Nurse Practitioner Interview Essay

I interviewed Durward â€Å"Durk† Lynch he is in my field of interest where I want to work as one day. He is a Nurse Practitioner at the Vanden Bosh Clinic and at the College Clinic. He gave information on his background and what drove him to be a Nurse Practitioner (NP). He really has had a lot of experience, as I will explain to you what he has shared. Durk was 18 years old graduating from high school and at the time he didn’t have the goal or even thought to be a (NP). He was volunteering in a hospital working with paralyzed patients. He was in his 1st year of college and majoring in Psychology. He really had an interest in writing on health and disease. He used to write in the newspaper on Health and Disease. When he took a job in HMO in 1977 in his 2nd semester in college; is when he met his 1st Nurse Practitioner. That’s when he set his goal to become a NP. He states,† He never heard of a Nurse Practitioner before, he only heard of a physician’s assistant â€Å". Durk was determined to gain the experience he needed and was not in a hurry to do so. He worked in Larned, Kansas in a state mental institution for the criminally insane. Including also working in 3 different types of jail environments. Durk was also, enlisted in the army for the Nurse Core in his junior year in college. He was a Nurse Orderly in our time now is called a nursing assistant for 4years. He was an officer 2nd lieutenant for 3 years in the army. When he was in Korea he gained experience in medical surgery. Durk also, gained experience in orthopedic, neurosurgery, working with drug abusers, and people who had addictions to drugs/alcohol. He continued to gain experience by taking a job in the Missouri Clinic. They had no hospital in the county. The clinic was all they had; he worked there for 10 years. When his patients needed care that he could not perform he would have to send the patients 50 miles out of the clinic just to see a cardiologist and etc. Durk took another job in Ganado, Arizona where he worked as an orderly with deliveries, surgeries, saw TB, and even buried people. When the family members didn’t want to bury them or no one wanted to, a long time ago Durk and the Janitor dug the holes and buried the dead patients. Now, he is currently a Nurse Practitioner here in Gallup he says his patients here are harder due to diabetes and hypertension. He recalls the hardest patients for him was when he worked in a Cancer Clinic that was very aggressive to helping the patient gain some hope to be cancer free. He states,† There was at least one patient dying every week†. This was a very hard field to work with because of the high deaths of kids, young and old patients. He was the only Nurse Practitioner to last a year there. Most of the NP’s only lasted to 6 months if that. My perceptions before the interview were was he is very happy with his career and seems to be an absolute good-hearted person. He loves what he does and has enjoyed getting the experience he has. He states, †I have still not experienced everything there is to experience and I have been a Nurse Practitioner for 30 years†. When I asked him about his background he was real happy to talk about his experiences. By the way he talks about his patients you can tell in his tone he cares a lot about his patients. He says the youngest patient he attended to was 2 weeks old and the oldest was 106 years old. He has seen a 5-generation family and really has a lot of fun with his job. When I interviewed Dr. Lynch on the following questions he was not expecting the questions I asked. I asked him the first question. What specific communication skill does people entering your lines of work require? He answered, â€Å"You have to be a good communicator to talk to other doctors and communicate on paper. You are always interacting with people to get the help you need for your patients†. The second question I asked him was how important are public speaking skills to your job? He answered, â€Å"I don’t really do that and when I do its occasionally†. The only time he had to talk in front of people was at a commencement ceremony. He doesn’t really like to talk in front of a huge crowd. The last question I asked was how important to success in your career is effective public speaking? He stated, â€Å"Public speaking is not a big event in my career. It’s not really what I do maybe I shy away from it. In my career I only talk one on one wi th my patients and there family. Everything I discuss with my patients is private and confidential. So therefore I don’t need to really give a speech among a crowd.† I really enjoyed the interview listening to his experience and made me want to strive even more to become a good Nurse Practitioner. His words were really helpful and he gave me helpful tips on what route to take to get to my career goals. I thanked him for his time and thanked him for the helpful advice. That was my interview that I chose to talk about according to my field I am interested in.