Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are advanced healthcare practitioners with similar responsibilities, such as diagnosing illnesses and prescribing medications. However, their training and paths toward certification differ in significant ways. This blog post unpacks the key differences between NPs and PAs to help you determine which career path best aligns with your goals. What Is a Nurse Practitioner? A nurse practitioner (NP) is a licensed clinician who provides comprehensive healthcare to patients of all ages. An NP can work in virtually any healthcare setting, diagnosing patient conditions and prescribing medications. As of October 2022, nurse practitioners have full practice authority in 27 states, meaning that they can practice Read more
Dr. Jeffery Zahavich has a background in health promotion, exercise science and applied health research with more than 15 years of experience developing evidence-based health, fitness and wellness programs for a broad range of high- and low-performing populations of all ages. He has formal training in university teaching and learning, advanced exercise physiology testing and prescription, sport coaching, motivational interviewing and lifestyle counseling.
Dr. Zahavich is a Kinesiology Instructor in the School of Health and Human Performance at Dalhousie University and a Coach Educator/Learning Facilitator with the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) and a Chartered Professional Coach (ChPC) with the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC). He also holds the Clinical Exercise Physiologist (CEP) designation from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP). Dr. Zahavich’s research interests include adolescent physical literacy, healthy school policy, systems change, population health and chronic disease prevention.
His teaching and research program aims to bridge the gap between health promotion theory and applied kinesiology with respect to physical activity programs and initiatives for various target populations. Dr. Zahavich joined USAHS in July 2021.
