Expect Compassionate Primary Care at GRMC

My name is Holly Batterton. I'm a family nurse practitioner. I spent 10 years as a registered  nurse and then transitioned to   my Bachelor of Science and then  into my family nurse practitioner. I think it's important for people to have  a primary care provider because they need   someone to organize their care. There are  people with chronic problems such as diabetes,   heart failure, hypertension, and they have a  great many specialists that they're seeing,   and these people are all connected and there needs   to be someone to communicate with all of  these specialists and create one central   plan for that person. And I think that's  my role is to be the communication hub. Usually at the first appointment, what you can  expect is for us to have just a conversation. I'm going to ask you what you  do, what your home life is like,   what kind of family you have or  support you may have, and we're   going to talk about your history  and your family's medical history. It's very relaxed and I don't talk  about your weight or your lack of   great diet ideas or anything  that's going to throw you off. I just want to have a conversation and get to know   you and then we'll move more into looking  at diagnostics and coming up with a plan. Some of the things that I do to make sure that my  patients feel comfortable and that I'm listening   and I I'm hearing and I'm understanding is,  I repeat back a lot of what they say. So,   I pretty much ask an open-ended question and  let them roll with it. Then I repeat back, "so   I think that what we're doing here is discussing  this problem and you're looking for this answer;   so, to get there, these are the tests we need  to run, this is the plan we need to build if   you agree with it." And the feedback that  I'm getting, is "you are listening to me." The thing that I find most rewarding about  being a nurse practitioner and providing care   for our family practice is when they walk  back in for their follow-up and they say,   "you did it." I mean, it's so rewarding. Even  if it took three different plans to get there,   I always tell them, "This may not be the  answer, but we will find the answer". And so,   when we finally get to that golden  moment, it's so rewarding. [Music]