Abstract

*Obijorfor Clearance, Tarigona Clever and Omojuwa Desmond

Clinical nurse specialist (CNS) is an advanced practice whose care focuses on a specific patient population. They specialize in certain type of disease such as diabetes; cardiovascular disease e.t.c. can work in many different medical environments such as operating room, emergency room or critical care and focus on a variety of procedures such as surgical or clinical. CNS daily routine includes: clinical practice, teaching, research, consulting and management. They faces many challenges in practice such as implementing scientific findings to ambiguity of roles, reimbursement and billing problems as well as barriers to title protection. Clinical nurse specialist starts from North America within the acute care setting but subsequently expanded to other areas. In Nigeria clinical nurse specialist practice is yet to be adopted, no single University is offering the programme that lead to becoming clinical nurse specialist as at the moment in the country. The challenges of implementing CNS in the country include, lack of policies that will back the programmed, monopoly of the health system by Doctors who are at the helm of affairs in the system and decide what goes to who and when. The CNS will augment Doctors especially in rural communities where there are no Doctors and helps reduce cost and patient waiting time in the hospital if implemented in the country.