What is a clinical nurse specialist or advanced nurse practitioner (CNS/ANP)?
A clinical nurse specialist (CNS) or advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) is a registered nurse (RN) who has undergone extra medical training to work alongside doctors and nurses, and other AHPs – to diagnose and treat patients.
CNS/ANPs have undertaken an extra master’s or doctoral level degree. They are experienced health professionals that work at the level of a middle grade doctor.
The phrases CNS and ANP are largely synonymous.
They can be trained to work in a wide range of specialities. But in their work, they focus on one specialty, and usually a subspecialty within that. For example they may have originally been a neurology (brain) or renal (kidney) ward nurse, who train to be a CNS/ANP in that specialty. They then subspecialise in (say), patients with Parkinson’s Disease or Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), Acute Kidney Injury (AKI).
Their title may describe the field they work in, e.g. ‘cardiac or rheumatology nurse specialist’.
Many are trained to prescribe specialist drugs, and order investigations, within their specialty or subspecialty.
Teaching – especially medical students
They are often very good teachers. And its worth medical students should seek them out, and spend time with them. They will see a lot of patients and get good teaching.
Summary
We have described what is a clinical nurse specialist or advanced nurse practitioner (CNS/ANP). We hope it has been helpful.
Last Reviewed on 7 March 2024