Advancing my practice?

[GCom24, ASN, RN]

What's up allnurses? I just want to bounce some questions off the wealth of experience around these boards. I work in an ED now, been here almost a year now, I also worked as a PNA for my last year of my ADN program. In between that, I worked a year in Med-Surg as a RN. I love the ER, it's my passion and I've found it. It's hard to describe the opportunity to have a job that you actually love walking into. I don't care if there's 2 or 20 in the waiting room, if it's pharyngitis or anaphylaxis, I love it all.

I want to move forward though, I want to be better, I want to grow and do more. I've been looking at options for advancing my education. I really have no interest in teaching or management. I want to work with patients, I want to practice nursing. (Not to knock anyone in the management or education positions at all, I just want to be hands-on.) So I got some valuable advice from a good friend, who suggested the best route would be to get my BSN, and then my FNP. That it leaves a world of options open for you. My question is, is F-NP is the best NP to have the ability to be a midlevel in an ED? He said that it absolutely was, but upon googling, I see a bunch of different specialties, even some actual Emergency-NP programs floating around. Anyone have any experience or thoughts on this? I know right now we have one FNP who works in our ED, so based on one scenario, it's definitely possible to work in an ED with a FNP, just wondering if that's the "best" one to get? I know that having a FNP would leave a boat load of options for the day the ED burns me out, so there's that. Anyway, just wondering if any of you have any thoughts, suggestions, etc.

Side note: Any benefit to CEN and/or TNCC?

Thanks in advance!

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

Yes, in my opinion, regarding FNP — you can see all ages, which improves your flexibility.

TNCC is a two-day course that teaches a systematic approach to the assessment and management of trauma patients. CEN is a very comprehensive board certification. The two are very different. Each has merit. I would recommend TNCC now, with CEN as a longer term goal.

[llg, PhD, RN]

I would definitely recommend you consider the TNCC and CEN as your "next steps." They'll strengthen your foundation while also adding respected credentials.