MA student looking for online LPN courses

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Dear Nurse Beth,

Hi, I am currently in school for medical assisting. I will graduate very soon and hopefully be a registered medical assistant. I would like to continue from there with my education and get my LPN. I understand that they are not the same thing, but from my training I do see that there are some similarities in both professions. I will be certified to perform clinical duties such as giving injections and phlebotomy as well as lab procedures. As an LPN I can also do those things. I feel that there should be some type of bridge program to do this somewhere, since with an MA, you do have some basics to start getting an LPN. I really don't want to start all over in school and I would really prefer online courses.

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Dear Medical Assistant to LPN,

Congrats on your accomplishment and upcoming graduation as a medical assistant.

LPN programs require clinical hours in a hospital setting as opposed to an outpatient setting, such as a clinic or doctor's office. Because of the clinical hours requirement, any accredited LPN program you find will be brick and mortar and not online.

Since you are interested in nursing, have you considered going for your RN? As an RN, you will have many more options. If you think you may ever want to work in a hospital, you will need your RN.

Think about your long-term career goals, and where you want to be a few years down the road.

Best wishes,

Nurse Beth

[FutureRN-GA]

Congrats on making it to the final stretch of your MA program. I actually just graduated from an LPN program. I've not seen any MA to LPN programs but some programs do give credit for work experience related to that required in the program, so thats a plus. I mostly know of CNA experience being a big one, but MA is probably included as well. Considering the fact that you chose to do MA first, I would recommend taking prerequisites for an ASN program, because while LPN is a step up from MA, its really not much depending on where you may work so you may as well go for RN. With that being said most LPN schools that require prereqs tend to have the same courses as an RN program, they are just sometimes at a diploma level, so the higher(college level) A&P you would have would trump the diploma level A&P needed for the LPN.