I wanna be an ANP (in Occ Health Nursing) suggestions please

Nice to see the thread active again. Congrats on the BSN!

Hard to believe that it was in 2007 that I wrote the first post. A few things have happened, the 4,000 hour OH nurse experience dropped to 2000 hours.

Not being able to find an OC job in my area due to the non-compete agreement I looked outside the area and am working for a major corporation managing a small Occ Health Clinic. It's just me, myself and I, and a MD that comes in for a few hours a week. I started 14 months ago with about 125 workers, but that has dwindled to 80 and "the end is nigh." I suspect that around the end of the year or soon after, I'm history.

I still would like to do the NP in Occ Health, but the 39K debt that I have well, freaks me out, especially in these odd and hard times. I've heard of agreeing to teach in exchange for school costs, but can find little on that. Ultimately I'd love to become a NP, get some experience in several areas (ortho, ED and Occ Health) and then teach. Wooo.....that'd be fun.

Funny world we have. Shortage of teachers, but try to find an education that does not destroy you economically and it's hard to do. Worse, it is not just the amount you owe, now if your debt/income, debt payments to income, or debt to assets do not meet exactly within the prescribed limits of the omniscient and omnipotent Sallie Mae, or Freddie Mac, you we "don't have no banannas today for you," nor house, nor refinance, nor auto loan. So if one goes to school, in a way the debt becomes a strange sort of death sentence.

I suppose since I'm turning 59 if I rack up enough debt to put it into a 30 year repayment plan, it is unlikley that I'll ever have to pay it...as I'll probably be dead. Heheee... how funny.

I'd love to do Occ Health NP with a global bent. We simply have exported most of our RSI's and so many occupational hazards overseas it is pathetic. In India recently hundreds, if not thousands of workers have been diagnosed with silicosis, being "contractors" to sand blast jeans go give that faded effect. I'm not sure that I could make much of a living in International Occ Health, but I feel it is an exciting opportunity, if it exists at all.

Hard economic times make for hard decisions, and sadly too, for delayed decisions. I'd like to hear from others how they are doing...

Steve

Would you kindly tell us or place a link to where one would find the NIOSH Centers.... Free with a small stipend sounds very good to me, and I really don't mind moving for a few years...

Melissa (Mpittsrn) the NIOSH funds a lot of ANP in Occ health, though it seems hard to find a list of who offers what. H60Medic has talked about this in the thread and I have heard elsewhere that one can attain the degree for free and even with a living stipend if you research what is available (which does not seem all that easy as there is no "overall site."

Additionally there are many grants in states whereby "if you work in the state for say two years," a loan is forgiven. Also there is the Nursing Re-investment Act which will probably remain viable and allows for (I think) a 25% write-off of loans each year for 3 years, reducing loan debt by 75% (and I think actually up to a reduction of 85%.) (One must work in a hospital, not just in industry but hospitals use a lot of Occ-med NP's. There are, I hear programs where one can get free tuition/stipend if she agrees to teach for a few years.

I'd like to start a ANP program next September, and if I come across information I'll place it here and hope others will do so too.