Nurse Practitioner Week draws attention to challenges facing health care workers
Tabitha Barron, who now runs the women's health clinic Cynthia Dalsing started years ago, poses for a photo.
Courtesy of Tabitha Barron
When someone is seeking medical care, they might turn to a general care practitioner or specialty clinic depending on their needs. What many people don’t realize, though, is that often the person treating them is a nurse practitioner.
Nov. 8-14 is National Nurse Practitioner week, and in honor of that, Cynthia Dalsing, a retired NP based in Sandpoint, wanted to honor the role nurse practitioners play in the community, she said.
Nurse practitioners play a vital role providing health care, she said. That is especially the case in rural areas where access is often limited. In Idaho, there are
“We spend a lot of time educating patients on our background and who we are,” she said. “People say I’ll go see my doctor, but they really saw a nurse practitioner.”
Nurse practitioners are master’s and doctoral graduates who are able to provide full-scope care and medical diagnosis, and often provide specialty treatment like OB/GYN, asthma, anesthesiology or orthopedic care, she said. They consult with physicians but are able to work independently.
Dalsing personally opened the first independent nurse practitioner clinic in Sandpoint, Applegate Health Care, years ago. It has since been passed to registered NP Tabitha Barron, and remains one of only two women’s health clinics in Sandpoint, she said — the other being at Bonner General Health.
Women’s health care is essential, she said, because much of women’s health care is primary care.
Nurse practitioners are especially important in rural communities, Dalsing said.
“There are some counties that don’t have a doctor, they only have nurse practitioners,” she said.
Right now, medical professionals are facing an unprecedented struggle to provide care due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent surge in cases that are leaving many hospitals at, or near, capacity, she said. Like the rest of the medical community, nurse practitioners are responding to that need.
It takes a team of health care providers to care for just one COVID-19 patient, Dalsing said. She worries about burnout from medical professionals and the risk of serious illness and even death for frontline workers exposed to the virus. One of the very first COVID-19th deaths in Idaho was a nurse practitioner, she said.
“We don’t want to lose any health care providers,” she said. “We don’t want this to be the wake-up.”
She said she hopes people will take the time to recognize nurse practitioners, and work to keep the community safe.
“If you run into your nurse practitioner, thank them,” she said. “[And] right now with the surge, it would be so kind for everyone to wear a mask, because it may protect those who are vulnerable.”
List of nurse practitioners serving in the Sandpoint area, courtesy of Cynthia Dalsing:
Laura Adams, Tabitha Barron, Erin Bass, Tafie Bowman, Laci Burk, Ann Cox, Cynthia Dalsing, Sarah Derrig, Beaver Eller, Leanne Elisha, Mary Fiedler, Kelly Fuhrman, Tracey Koch, Nichole Grimm, Jane Hoover, Darwin Hurst, Laura Lata, James Lathrup, Janet Lukehart, Mark McGrath, Kathy Robertson, Paige Russell, Natasha Splain-Talbott, Katie Sweeney, Travis Taylor, Joyce Wilson, Lana Young.