“When NPs and physicians work collaboratively, the patient care is enhanced and the overall primary health care experience is improved.”

Janet Rosenfeld (MN-NP ‘09) has worked in various roles as a Registered Nurse and is currently working as a Nurse Practioner at Fraser Health under the Mental Health and Substance Use Services. Janet shares with us her experience in the profession.

Tell me about your professional practice experience before becoming an NP? Where did you practice?
Upon graduating with a diploma in nursing in 1983, I worked in a variety of roles as an RN including adult, paediatric, perinatal and women’s health in medical units and in hospitals such as Royal Columbian Hospital and Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. Prior to starting in the NP program at UBC in 2007, I became a sexual assault nurse examiner.

What attracted you to become a nurse practitioner? Whatyear did you graduate with your MN-NP?
I was attracted to the NP role as I wanted to continue ‘hands on care’ with a strong component of patient contact, therefore I believed that the NP stream of the Masters program would be the most suitable. I graduated from the UBC program with my Masters of Nurse Practitioner Degree in 2009.

Tell me about the work you do now and the partnership with Fraser Health. What is your role?
Currently, I am a Nurse Practitioner at Fraser Health with the Mental Health and Substance Use Services. In this role, I am working as a full scope Nurse Practitioner including ordering diagnostic services and providing advanced interventions, prescribing medications, and seeking physician consultation and referral.

Nurse practitioners have been a part of the health care system for decades but the awareness of them varies from country to country and even province to province. What did you know about nurse practitioners before you started your graduate program?
I must admit that I knew very little about nurse practitioners before I started the graduate program, other than nurse practitioners where relatively new to BC, and that NP’s have direct contact with the patient’s. I knew that there were 3 streams of practice, adult, family, and paediatric, in which I chose the family stream as I felt that was the most versatile, and the NP education programs in BC are only focusing on the family stream of practice.

There is a lot of discussion right now about improving access to primary care for BC patients. Much of that discussion focuses on family doctors. What are your thoughts on that?
The focus is on family doctors because that is what the current funding supports – a medical model. If the funding model was changed in a way that would support physician’s and NP’s to work together in a collaborative practice the access to primary care for BC patients would be improved. At present, the majority of NP positions are serving populations that are ‘difficult’ or ‘time consuming’ to treat. If a funding model was in place that would support NP-led clinics or in physician offices, the attachment to a care provider would increase for all individuals.