The Nurse Practitioner Role in Dermatology with Vanna Padilla

In the mid-1960s, a shortage of physicians across the United States posed a great predicament to patient safety rooted in the decrease in primary healthcare access. In response to this detrimental period in medicine, pediatrician Dr. Henry Silver created the first formal graduate nursing program that would be the role now known as the nurse practitioner (NP). With the goal of scope expansion of the nursing practice to bridge the gaps in access to care posed by the physician shortage nationwide, NPs have become a vital part of the care team model with the clinical abilities to diagnose, treat, and prescribe pharmacologic modalities in almost every specialty. However, many questions still arise regarding this extended nursing role due to the varying state-by-state regulations and its nonexistence in several countries worldwide. It is of great joy t ...