AANP Conference

I went to the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners conference in June this year for my first time. It was a neat experience and great to be around so many NPs. The one thing I noticed though, was just how many NPs worked in primary care. I knew from reading, many NPs go into in primary care settings, but I suppose not working in primary care myself I never really see it first hand. In grad school I pretty much spent all my time with the Acute Care specialty folks and never really knew what Family or Adult were up to. And since I've always worked in a hospital, I still spend all my time with other ACNPs. Many AANP meetings were on primary care topics, many folks I met were in a primary-care specialty, and I was feeling a little left out being in Acute Care. It got me wondering just what were the specialty demographics at the conference. Well, I don't know about the conference directly, but I learned that the AANP membership consists of 62% Family NPs, 22.5% Adult NPs. ACNPs were only 6.5%. No wonder I felt out of place. I was particularly excited when there was an acute care topic and I could bond with others that worked in the hospital setting.

But overall, being at the conference was a great feeling, because in the end we are all NPs. There are times at your hospital job you feel out numbered and aren't sure where your big support group is. In some cases, you may be the only NP on your team, or even in the hospital. That was the case in my previous job. But I never felt like that when I worked as an RN. Then I had a bunch of other nurses around me, and a whole chain of nursing command that I knew was there to go to if needed. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the surgeons I work with, and feel truly part of the team. But I'm not a surgeon, nor do I care to be one. There are a couple of other NPs I work with, so I am not literally the only NP around. That helps. But when I went to the conference, the best thing was we were all NPs! That alone made us connected. And then to top it off, it was also the largest NP gathering to date. Now that's neat!