Advanced Practice: Fecal Microbiota Transplantation for the Imbalanced Gut

Course Summary

This course is for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, Registered Nurses and other Interdisciplinary Health Team Members who are seeking autonomous practice or advanced certification continuing education credits. Patients can develop gastrointestinal disease caused by invasive microorganisms. These microorganisms can destroy their natural flora and harm their health. These patients are conventionally treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics. However, some patients do not respond to antibiotics. These patients may develop resistance to the medications aimed at eradicating invasive microorganisms. This may lead to repeated gut infections that are severe and that can cause debilitating symptoms. These patients with severe, repeated gut infections were often limited to surgical resection of the diseased area of the gut but fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) provides another treatment option. Fecal microbiota transplantation is currently provided at numerous healthcare facilities as an accepted practice for these patients. The research and data extracted from large and smaller observational studies suggest growing support for FMT with increasing evidence of its success as a recommended option in varied cases.