Lauren Beeson of the Group Health Centre is one of thousands of NPs across the province helping to address the urgent shortage of primary care providers<\/p>\n
Professional, experienced and confident, Lauren Beeson is among a group of medical professionals appearing in greater numbers on the healthcare landscape.<\/p>\n
She is a nurse practitioner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my job,\u201d said Beeson, currently treating patients at Group Health Centre\u2019s Same Day Clinic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like being able to help people in the moment at the same day clinic. Let’s say they have a terrible cough, they’ve had it for weeks and they’ve done everything they can at home and now they’re coming to me for help. That’s what I like about it. I’m able to give them some relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nurse practitioners,\u00a0or NPs,\u00a0were limited in what they could do for patients in the past. That has changed in the last few years.<\/p>\n
NPs can diagnose and treat illnesses, prescribe medications, order diagnostic imaging tests such as X-rays, CT scans, MRI tests and ultrasound and also refer patients to specialists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere used to be restrictions on what an NP could prescribe or what tests they could order. My more experienced colleagues have told me stories about how they had a tiny list before. It was very limited prior to when I became a nurse practitioner in 2019,\u201d Beeson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certain types of heart tests at the hospital that we cannot order and certain government forms that we cannot authorize but I would say that’s pretty much the extent of it. It’s really quite extensive in terms of what we are now able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Sault native, Beeson earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Sault College and worked as a registered nurse, first\u00a0in Orillia and then Elliot Lake, before returning to her hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to do something that involves caring for people and nursing is exactly that,\u201d Beeson said.<\/p>\n
Though she was a compassionate bedside nurse, Beeson followed through on her desire to add to her skill set and began studying to become a nurse practitioner in 2016.<\/p>\n
Her training was a hybrid of online and in-person instruction through Sudbury\u2019s Laurentian University.<\/p>\n
She moved back to the Sault in 2017 and officially became a nurse practitioner in 2019.<\/p>\n
She has worked at GHC\u2019s Same Day Clinic since July 2020.<\/p>\n
Approximately 3,750 people work as nurse practitioners in Ontario and the employment outlook for NPs in the province is described as very good for the 2025-2027 period, according to the Ontario government.<\/p>\n
More NPs have been added to GHC\u2019s ranks to address the shortage of primary care providers in Sault Ste. Marie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very hard to find an NP job only five years ago,” Beeson said.\u00a0“Right now NP jobs are everywhere.”<\/p>\n
NPs are not the only answer to the primary care provider shortage but they bring a lot to the table, Beeson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re part of the solution, absolutely.”<\/p>\n
“The difference between a nurse practitioner and a physician in the grand scheme of things is the type of training that we have. We have our education as a nurse practitioner but we also have our prior experience as a nurse at the bedside. That\u2019s a huge positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recommends being an NP.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecoming a nurse practitioner is a career of the future, 100 per cent,\u201d Beeson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a registered nurse is thinking about becoming an NP, if they want to have a change in their lifestyle, if they have young children, or if they want to have no shift work it really is a good choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beeson said her work as a nurse practitioner at GHC\u2019s Same Day Clinic is never dull.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of viral illnesses but I\u2019ll also see newborn babies come in for a weight check after they’ve been discharged from the hospital. I\u2019ll see somebody that hurt their ribs or has a sore knee. There\u2019s mental health as well, people looking for some help and I do what I can for them. So, I see quite a variety. My job in the same day clinic\u00a0is mostly what we call episodic care, meaning I can offer them some solutions and then they would follow up on any chronic issues with their family doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re never going to stop learning. Every day is going to be different. It won’t get stagnant,” Beeson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lauren Beeson of the Group Health Centre is one of thousands of NPs across the province helping to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":483857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,218880,50,192536],"class_list":{"0":"post-483856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-columnsjobs-of-the-future-clplauren-beeson","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-nurse-practitioner"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115817754399054130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}