Nurse to Writer: How Does That Work?

A writer working on a laptop in her home office

When I decided to delve into writing, I initially wondered how steep of a learning curve I might have to endure. After all, nursing is very different from writing, right? Well, yes and no. The more writing I've done, the more I can see how aspects of my work as a nurse practitioner easily transfer to writing.

The layperson would be shocked by the amount of time healthcare professionals, like myself, spend on a computer instead of with a patient. This work often exceeds the time spent face-to-face with a patient. As a nurse practitioner working in a clinic, for every 15 minutes I spend with a patient, I can easily spend 1-2 hours on the computer doing work related to that little 15-minute visit. The more complicated the visit, the more time spent toiling on the computer. So, how does this relate to writing?

Charting

Boy, this is a big one. Good chart notes are more than just a synopsis of the visit. They include the patient's problem, history, medications, exam, and treatment plan. I'm here to say there is a bit of creativity in creating good chart notes. People don't converse in a well-structured format. They ramble. Sometimes it relates, and sometimes it's just a weird tangent about their neighbor's dog. Knowing how to clean up the conversation and make sense of the visit is important for a note that will get read by others. There is a skill in understanding how to cleanly convert a conversation into a written document. This skill comes in handy when transitioning from nurse to writer. We can sense the natural flow of an article and know what information just does not fit.

Keywords

This is an insurance issue. Ah, insurance. The bane of every healthcare provider. Chart notes must include specific language to meet insurance requirements. This language helps a patient qualify for medications, procedures, and other services. Nurses and healthcare providers get quite good at incorporating the keywords and phrases that insurance companies are nitpicky about. If we don't, our patient doesn't get the care we want to provide, leading to frustration for both us and the patient. Understanding the importance of keyword placement directly correlates to SEO and keywords that draw traffic to a website, content, or blog post.

Research

I like to believe I know a little about a lot of things. However, sometimes a patient will present with the most interesting thing I've never heard of. After checking with colleagues, who are equally stumped, I spend time researching symptoms and treatment options until I find something that fits. I can research the heck out of something until I feel knowledgeable enough to translate the medical jargon into language and ideas my patient can understand. As Albert Einstein once said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." So, I've gotten pretty good at this skill. This smoothly works well for me when I'm conveying complex medical information in my writing.

Consulting

Consulting with a specialist is a little like interviewing SMEs. You must find an expert in a field, like gastroenterology, and present them with a case or problem to discuss. You pick their brain for information and talk through different scenarios and treatment options until you find what works best for your patient. I've had some great consultations with specialists who went way above and beyond the basics with their explanations to help me understand an issue for my patient. I'm often reminded of these conversations when interviewing researchers and SMEs. With both consulting and interviewing, I always feel like I learn something valuable for my patients and readers.

My nursing background helps me immensely with my writing. It's given me knowledge about healthcare that other writers may not have. After taking stock of my work, I realized I have transferable skills that bring even more added value for my clients.