Your experiences as an ACNP student (or any NP student!)

Specialties NP

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Specializes in Critical Care- Medical ICU.

I am going to be starting a full time ACNP program this Summer and was just wondering what to expect!

I know it varies a lot from school to school/ program to program, but how was your experience?

How did it compare to nursing school?

Did you work full time?

How was your clinical experience? ie did you feel like you were given lots of learning or procedure opportunities, did you feel respected, what was expected of you?

Were there any books or resources that you found especially helpful?

Thanks for any answers!

Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

Been years for me, so my student experience won't be as relevant for you now.

However, we have ACNP students who rotate with us all the time. There are many pocket references that are good to have when you start hospital rounds or rotations. Two that I see IM residents and ACNP students use a lot and I have personally scanned through and think are good are:

Hospitalist Handbook

MGH Pocket Medicine

You can always use the trusty Evidence-Based Clinical Decision Support at the Point of Care | UpToDate if the hospital has access to it.

Specializes in Critical Care- Medical ICU.

Thanks juandelacruz! I have access to UpToDate, I use it fairly frequently and find it very useful. I will check out the other resources you mentioned!

Specializes in Neurosurgery, Neurology.

How are ACNP rotations done? Do they follow the traditional medical/PA rotation model, with 4-8 week rotations in internal medicine, surgery, critical care, nephrology, etc, and you're part of a team? Do you have to/get to choose which areas of medicine you'd like to focus on for the rotations, or do they have general areas that all ACNP students must go through? I'm assuming with DNP programs having 1000+ clinical hours, instead of the 600-800 of masters programs, you'll have more time to focus on a specialty area if you'd like?

Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

Depends on the program.

It's good to go to a program that has a base medical center. That way you are assured of a hospital-based Internal Medicine rotation. Yes, you can get assigned to an IM teaching service which would include an attending, residents, med students, and you. Typically, you act as a sub-intern but you should have your own patient load to admit, present on rounds, and follow during the rotation.

Specialty rotations in Cardiology, Pulmonary Medicine, Critical Care, Nephrology, Emergency, etc are usually optional. The hope is that you get an idea of how those specialties operate when you finish a base IM rotation. Surgical specialties are also optional. What typically happens is students express areas of interest to the director early on and the school accommodates that as available. This is the set-up in schools that arrange student rotations. It may be different in schools that make students find their own placements.

Specializes in leadership, corrections.

Congratulations to you.

It's going to be a journey and for me it was one that I learned a great deal from. I worked full time during the entire program. If I had to do it over again, I would work during the theory classes and quit during clinical. Maybe others can share their experience with this. As far as compared to nursing school, it is way different because you are now learning in the role of a healthcare provider, not just a bedside nurse following orders. Texts- the same as mentioned above plus Bates-for your physical assessment, Upjohn, DeGown's- medical diagnoses and a few hours. Check out the link below.

10 Books Every Nurse Practitioner Should Have – Online FNP Blog

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