Staying Safe and Healthy This Summer With Nurse Practitioner Care
Nurse practitioners offer guidance on how to best prepare patients for the sizzling season.
Summer presents so many opportunities for both physical and mental wellness. Kids will be sent off to summer camp, allowing them to widen their social circles while spending endless hours swimming, playing sports and just running around. Adults may be looking forward to leading their families on a vacation or just taking the opportunity to gather with friends and family at barbecues by the pool.
As welcome as the summer months may be, spending time in groups and in the sun offers risks. Hear from a few nurse practitioner (NP) experts about how they suggest guiding patients toward remaining healthy and safe this summer.
Skin and Sun
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Spending time outside is a great way to be physically active and reduce stress. You can work and play outside without raising your skin cancer risk by protecting your skin from the sun.” Protecting your skin is especially important, as the CDC notes that “Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. Too much sun can cause skin cancer.”
Speaking with the American Association of Nurse Practitioners® (AANP) last year, Leigh Ann Pansch, MSN, FNP-BC, DCNP, was clear on the risks of tanning in particular. “This is one of those conversations we should be having with every patient, especially this time of year,” she says. “There are still a lot of people who feel like a tan is somehow protective. And probably in certain skin types it might be protective against a burn, but it does not protect against skin cancer.” When it comes to sunscreen, she recommends “reapplying every two hours to every skin service that’s exposed, unless we’re swimming or sweating profusely — then it should be hourly.” She also suggests avoiding peak sun and staying in the shade when possible.
NPs have to also be mindful of the effects extreme heat can have on patients, especially as — per Ready.gov, an official website created by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — “Extreme heat is expected to become more frequent and intense in the future.” To spread information about the dangers of extreme heat, the agency created a new campaign this year called #SummerReady. In addition to information about heat-related illness applicable to everyone, the #SummerReady campaign has specific guidance for vulnerable populations. For older adults, for example, “Make sure a trusted friend or relative has an extra key to your home, knows where you keep your emergency supplies and can use lifesaving equipment or administer medicine.” For individuals with health conditions, “Keep a cooler and cold packs nearby to help keep refrigerated medicine, like insulin, cool during a power outage.”
No Vacation From COVID-19
Patients and providers would like nothing more than to leave COVID-19 behind when we hit the pool or beach, but unfortunately NPs have to expect the opposite — a possible summer surge of the virus. Infectious disease expert Ruth Carrico, PhD, DNP, APRN, CIC, FSHEA, FNAP, recently returned to AANP’s podcast NP Pulse: The Voice of the Nurse Practitioner® to speak about what we may expect from COVID during the summer months. During episode 150 of the podcast, Carrico begins by noting, “We are gearing up with the anticipation that in the summer we will see just what we have seen in the last several years,” with not just one spike during the year, but two.
However, the health care community has made tremendous strides in understanding and even testing for the disease. “Our PCR testing is still the gold standard,” says Carrico. “But we now also have molecular tests that you can purchase. In fact, it’s funny — for Christmas, for my kids, everybody got a molecular COVID flu test. Most people, that might not be the first thing you think about as a Christmas present, but I’m like, ‘Okay, I want you to get something that is easy to use.’”
Carrico discusses different antiviral medications for individuals who test positive for COVID, and she also emphasizes the importance of having discussions with patients prior to the suspected surge. In particular, she urges health care providers to ask their patients to consider personal risks factors, to have a plan of action and to give them adequate and accurate information to empower them to make informed decisions.
“We may be too far out to be thinking about some of this to maybe make it be real for them, but let’s give them a hint…and by doing so, we’re saying that health maintenance requires work. It requires a plan of action. It requires that we anticipate to whatever extent possible, and that we engage our patients so they realize that we are their partner. They’re the driver of this vehicle, but we’re their partner and so we stand ready to help them when they have questions…call us. Here’s how you reach out.” In 2025, NPs were once again rated as the top job that helps people, according to U.S News & World Report. As trusted health care providers, NPs work alongside their patients to offer the best, up-to-date resources when it comes to staying well all summer — and year-round.
Join AANP’s Infectious Disease and HIV Community
Want to learn more about COVID-19 and other infectious diseases that crop up during the summer and all year round? Members of AANP may join the Infectious Disease and HIV Community for just $20 annually, prorated to your membership term.
Then, visit the AANP CE Center and register for Effects of COVID on Diabetes Management, currently available until Oct. 15, 2025. This activity offers 1.05 contact hours of continuing education credit; 0.37 of which may be applied toward pharmacology.