Understanding when certain words are capitalized can be tricky in the English language. Especially resume capitalization when certain job titles are capitalized while other words are phrases are not. That brings us to our FAQ today…
Nurse practitioner is a term that can be used in lowercase form and uppercase form.
When referring to a specific individual who is a nurse practitioner, you should capitalize the first letter of each word. For example, “When you need assistance with anything, push the button and Nurse Practitioner Lee will be right in to assist you. The term will also be capitalized when abbreviated, such as, “If you have any further questions, please contact Debra Lee, N.P.”
The term nurse practitioner is used to describe an occupational type and is generally used as a common noun which refers to a generic title for a person, place, or thing. Therefore, it should not be used in the capitalized form in most circumstances. When speaking of the occupation, the term is presented in lowercase form. For example, “I met a nurse practitioner once; she was awesome at her job.” In this example, because the speaker did not mention the nurse’s name, there is no need to capitalize nurse practitioner.
Another way of thinking about whether you should capitalized the phrase is to consider the term nurse. It is not capitalized unless a name of a specific individual is mentioned after the term. The word “practitioner” after the term nurse identifies the type of nurse an individual is and provides the educational level in which a nurse has achieved. However, given that this is not a unique position, nurse practitioner would not be capitalized unless placed before a proper noun (a specific name of a place, person, or group, i.e. Biltmore Hospital).
To learn more about proper title capitalization rules, give our free title capitalization tool a try.