Unexpected Mentorship Questions from New NPs - Interview with Kara Pesola, NP

chronic care diabetes mentorship np student on the job learning role transition tricky cases Oct 10, 2024

Unexpected Mentorship Questions from New NPs - Interview with Kara Pesola, NP

As the Director of Clinical Training at a Federally Qualified Health Center primary care practice, my dear friend Kara Pesola has a front-row seat to see the types of mentorship questions new nurse practitioners have.

I had the absolute pleasure of working with her in her first few years of practice and it’s so special to see her in this leadership role helping new grads during the tough transition to real-world practice.

In this week’s podcast episode, we talked about how the transition to practice can be a shock, and even though we learn so much and study so hard in school and for boards, there’s so much on-the-job learning.

We focused on sharing our perspectives on how we answer the most common mentorship questions that new NPs are bringing up in clinic— am I normal? Am I doing this right? Do you agree with this treatment plan?

But also discussed two common challenging scenarios that new grads face and how we support them through it (these scenarios snuck up on me as a new grad, too!):

Inheriting a panel of patients and the care plans from another provider (especially those with controlled substances— should I continue their meds?)
What to do when patients don’t want to treat their medical conditions (i.e. Diabetes with a persistent A1C of 12%— what do I do?).

This episode is such a gem! I adore sharing the behind-the-scenes of real-world clinical practice, and this is especially relevant if you don’t have a mentor yourself.