Advanced Practice Providers Share Insights at the 2024 Society for Pediatric Dermatology Annual Meeting

The 2024 Society for Pediatric Dermatology Annual Meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, recently brought together experts in pediatric dermatology to discuss advancements, challenges, and future directions in the specialty.

This year, several session presenters highlighted the critical role of advanced practice providers (APPs) in enhancing patient care and expanding access to dermatological services. In the following interviews, 4 APPs shared their insights on the evolving roles of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs), the unique contributions they bring to dermatology practices, and their visions for the future of health care.

Rebecca Flynn, MSN, APRN, CPNP-PC; Children’s Mercy Kansas City Dermatology

Session: “Warts/Molluscum triage program using NP/RN education cooperatively to increase clinic access while not losing out on revenue-based procedures”

Dermatology Times: What unique contributions do NPs and PAs bring to dermatology practices?

Flynn: "NPs and PAs have a very unique training. We are trained differently than our physician counterparts. I personally spent time as a bedside nurse before I became a nurse practitioner, so I first learned how to give patient education and master that before I moved into my advanced practice provider role. We approach our disease process and education in a different manner, sometimes, than our counterpart physicians. We're able to bring that unique role into our clinical scenario for our patients. The collaboration between the advanced practice provider and the collaborative physician or mentor tends to be a symbiotic relationship. We need each other. We rely on each other, and over time, we develop trust with each other. I'm very lucky to have a wonderful mentor and collaborative physician, Kristi M Canty, MD, in Kansas City, Missouri, where we are able to better serve our patients as we each bring in unique ideas and can have better outcomes for our patients and a great relationship together."

Dermatology Times: What message or messages would you like to share with fellow advanced practice providers?

Flynn: "Never sell yourself short. We are well-trained advanced practice providers, and we are capable beyond even sometimes what we believe. I like to live by the idea of: If we dream it, we can achieve it. When I was training as a nurse practitioner, my program director was one of the first nurse practitioners to ever graduate from a nurse practitioner program and become a nurse practitioner in the nation. She trained me as a primary care provider nurse practitioner throughout my career. Then I received on-the-job training for pediatric dermatology. Now I'm attending SPD, and I'm able to bring posters to conferences, give presentations at SPD, and I think back to 20 years ago when SPD met. It was a very small group, and it was very rare to find any advanced practice providers. Today, we have our own special interest group. We are contributing through posters and presentations. I go back to: As an advanced practice provider, if we dream it, we can achieve it, as we've learned from our leaders before us."

Kelly Harris, APRN; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Session: “Improving access to health care in an underserved population utilizing a mobile care unit”

Dermatology Times: How has the demand for dermatology services influenced the role of NPs and PAs in recent years?

Harris: "Because there are so few pediatric dermatologists in the country, there's more demand for APPs, and that role is getting bigger. We're able to really help support our physician colleagues by being in the field, seeing a lot of patients, and helping improve access to care."

Dermatology Times: How do you foresee the role of advanced practice providers evolving in the future?

Harris: "I think we're just going to continue to be a super important part of the health care industry. We're going to continue to see more patients. Our scope, I think, will continue to broaden, allowing us to help more kids and ensure we're providing the necessary care for our patients."

Nichole Halliburton, APRN, CNP; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Session: “Facilitating improvements in health care access for patients with dermatologic needs”

Dermatology Times: How has the demand for dermatology services influenced the role of NPs and PAs in recent years?

Halliburton: "Pediatric dermatology only graduates fewer than 20 board-certified pediatric dermatologists annually, nationally, and several states don't even have a pediatric dermatologist or only have one. APPs have the benefit of being trained as nurses and have family-based communication and education backgrounds, making them amazing, empathetic caregivers for patients with chronic dermatologic conditions. APPs need support with education and access to fellows and MD colleagues for discussing difficult cases. They also need the freedom to practice and grow as they see fit, which requires a relationship of bidirectional trust with their MD colleagues and inclusion in educational opportunities."

Dermatology Times: How do you foresee the role of advanced practice providers evolving in the future?

Halliburton: "I believe that APPs will take on more responsibility with time. Resources need to be available to APPs to assist with developing both clinical and professional skills. With these new skills, APP leaders will evolve, advocating for and creating increased educational resources, which will subsequently produce competent APP dermatologic providers."

Faye Brown, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC; University of Colorado

Session: “Pediatric dermatology access considerations and developing a triage system for pediatric dermatology practices”

Dermatology Times: What unique contributions do NPs and PAs bring to dermatology practices?

Brown: "We certainly sit alongside our physician colleagues in taking care of our large volume of patients that are referred to our practices. We see bread-and-butter cases, but we also see quite high-acuity patients and perform a variety of procedures. We serve on boards, as editors of journals, and are involved in QI projects. We hold clinical informaticist roles, serve as mentors and mentees for our colleagues, and are great educators."

Dermatology Times: What are some common challenges you face as an APP in dermatology, and how do you overcome them?

Brown: "I think both nurse practitioners and physician assistants alike feel that we don't always have the best basis for inclusion. Understanding our role and our patients' roles is part of that, as well as our physician colleagues, in understanding our roles and education levels. I've had the opportunity to work in 3 different practices with extreme physician support. This support has helped me with my professional and clinical growth. We have a duty as APPs, along with our supporting physician colleagues, to keep educating the community and other physician collaborators around the country on our contributions."