Neonatal nurse practitioner

This text deals with a description of a job of neonatal nurse practitioner. This is just one of the branches in nursing and is very noble and demanding.

Job Description

Every hospital that has Neonatal Intensive Care Unit has also neonatal nurse practitioners employees. They usually work in maternity and pediatric hospitals and they take care of critically ill or prematurely born babies. They have a freedom and responsibility to make decisions about the way of treatment of these babies, which differs from registered nurses, because they can’t do this. They are subordinated to neonatologist or other specialists who takes care about infants. They have to spend a lot of time with their helpless little patients and they have to explain to their parent’s the infant’s health. If infants have some special needs, they also have to explain them to the parents and teach them how to live and deal with it.

In order for a person to become a successful neonatal nurse practitioner, there are certain qualities that he/she needs to have. It is desirable for them to have good interpersonal skills and they should be good in communications as they are the mediators in parent-infant relationship. They have to be emphatic and considerate and have a certain amount of knowledge of the psychological and physical needs of the premature or ill newborns. This job is very demanding and it requires a lot of hours spent on the feet, and they must finish their tasks with the same amount of dedication at the end of their career as it was at the beginning.

Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Salary

A lot of factors play a role in the salary determination. It depends upon the education, work experience, effectiveness, work hours and it is somewhere between US $40,000 and US $120,000. For example, if a person has Associate's Degree in Nursing, then his/her salary will be about US $40,000 to 45,000; if he/she has Diploma in Nursing, then the salary will be US $45,000 - 60,000; and finally, if he/she has Bachelor's Degree in Nursing, the salary will start from US $60,000 and can be more than this. Of course, just like in any other profession, the experience only increases the current salary.

There are three levels in this profession. In the first level, neonatal nurse practitioner takes care of the healthy infants. The number of neonatal nurses who are at this level has reduced because nowadays mothers are in the same room with their babies. In the level two, the job of neonatal nurses is to take care of the prematurely born and sick babies who need round clock care. And finally, in the level three, neonatal nurse practitioners have a high level of responsibility as they take care about the most difficult cases, monitoring the treatment of babies and updating the parents about the condition of their babies.

As this is a very demanding and noble profession, one has to love it and do it in the best possible way.