Urology nurse practitioner on her day-to-day responsibilities

In this video, Emily Sopko, CNP, describes her day-to-day responsibilities. Sopko is a nurse practitioner with University Hospitals Urology Institute in Cleveland, Ohio.

Transcription:

Can you describe your day-to-day responsibilities as a urology nurse practitioner?

I actually work on the inpatient side with our resident team at our major academic center. A lot of times, we have some main NPs on our service that come in and round with the resident team, and they see the patients that are both as a consultant, or what we call our primary service patients that we're responsible for in a postoperative setting. Typically, for me, I come in a little bit later, and I get a little bit of sign-up from the residents. When I was brought into the role, initially, 8 years ago, I was more of a discharge coordinator, using my advanced practice provider degree to be able to write prescriptions and help with certifications for home health nursing and things like that. So I still really focus a lot on that. I do still see patients when there's any critical changes in their acute status on the floor here, if they're looking like they're getting septic or their blood pressure is low, if there's something that's benign or family or patient questions that need further answering; patient education is another big piece for me. I like to be able to give the patients the time...I'm able to really dedicate a lot of my time to patients and families for education. [I make] phone calls for the same thing, for people who have been discharged. [They] can call and leave me a voicemail and say, "we had a problem with this prescription," or "I don't really understand how to use this catheter." I try and prevent people from needing to go to an emergency room as well. So if I'm doing a follow-up phone call after discharge [and ask] "how are things going after surgery?" and they say, "I'm not really feeling super hot," I can kind of run through a little bit of a triage with them on the phone, figure out if I can get them into a clinic setting with one of our providers, or if I need them to come back to an emergency room. So basically, Monday through Friday, that's what I do. I'm kind of support for the residents. I can go see consults with them. I can bill for consults, which is really nice, and I can see our post-op patients regularly, get to know them, become a consistent member of the team. Those patients will see me time and time again. The nurses on the floor will see me time and time again. And other providers in the hospital also have gotten to know me. So they know me as a urology provider, and they know they can come to me with any questions.

This transcript was edited for clarity.