nurse-practitioner

or nurse prac·ti·tion·er

[ nurs-prak-tish-uh-ner ]

noun

1. a registered nurse who has received special training for diagnosing and treating routine or minor ailments. : NP

nurse practitioner

noun

1. a nurse who has specialized advanced skills in diagnosis, psychosocial assessment, and patient management and is permitted to prescribe certain drugs

Word History and Origins

Origin of nurse-practitioner¹

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

Dr. Dunbar, a nurse-practitioner who lives in Wallingford, Pa., is younger, at 61, but has coped with caregiving for far longer: Her husband, Jeffrey Draine, 60, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2017.

From New York Times

Listening in on the phone while a hospital palliative care nurse-practitioner talked to her father about his options, Ms. O’Brien provided a blunt translation to an always blunt man: “Dad, your heart and lungs are done.”

From New York Times

When the kidney palliative care team — including a nurse-practitioner and a social worker, as well as a consulting nephrologist — met with the man’s wife to discuss treatment, it proposed what is known as a time-limited trial, in which life-sustaining treatment continues for an agreed-on period to see how the patient responds.

From New York Times

“I’ve definitely seen my patients who were stable returning for tuneups,” said Eloise Theisen, president of the American Cannabis Nurses Association and a geriatric nurse-practitioner in Walnut Creek, Calif. “Their anxiety was worse. Their insomnia was worse.”

From New York Times

The director of mental-health services was fired this summer, while Crosscut reported a nurse-practitioner supervisor felt pushed into resigning.

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• assistant
• attendant
• medic
• registered nurse
• therapist