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Endocrine is very helpful since no matter what sort of adult population you treat, you WILL treat diabetes! They treat dyslipidemia and hypertension and other disorders such as PCOS, testosterone deficiency, pituitary tumors, adrenal gland disorders, etc., which are all important to recognize when treating patients in a primary care situation.
I did an endo rotation and I can palpate thyroid nodules like nobody's business!
337 Posts
1 Article; 1,863 Posts
I'm in a PNP program and we didn't have much choice over our site placements, but so far I've done neuro, GI, liver transplant clinic and well newborns. Neuro and GI were both very useful as in primary care you'll see lots of kids coming in with headaches and stomach aches. Liver transplant was fascinating and I learned a lot about rare conditions but probably not that relevant to primary care. Well newborn clinic was important to learn about how to do a newborn exam properly although I can't say it was my favorite. Next semester I'll be doing ER and I'm really looking forward to it.
255 Posts
If you plan on taking a job in primary care, I would also recommend psych. Like zenman recommended.
Reasons,
#1. Endo, cardio, renal, ob/gyn, etc.,:
Making referrals to these specialists is easy.
A solid knowledge base on all of these is essential in primary care practice. However, if you come across something that stumps you, conditions that are refractory to treatment or you just have that complicated patient with comoborbidities that will benefit from seeing a specialist (trust me, in the older population... a lot of them will) you can refer.
#2.
Making referrals to psych is difficult.
At least it is here in Texas. There are not very many psych providers and if you find any near your practice site (near pt home) they are usually not taking new patients. Psych is a huge probelm and a large number of your patients have some type of psych issue. Due to the difficulty in securing timely pysch services, you will find that in primary care YOU ARE the psych provider.
1 Article; 2,806 Posts
If you plan on taking a job in primary care, I would also recommend psych. Like zenman recommended.#2.
Making referrals to psych is difficult.
At least it is here in Texas. There are not very many psych providers and if you find any near your practice site (near pt home) they are usually not taking new patients. Psych is a huge probelm and a large number of your patients have some type of psych issue. Due to the difficulty in securing timely pysch services, you will find that in primary care YOU ARE the psych provider.
I agree, especially about my home state of Texas, where I'll not practice till I get independent status like here in New Mexico. I've had NM patients move to TX only to move back here due to no psych providers in TX. And learn some psych so I don't have to treat all the patients primary providers get hooked on benzos, lol!
BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP
1,678 Posts
I did OB-GYN for a specialty site. It was actually quite useful when I worked in Primary Care, as I was very comfortable doing Paps and pelvics, and dealing with birth control, STIs, menstrual issues, and menopause. My patients were happy they didn't have to go to a GYN for the more routine issues. Of course, I didn't hesitate to refer the more complex GYN issues to GYN.
I wish I had spent some time in ortho and derm. I did see a lot of both issues in Primary Care and would have liked to be more knowledgable in that area.