NP school difficutly compared to RN school

JDCitizen · Aug 3, 2009

Hi everyone,
How would you compare the two schools? Is it just as time consuming, stressful as a bachelor degree? I hope not!
Thanks,
Jels

Hmmm some many experiences in both programs. I can honestly say each program had its own style of making one feel like they were in one of the circles of Hades :-)

BSN Program:

- My main problem with my BSN program is once you were in the actual program they added all the extra crap with the insinuation of heck to pay if tired to bow out...

-Women's health: The doctors not the patients kept me out of doing clinicals in one large hospital.

MSN program:

-Pediatrics I thought was going to be my doom. I have no kids so I had nothing to compare with. What I read and what I learned was it. My preceptors knew this and they went over and above their callings to help.

-Women's health after my horror story I just knew it was going to be a wreck of a clinical. I had my choice of clinical so a doctor who knew me paired me with his NP and two midwives and turned out to be one of the best clinicals.

BSN program

- Had some folk in there 30's and 40's but most had come in straight from mom and dad and as a whole the instructors oftentimes lead by intimidation...

- Clinicals were as crappy (or not) as the nurse one was paired with.

Example of how fun it could be:

Nursing instructor stops by the med cart while you are preparing and ask about the 5 meds for room 205 and what are the possible side effects of each one... Guess what we knew the night before often times who are patients were going to be and there meds.

MSN program:

- Some in their late 20s most mid-late 30's and a chunk in their 40's.

- Day one we were told we were adults and would be treated as such...

- Putting the puzzle together to come up with a diagnosis and a plan of care was way more difficult than I thought (It's a lot easier saying could be or might be)..

Example of how fun it could be:

My most weird cases came up in pediatrics when my preceptor sent me into see the mother and the patient first. I did my questioning and exam and came out a there stood my preceptor and my professor (I didn't know it was an onsite evaluation day). I presented my case and presented my diagnosis the professors argued against my diagnosis and the doctor agreed with me. The doctor went in examined the patient, told the patient and his mother my diagnosis and that she concurred...

So now that I beat all around you question:

- All I can say is that until you make that first "real" diagnosis along with a plan of care nothing compares.

one knows there is a safety net but still when the door closes behind you; it's you and the patient (and

sometimes some family) their eyes are on you and their ears are tuned in...

- All the mind games the professors put us through in the BSN aspect made the program harder than needed. For the most part we played minds games with ourselves during the MSN program making some things way harder than necessary.

I was not new to healthcare when I went to nursing school. A very large chunk of my coworkers and friends where nurses... I wonder how someone that started nursing school without prior healthcare experience would answer you question.

Now if you asked me to compare boards: My NP boards beat the pants off my RN boards...

Bonosgrrl · Aug 3, 2009

"I can honestly say each program had its own style of making one feel like they were in one of the circles of Hades :-)"

I would agree with the above statement :)

although one thing I felt like in my MSN program we were looked at more like "peers" of our professors. I felt like we were treated like the professionals that we are, if that makes sense.but to answer, grad school is stressful and time consuming

Trauma Columnist · Aug 3, 2009

For me, NS (I did the LPN to ADN to BSN to MSN route) was stressful in a different way. In NS, you are learning a boatload of info and its from the ground up. In grad school, you have the basic knowledge, but you enhance and fine-tune it. Being an APN is much more stressful in practice though.