, Skills On Point offers a broad assortment of courses covering many areas of education. We frequently get asked by our audience what courses are best for new graduate nurse practitioners and experienced nurse practitioners and the answer is the […]
Author: John Russell
What online continuing education courses are best for new nurse practitioners?
What is the best way to close a punch biopsy?
Some of the most commonly sought-after skills in our suturing and office procedures workshops is how to perform shave and punch biopsies. We routinely have a large audience following for these derm procedures sessions because knowing how to safely and quickly perform these biopsies certainly can make or break your day and not knowing which […]
How to Produce and Sell Online Continuing Education Content
As the owner of a company providing healthcare continuing education material, I am asked many times how to replicate what we do by others. The steps we undertake as an accredited provider of continuing education courses is far more in-depth than you may see on the surface. Here’s a simple walk through of what it […]
How to Keep an Incision from Falling Apart
When it comes to lacerations and incisions, nurse practitioners and physician assistants frequently will tell you the enemy of good wound closure is tension. I don’t mean the wound has anxiety and unresolved daddy issues. I mean quite literally the wound is under too much oppositional force to allow the tissues to approximate for their […]
7 Common Tests Nurse Practitioners Order Prior to Heart Surgery
Cardiac surgery patients will undergo some level of preparatory testing before their surgery, even if it is an emergency. One of my jobs as a cardiac surgery nurse practitioner is to make sure every stone is turned before proceeding to surgery for the best possible outcome. Here are some of the most common things that […]
3 Steps to Successfully Onboard Cardiothoracic Surgery Nurse Practitioners
For a new grad nurse practitioner seeking employment in a cardiothoracic surgery practice, the learning curve is steep and quite daunting. Not only are you likely to be working with a highly complex patient profile, but also a high level of expectation on your abilities as a diagnostician and proceduralist. Here are three easy steps […]
What is it Like to Work in Cardiothoracic Surgery?
What is it like to work in heart surgery? As a nurse practitioner and first assistant working in cardiothoracic surgery, I have been asked this question countless times by nurse practitioners and physician assistants who are interested in taking the plunge to CV surgery. First let me say that I absolutely love cardiac and thoracic […]
Dealing with Nursing Burnout
Dealing with Burnout in Healthcare Nursing burnout in healthcare is no big deal, right? I mean, of course, we all get tired of our jobs and need to change scenery occasionally, but that’s healthy, isn’t it? Maybe, and maybe not. If there is one lesson from being given a front row seat to a healthcare […]
8 Ways for Nurse Practitioners to Reinvent Themselves
Ready to do something new in 2021? Here’s a list of some very actionable and fun ways you can change your trajectory for your career. Some of these ideas cost money, some make money. But at the end of next year, wouldn’t it be awesome to quit complaining and do something amazing in 2021 to […]
5 Ways Small Businesses Can Survive a Pandemic
As of Nov 2020, 28.8% of small business have closed, with a 31.3% decrease in revenue for those who remain. As giants of the digital world such as Amazon, Netflix, and Grubhub are seeing record earnings, small businesses are taking the hit the hardest. That’s not to say it has not been a dreadful scenario […]
How to Find a Quality Skills CME Offering for NPs and PAs
Initial and continuing education for new skills and procedures seldom come cheap. In fact, they seem to only be found as an offshoot of a larger conference in the form of a a la carte pre-conference session that requires even more time and money to attend. I never understood that. I mean, yes, the speakers […]
Are you ready for Illinois mandatory sexual harassment training?
Illinois law has changed to include mandatory sexual harassment training for all employees. Many employers do not have a plan for how to accomplish this, and there are plenty of very expensive options out there. Fortunately, we have you covered with a 100% compliant and far more cost-effective solution. Here’s what you need to know. […]
5 Tips for New Grad NPs Entering a Saturated Market
“How do I get hired as a new grad NP?” As the owner of Skills On Point, I am frequently asked to answer to this question. As we are in the ambiguous time of an unforeseen pandemic and healthcare reform, new graduate nurse practitioners are entering the workplace that is scarcely resourced and, in a […]
NP Roles: Spotlight on Cardiology
When I was a bedside CVICU nurse (and recovering hearts), cardiology was consulted for the occasional postoperative atrial fibrillation or sinus node dysfunction, and they certainly managed all our patients with MIs. The same cardiology group had just hired one of my previous co-workers, and although she had been an ICU nurse for 3+ years, […]
Is my blood pressure too high?
196/112…this blood pressure is way too high for anyone, much less a patient with a past medical history that included cardiovascular disease in the form of strokes and heart attacks. What was causing this elevation, since he was taking his medicine as recommended? Hypertension Hypertension affects 1/3 of American adults over age 20: 7% of […]
NP Roles: Spotlight on Orthopedic Surgery
Have you ever seen the YouTube video, “orthopedia vs anesthesia”? It was posted in 2011 (the year I graduated with my FNP) and has 1.6 million views. It’s a 3 ½ minute-long hilarious (and possibly offensive?) interaction between an orthopedic surgeon and the head of anesthesia, wherein the surgeon insists on fixing a fracture. The […]