Anna earns top nursing qualification

After 13 years of hard work and commitment, Anna Reed has reached the highest nursing qualification available - a nurse practitioner.

There are around 100 nurse practitioners in New Zealand and Mrs Reed is the only one in Wairarapa, working out of Masterton Medical.

They are expert nurses that specialise in a particular area of health and can also write prescriptions.

Mrs Reed specialises in older adult health and deals with some of the more complex issues of ageing. Many of her patients are people in the early stages of memory impairment or dementia. She decided to specialise in this field as she realised there was a need for it, especially with the ageing population in Wairarapa.

"I strongly believe older people have the right to have their needs met and their concerns listened to," she said.

She rarely works at Masterton Medical clinic itself and is often out and about visiting patients.

"I go visit people in their own homes to see what's really going on, see how they are living, what their biggest issues are."

Mrs Reed said it was a long process and took a lot of commitment to become a nurse practitioner.

"It's quite nice to be finished.

"You need to have a clinical masters, from then you need to find yourself an internship, and have a lot of direct patient contact."

She was previously a farmer, retrained in nursing in 2000, and decided to go for the nurse practitioner qualification.

"I guess it was just the end of the journey, I started on a pathway and needed it to be complete."

After doing a 15-month internship at Masterton Medical, she is now fully qualified.

Dr Nick Crozier guided her through her internship and is pleased about Mrs Reed's achievement. "This is the start of a new phase at Masterton Medical."

Clinical services manager Helen Kjestrup who looks after the nursing team, said having a nurse practitioner strengthened the medical team.