Case Study: FNP Challenges, Training & End-of-Life Care Competencies

This case study delves into the challenges faced by family nurse practitioners (FNPs), including scope of practice restrictions, monotony, and legislative changes like the Affordable Care Act. It outlines the necessary training to become an FNP, emphasizing enrollment in an FNP program (MSN or DNP), coursework in advanced physiology, diagnostic reasoning, and physical assessment, along with supervised clinical hours. The study further highlights the training required for providing effective end-of-life care, encompassing communication, interdisciplinary teamwork, holistic patient assessment, pain pharmacology, spiritual care, ethical and legal considerations, and leadership skills. It also touches upon the importance of empathy, communication skills, responsibility, and teamwork for nurses interested in palliative care. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar case studies and study resources.

Running head: CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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1. The challenges that Abbey has to face during the path of becoming the family nurse
practitioners is the scope of practise restrictions that she has to face. These rules
determines what the nurse practitioners are allowed to do and what they are not. Often
such restrictions are absolutely not necessary. Often she has to face certain personal
challenges among which one of the challenge is monotony. When the NPs might get
the opportunity to work with many patients, often they usually settle into a particular
niche. There are also certain legislative changes like the Affordable Care Act
(ACA) according to which there might be some impact on the role of the family nurse
practitioner (Katz & Johnson, 2016).
2. In order to become a FNP, Abby just has to enroll in a FNP program since she is
already a registered nurse. There are several degree options in the program like the
MSN or DNP where different universities provide different degrees of academic
points of entry. Once enrolled, the students have to take classes in advanced
physiology across the lifespan in addition to the diagnostic reasoning and physical
assessment. Apart from the coursework, there is requirement for FNPs-in-training that
might get the clinical hours in a supervised setting including the university hospital, a
clinic or any healthcare environment (Barnes, 2015).
3. The training required by the nurse practitioners to become efficient in providing end
to life care includes the foundational aspects like the domains protocol in addition to
the communication fundamentals along with interdisciplinary team functions. It
should also include the whole-person assessment. Training from a holistic as well as a
patient-centered perspective should be incorporated including all the aspects of
physical, , emotional, psychosocial and spiritual care as well as including the state of
the art alternative therapies and the complementary therapies. There should also be

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inclusion of pain pharmacology along with spiritual care and the physiological aspects
of palliative care. The training should also incorporate the ethical issues of palliative
care since it is focused on end of life care as well as the legal aspects of end of life
care. Skills also need to be developed on the leadership skills for the advanced
practice nurses in this field that includes the team building and relationship
management skills. Maintenance of cultural competence for working with special
populations in most of the palliative care settings is required (Kristjanson, Peter &
Oldham, 2016).
4. The area of nursing that interests me the most is the palliative care where I can
provide services to the older adults in need of care. In order to become a successful
nurse practitioner in this field the personality traits that I need to work on are o the
following that includes having a strong sense of empathy in addition to having an
understanding towards the clients with palliative care needs. I should possess
excellent communication skills in addition to having a strong responsibility sense. I
also need to develop a mentality to be able to work with a strong team and with
people from different backgrounds.

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References
Barnes, H. (2015, July). Nurse practitioner role transition: a concept analysis. In Nursing
forum (Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 137-146).
Katz, R. S., & Johnson, T. A. (Eds.). (2016). When professionals weep: Emotional and
countertransference responses in palliative and end-of-life care. Routledge.
Kristjanson, L., Peter, H., & Oldham, L. (2016). Working with families. In Palliative Care
Nursing (pp. 271-283). Routledge.