It is hard to believe that nearly 10 years have gone by since David Letterman returned to his television show after cardiac bypass surgery and introduced the nurse practitioner and the nurse who cared for him, as “the real heroes of medicine.”

He also noted that the health care team he brought on stage saved his life and remarked, “But that’s not the big deal. The big deal is that they do it several times a day and hundreds of times a year.”

Patients who have a nurse practitioner as their health care provider are not at all surprised by this statement — they know the health care they receive from their nurse practitioner is high-quality, comprehensive, personalized and patient-centered. In addition to diagnosing and managing acute and chronic illness, NPs place a strong emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention. They are skilled clinicians who include teaching and counseling individuals, families and communities as a major part of their practice.

This week is the 2010 National Nurse Practitioner Week and a time to celebrate this distinguished group of health care providers. For nearly half a century, NPs have been meeting the primary, specialty and acute care needs of their patients with a high level of medical expertise and patient satisfaction. Nurse practitioners are graduates of master’s, post-master’s or doctoral nurse practitioner programs with advanced clinical preparation to provide primary, acute and chronic care to patients of all ages and walks of life.

Nurse practitioners provide health care to people of all ages and in diverse health care settings such as private office practice, hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, retail clinics, state and local health departments and managed care facilities.

The high level of satisfaction and confidence that patients have in nurse practitioners is evidenced by the approximatly 600 million visits that are made to nurse practitioners each year. There are more than 140,000 licensed nurse practitioners in the United States with 1,800 — in the state of Mississippi, providing high-quality, cost-effective, comprehensive, patient-centered, personalized health care. Here in our community, the Natchez campus of Alcorn State University offers a master’s and post-master’s degree programs for family nurse practitioners.  Since its first graduating class in 1997, 125 nurse practitioners have completed the program.

Many of those graduates have stayed in our community to provide care to our residents.

In a population that is aging, with baby boomers becoming seniors in growing numbers, having choices about health care providers will become even more important.

National Nurse Practitioner Week gives visibility to the role of the nurse practitioner, helping consumers make wise choices when selecting their health care provider.

Robin Christian, DNP, FNP-C, is the family nurse practitioner at the Alcorn Family Clinic.