General Practice New Zealand executive member Ros Rowarth, a senior practice nurse, says there has been a huge change in her role over the past 20 years.
"When I first started we were very much being told what to do by the doctors," she says. "It's a much more autonomous role now."
She says today's practice nurses need a broad knowledge of a lot of things, have to be able to treat many of them and, crucially, must be able to recognise when to refer a patient to a doctor or a specialist.
"On any given day I could be vaccinating babies and adults, dressing a wound, giving advice on diabetes and asthma, doing STD checks and educating people on diet and lifestyle."
Rowarth believes the expanded role of the practice nurse has many advantages for patients.
"The first thing is they get seen in a more timely way with less waiting," she says.
"Secondly, nurses are taught how to help people and how to manage things in a different way to doctors."
She says practice nurses develop longer-term relationships with families, which help them identify underlying issues and recognise when the presenting problem is, in fact, a manifestation of something deeper.
In addition, some people will readily tell nurses things they may not want to "bother" a doctor with.
Rowarth says nursing graduates are now coming out of college and choosing to go into practice nursing - it's no longer seen as the cruisy option for nurses. "We have full-on days and we never know what we are going to be dealing with, so it's exciting. I can't imagine being any other sort of nurse."