Has anyone successfully gone through one of these, or know someone who has? Or have any horror stories to share?

I just found out that one of my wife's good friends is in the first semester of a direct-entry NP program with NO prerequisites other than a prior bachelor's degree. No anatomy, no physiology, no micro, no chem, no nothin'! These classes are also not taught in her program -- students proceed directly to pathophysiology, nursing care, pharmacology, etc.

I had no idea such a program existed, and frankly, the idea makes me a little woozy. I am also in a direct-entry NP program, but everywhere I applied to required 5 units each of anatomy, physiology, and micro, along with stats, nutrition, and a minimum of a semester of chem. Plus various psychology, sociology, anthropology, lifespan development, death and dying, etc social sciences. All in all I took 40+ units of prereqs before applying to the direct entry program I'm currently in, and I still feel a little overwhelmed sometimes by the accelerated pace.

Anyway, I kind of can't imagine my wife's friend is going to do anything but crash and burn. She has 23 units this summer, including pathology and pharmacology. I asked her how it was going, and through our conversation I learned some things: she doesn't know the right ventricle from the left atrium. She doesn't know that the kidney does anything but "filter the blood." She thinks there are vaccines against bacterial infections. She thinks the stomach is where most if not all of digestion and absorption occurs, and that the intestines are just kind of a tube for poop to poop go through before leaving the body.

This is an intelligent (but not genius-smart) woman with absolutely zero background in the sciences. She has worked for the last 20 years as a social worker, and wants to be an NP now. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has gone through, or has known of someone who went through a program like this? Where you went in with practically zero knowledge and were able to get up to speed / fill in the gaps as you went along? I want to be supportive of my wife's friend, but I'm also considering gently suggesting that she withdraw from this program, take some prerequisites, and reapply.

Yale's direct entry program does not require any prerequisites; the school encourages students to decide for themselves whether they are weak on any of the necessary sciences, and the typical "prerequisite" sciences are built into the curriculum. I haven't heard anyone complaining that YSN direct-entry students are not adequately prepared for practice.

Yale's direct entry program does not require any prerequisites; the school encourages students to decide for themselves whether they are weak on any of the necessary sciences, and the typical "prerequisite" sciences are built into the curriculum. I haven't heard anyone complaining that YSN direct-entry students are not adequately prepared for practice.

Interesting. But looking at the Yale GEPN course of study, and as you mentioned, I see that in first semester includes fundamentals of anatomy, nutrition, and something called biomedical foundations of health and disease that looks like it covers physiology before venturing into pathophysiology. So it appears that the Yale students are at least getting a crash course in the basics.

By comparison, my wife's friend is expected to sit through a pathophysiology lecture and absorb the details of right ventricular heart failure without first knowing the four chambers of the heart. I would love to hear that someone has successfully done this, or knows someone who has.

That's really odd. I might give her a pass if her bachelors was in Bio or Chem but SW? No way. The basic fundamentals you mentioned are bare bones concepts many laypeople off the street should or do know. What school is she going to by the way? I find it really odd that a DE program would half-a*s pre reqs that are expected for every RN graduate.

I mean how can you excel in pathophysiology without a foundation in physiology/micro? How can you learn pharmakinetics/dynamics without a knowledge of anatomy or physiology.

Sounds like she'd going to need a lot of self learning or she will crash and burn.

Update:

She dropped out after two weeks. Said she felt overwhelmed, and like she was expected to know a whole lot of things that she didn't. Said she was never warned that it would be like that. So I guess that answers my question .. though I would still be interested to hear from anyone who went this route and made it work.