My professor told us NPs have no future...

[anilechim]

Hi everyone,

I'm just starting out in nursing school. I'm in my first semester, and currently at the tail-end of A&P I. On Tuesday night, one of my classmates asked our professor, who spent the bulk of his career prior to teaching as a scientist for Schering-Plough Research Institute, what a Trump presidency could possibly mean for the future of healthcare professionals. My classmate went on further to ask our professor what he thought a job market in the future would look like for NP's. Before answering the question, our professor went on and on about how MDs and PAs will always be needed, and he finally said that he doesn't see a job market for NP's other than as nursing instructors. He was even pretty much shrugging his shoulders and rolling his eyes! This immediately raised a huge red flag for me. I was pretty horrified by how dismissive he was of this career path. He actually said, "yeah, that's an avenue a lot of nurses are taking these days, mainly because it's the only way to advance their careers. Most of the time, nurses can further their careers by becoming charge nurses and things like that, but no, I don't see a job market for NPs as care providers. As nurses become more in demand, there will be more programs for nurses and nursing instructors will be needed, so NPs will likely just end up as instructors." I still can't wrap my head around what a stupid and dismissive remark that was considering that nursing is so frequently regarded as a career with so many options, so for him to write it off as either we can do beside care and as he put it, become charge nurses if we want to progress, or get higher degrees only to find we can't get work as anything more than instructors just seems SO out of touch to me!

Can he possibly be serious?! And furthermore, is there any truth to his assumption? I personally know two women who were nurses for 20+ years who recently went back to school to pursue DNPs and are currently working in their specialized fields as NPs alongside a group of doctors, and they're very happy and successful. I follow multiple nurses on Instagram who have large social media followings who are recent grads/current NP students and none of them have been relegated to teaching because there is "no job market for NPs." I felt so strongly about it that I actually looked up information about NPs in the job market today and the field only as a 1% unemployment rate.

My lab instructor is a highly respected doctor and I plan on discussing this with him tonight, since I'm sure he knows a lot more about this sort of thing than my lecture instructor seems to think he does.

I would love to "hear" your thoughts on this. Personally, I was horrified and quite offended.

[HIPAAPotamus, BSN, RN]

I'll bet he expects all nurses to be female, wear white hosiery, and genuflect to MDs.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

There will always be a place for NPs. There may be a job crunch like there is in several areas with RNs, especially if all the people who plan to do go on to NP school.

[anilechim]

This is the impression that I was under... that there will always be a place for NPs, but like you said, a job crunch is possible because so many RNs are deciding to pursue that path. I was really taken aback by how dismissive he was.

[Emergent, RN]

That was opening up a Pandora's box asking"What will a Trump presidency mean for healthcare professionals?". In the future I advise to stick to what the exam will be on.

As far as being "horrified and offended" by one man's opinion, there's too much of that in America today. My advice to you there is to study for the next test. Opinions are a dime a dozen.

[anilechim]

Oh boy. Well, first of all, I wasn't even the one who asked about a Trump presidency, and I made that very clear in the original post. Second of all, it wasn't his opinion. He stated that there is no future for NPs as if he was an expert on the subject. There was no, "in my opinion..." But thanks for the advice! Much appreciated.