practice makes perfect

Finding Your Niche in the NP Market By Elisa Juarez & Ingrid Hinojosa

    Nurse Practitioners have become a trusted and needed presence in the healthcare field and in communities across the country.   Finding your niche in the market can be challenging and exciting, and it is the key to long-term personal satisfaction and professional development. 

    One of the first steps in finding your niche is to identify and understand your strengths, needs, and interests.  In addition to identifying your strengths, it is beneficial to know and understand your weaknesses, since these can be turned into strengths.  Awareness is the key, and the first step toward success.  There are many books, classes, and other tools available to assist with this process, including career assessment tools and coaching which are offered by many career consultants.  Here is a valuable truth for you to hold on to:  It is not what you do, but who you are that makes the difference. What you do and how you do it are important, but finding your niche is more about who you are, and what you have to give.

    The next step is to ask yourself the following questions:

1. What type of clientele do I want to work with?
2. What do I want to be doing?
3. What do I value most in a work environment?
4. What are my objectives (short-term and long-term)?
5. How hard am I willing to work?
6. Do I want to have my own practice?

   

    Thirdly, become familiar with the many benefits NPs offer to doctors, patients, and communities and present them to potential employers.  These include the following:

Nurse Practitioners…

1) take a load off doctors, allowing them more time for critical and complicated cases

2) allow for a higher volume of patients

3) are more accessible to patients than the doctor

4) can spend time with patients and use an educational approach to health and wellness

5) have prescriptive authority in most states

6) offer cost-effective care

Perhaps your process is guided by a desire to serve where there is the greatest need, which would be in medically underserved areas.  If you are also interested in having your own practice, you can do a needs assessment to find one of these areas.  You will also need to find a supervising physician and get your own Medicaid and Medicare numbers.  Going the entrepreneurial route requires marketing, commitment, and hard work.  Business knowledge, including marketing and management, are as important as medical training.  A career assessment would be especially valuable if you are considering this option, since it reveals your interpersonal style and skills, management style, career interests and needs, and the types of positions that would be the best fit for you.  Since going this route involves greater risk than working for someone else, it would be wise to do an in-depth assessment of the requirements, challenges, and benefits, along with your personal career assessment.

     Another recommendation in finding your niche is to become aware of legislative issues that pertain to nurse practitioners and the people they serve.  Getting involved in a professional association and other NP organizations is an excellent way to stay on top of the issues and collaborate with other NPs to make a difference in the industry.  This is an exciting time for NPs to be involved, as they are carving out their niche and increasing public awareness in the healthcare market.   Take the time to read articles, talk to other nursing professionals, and become an expert in your field.  As you find and develop your own niche, you will also be adding to the strength and credibility of nurse practitioners throughout the industry. 

Elisa Juarez is President of MasterQuest Recruiting & Consulting, Arlington, TX.  Her firm specializes in healthcare, particularly physicians and nurse practitioners.  They offer career assessment and coaching services, as well as search and placement services.  For more information, please visit www.mquestrecruit.com, or contact Elisa at [email protected], (817)561-4933.

 

Ingrid Hinojosa, RN, MSN, FNP-C, is owner of Integrated Family Healthcare in Grand Prairie, TX, and is in the process of opening additional clinics in underserved areas.  She has many years experience in rural medicine in south Texas, and once served as an investigator for the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners.  She is a certified Childbirth Educator, and still puts in hours as an RN on the Med-Surg floor of an area hospital.

www.intergratedfamilyhealthcare.com   (972)262-4700

Interview Preparation

Hi All!

I just thought I'd add a few thoughts about interview preparation. I have 13 years experience on the hiring side of healthcare, interviewing more than my share of physician candidates. For the last six years I've been studying the art of interviewing as an executive and physician search consultant. I've noticed this trend.

Physicians are some of the brightest people on the planet, but as such they usually believe they can get a handle on most anything easily - and it is true they can. However, interviewing well requires preparation. Most physician interviewees are not prepared for the interview and most physician interviewers aren't well prepared either.

It is proven that hiring mistakes can be avoided by using a definitive interviewing process - one that is consistent across candidates and behaviorally oriented, but that is another posting. With that said - preparing for an interview requires really thinking about career goals and accomplishments. Being able to answer the "tell me about yourself" question is one of the most important things that a physician candidate can learn and practice.

The best answer to the "tell me about yourself" question is a three part response.*

1) Summarize your career in one sentence.
For example someone completing a fellowship in infectious disease medicine might say, "Ever since I was a kid, I always had a keen fascination with solving problems which led me to specialize in infectious disease medicine, because I love the science of the specialty combined with the detective/sleuth problem solving." Someone who has been in practice might have a different message, "My 20 year infectious disease private practice has been characterized by treating some of the nastiest bugs on the planet and I've seen the full gamut ranging from plague to ........."

2) Give a one to two sentence example demonstrating your accomplishments.
Be sure the accomplishments are relevant to the position you are seeking; have the description be easily understood, indicate an impact on the bottom line by enhancing patient care or by being cost effective.
For example, "I have always had a very busy practice. It was important to have a high patient volume but to maximize the efficiency of my office. I had a physician assistant and a nurse practitioner who worked with me getting the number of patients seen each day up to 30-40."

3) End your answer to this question with a one sentence statement about what you want to do next in your career and HINT the statement should match with the purpose and intent of the position for which you are interviewing.

Every harried physician practice manager, physician hiring committee member, hospital or physician executive asks some version of the "tell me about yourself" question.

As a candidate you will stand head and shoulders above the others if you take the time to frame the answer to this question well and practice it so that it rolls out of you spontaneously and easily.

Have a great interview.

Lynden Kidd
Next Iteration
215-579-1751
[email protected]
www.nextiteration.net

*The three part answer format is credited to Jeff Skrentny of Jefferson Group Consulting. Jeff can be reached at [email protected] or at 312.474.6076

A short visit to Amazon

No, not to the Amazon, to Amazon - the website. One small search phrase on Amazon leads you from book to book, then topic to topic. It's a jungle of books and other media out there! That must be where the name came from.

Anyway, to get the ball rolling I thought I would throw out a few physican and medical practice related titles I ran across in my search:

How to Join, Buy, or Merge A Physician's Practice, by Yvonne Mart Fox & Brett A. Levine

Caring for Patients from Different Cultures: Case Studies from American Hospitals, by Geri-Ann Galanti

The Successful Physician: A Productivity Handbook for Practicioners, by Marshall O. Zaslove

Caring for Patients: A Critique of the Medical Model, by Allen B. Barbour

The Business of Medical Practice: Profit Maximizing Skills for Savvy Doctors, by Dr. David E. Marcinko, MBA, CFP

I haven't read these books (although the completely unbiased reviewers on Amazon think they are great!). Perhaps you have read one of these - and would, or wouldn't recommend the book to someone else.

What other books do you recommend on practice set-up and management, patient care, or other topics? Perhaps I'll track down a book author or two and invite them to post.

Well, on to another category - let's see, where will my research take me next? Urban practice and living? What to do when your 13 year old daughter will "absolutely die" if you take that wonderful new opportunity 6 states away? Read on - but not too quickly - it takes time to get all these plates twirling at once! Check back soon to see new Categories popping up.