Throughout history nursing has been defined in many ways. In recent years the field of advance practice nursing has emerged as nurses are taking on more challenging and comprehensive roles within the health care field. One may define an advance practice nurse in many ways. According to the Department of Regulation and Licensing in Wisconsin, and advanced practice nurse is a registered nurse with the following credentials: (1) holds a professional nursing license within the state, (2) is certified by a national certifying authority as a nurse practitioners, registered nurse anesthetist, clinical nurse specialist or other nursing specialist and (3) a registered nurse who holds a graduate degree by an accredited university (DRL, 2004). This definition is fairly standard among most other nursing institutions. .

             In most cases advanced practice nurses may not prescribe medications, though there is now a certification APN's can get that allow them to prescribe medications in certain instances. According to the American Nurses Association and advanced practice nurse or APN is an "umbrella term given to a registered nurse (RN) who has met advanced educational and clinical practice requirements" (ANA, 2005). An APN therefore generally has more than 2-4 years of basic nursing education (ANA, 2005). An APN is expected to carry out more autonomous responsibilities than a traditional RN, including diagnosis and treatment of patients in many instances. One may conclude from these two comparisons then that an APN is a highly specialized nurse with advanced skills in diagnosis and treatment of disease among other things. .

             Role of APN.

             APN's come in many forms and their roles change significantly depending on their specialty or key area of practice. The more common specialties or fields a nurse takes on include nurse practitioners (NP), Certified Nurse Midwifes (CNM), Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNA) (ANA, 2005).