Food for thought, but if your desired program is for an NP qualified for all-ages, you may not have enough pediatric experience to get in (assuming you work adult med/surg). When I was interested in applying, they were turning away experienced adult emergency nurses who didn't have enough pediatrics.
At any rate, you can never have too much experience before applying. Spend another year in a specialty related to the program, it will only benefit you! Good luck.
I haven't been back on this forum for a while, but I decided on MPH because I really like how diverse everyone's background is. We have lots of physicians, allied health, epidemiologists, environmental health, nutritionists, etc etc in the program. It is really nice to get out of the nursing "echo chamber". I've also been able to contribute a nursing perspective to non-nursing issues.
In my program, you can select one of 5 majors. Mine is in health policy & management. My thought process is that there aren't enough health professionals involved in policy-making, so I should do that
So far it's an excellent program and I'm enjoying my time in it.
I would just like to add that AHS is not the only game in town! I work for a major university, get way better benefits, and an excellent schedule with summer holidays and a week at Christmas. What's more is that I am not one of 60+ nurses doing my same job. Nurses are a respected special snowflake on our team of MDs and Pharma reps.
We recently tried to hire 2 nurses (RN or LPN) and got only a few licensed applicants, and a whole lot of unqualified foreign MDs. We can't attract staff because no one thinks to look on websites other than AHS.
I can vouch for GMU being an excellent program that prepared me well. Sometimes the disorganization drove me nuts, but I'm pretty sure you get that everywhere.
I had a homecare infusion client whose RN wife wanted to give his infusions via butterfly as she was not comfortable with IV catheters. His infusions only lasted for 15-30 minutes. All the research I turned up indicate that butterfly infusions are safe for up to 2 hours - although you'd have to monitor it like a hawk and the pt would have to stay basically motionless.
In my ED, there are a few NPs, but their role is to manage chronic disease patients. So there is one who sets up follow-up care for heart disease patients, and another who prescribes IV antibiotics for the IV clinic and decides when they are safe to switch to oral abx.
This should not be taken as a slight against NPs, because I think they are important and necessary, but managing acute trauma is not really within their scope (except maybe helping to order stuff). IIRC, NP scopes-of-practice cover routine presentations and uncomplicated patients. Unless of course you work in Nunavut, then you are "it" until the MD can consult.
That's not to say you can't be heavily involved in trauma as a nurse. Flight nurses get HUGE training and are incredibly skilled. I knew a CNE who was a flight nurse, she had tips and tricks for everything.
According to Lexicomp, these are compatible, and there are no warnings against infusing concomitantly - is there any reason you couldn't run them together?
I would recommend that you work in the specialty where you eventually want to work in research. I'm an emergency RN and I have been working in Emergency Medicine research since January; my experience on the floor has been invaluable.
In addition, you should clarify whether you want to be a researcher or a research nurse. The two are very different - do you want to conduct your own studies (for which you'd require your MSN or PhD) or do you want to be a clinical research coordinator (for which you probably need your BSN and anything more would be overqualified).
I'm a research coordinator so I could tell you about that if you have any further questions. I work almost exclusively with physicians. I do not work with nursing researchers except for one co-investigator on a study that is done by another group, so I'm not sure about the differences from physician investigators.
I work for a university and a private homecare company. I don't regret leaving AHS for a second. The benefits are way better outside of the union negs, too. I kept my casual position to maintain my seniority, but it's really nice not feeling too worried about all the political BS flying around.
I heard the radio ad. They are very disparaging... the whole campaign is baffling! Unless it's to try and justify bringing on more NAs and HCAs in lieu of nurses...?
I do this. I came from ED nursing and now work in Emergency research. I kept my old position on the floor and still pick up shifts every few weeks. It keeps me current, plus it's fun to be a bedside nurse when it's not my full time occupation anymore!
Food for thought, but if your desired program is for an NP qualified for all-ages, you may not have enough pediatric experience to get in (assuming you work adult med/surg). When I was interested in applying, they were turning away experienced adult emergency nurses who didn't have enough pediatrics.
At any rate, you can never have too much experience before applying. Spend another year in a specialty related to the program, it will only benefit you! Good luck.
Hi Crisbiss,
I haven't been back on this forum for a while, but I decided on MPH because I really like how diverse everyone's background is. We have lots of physicians, allied health, epidemiologists, environmental health, nutritionists, etc etc in the program. It is really nice to get out of the nursing "echo chamber". I've also been able to contribute a nursing perspective to non-nursing issues.
In my program, you can select one of 5 majors. Mine is in health policy & management. My thought process is that there aren't enough health professionals involved in policy-making, so I should do that
So far it's an excellent program and I'm enjoying my time in it.
I would just like to add that AHS is not the only game in town! I work for a major university, get way better benefits, and an excellent schedule with summer holidays and a week at Christmas. What's more is that I am not one of 60+ nurses doing my same job. Nurses are a respected special snowflake on our team of MDs and Pharma reps.
We recently tried to hire 2 nurses (RN or LPN) and got only a few licensed applicants, and a whole lot of unqualified foreign MDs. We can't attract staff because no one thinks to look on websites other than AHS.
I'm starting in Fall 2014 at University of Alberta. Is there anyone else out there, Canadian or otherwise?
Saw this going around FB and it's quite clever!
Your local Ethics board should be able to point out how to obtain operational approval.
I can vouch for GMU being an excellent program that prepared me well. Sometimes the disorganization drove me nuts, but I'm pretty sure you get that everywhere.
I had a homecare infusion client whose RN wife wanted to give his infusions via butterfly as she was not comfortable with IV catheters. His infusions only lasted for 15-30 minutes. All the research I turned up indicate that butterfly infusions are safe for up to 2 hours - although you'd have to monitor it like a hawk and the pt would have to stay basically motionless.
In my ED, there are a few NPs, but their role is to manage chronic disease patients. So there is one who sets up follow-up care for heart disease patients, and another who prescribes IV antibiotics for the IV clinic and decides when they are safe to switch to oral abx.
This should not be taken as a slight against NPs, because I think they are important and necessary, but managing acute trauma is not really within their scope (except maybe helping to order stuff). IIRC, NP scopes-of-practice cover routine presentations and uncomplicated patients. Unless of course you work in Nunavut, then you are "it" until the MD can consult.
That's not to say you can't be heavily involved in trauma as a nurse. Flight nurses get HUGE training and are incredibly skilled. I knew a CNE who was a flight nurse, she had tips and tricks for everything.
According to Lexicomp, these are compatible, and there are no warnings against infusing concomitantly - is there any reason you couldn't run them together?
Already have my grad school application in for 2014, and it's not in nursing..
I would recommend that you work in the specialty where you eventually want to work in research. I'm an emergency RN and I have been working in Emergency Medicine research since January; my experience on the floor has been invaluable.
In addition, you should clarify whether you want to be a researcher or a research nurse. The two are very different - do you want to conduct your own studies (for which you'd require your MSN or PhD) or do you want to be a clinical research coordinator (for which you probably need your BSN and anything more would be overqualified).
I'm a research coordinator so I could tell you about that if you have any further questions. I work almost exclusively with physicians. I do not work with nursing researchers except for one co-investigator on a study that is done by another group, so I'm not sure about the differences from physician investigators.
I work for a university and a private homecare company. I don't regret leaving AHS for a second. The benefits are way better outside of the union negs, too. I kept my casual position to maintain my seniority, but it's really nice not feeling too worried about all the political BS flying around.
I heard the radio ad. They are very disparaging... the whole campaign is baffling! Unless it's to try and justify bringing on more NAs and HCAs in lieu of nurses...?
I do this. I came from ED nursing and now work in Emergency research. I kept my old position on the floor and still pick up shifts every few weeks. It keeps me current, plus it's fun to be a bedside nurse when it's not my full time occupation anymore!