Are Nurse Practitioner/ Scientist the same as Physician Scientists

[Young Tangerine]

So I will be starting nursing school In the Fall. I have desires to be a Nurse Practitioner and a nurse Scientist. I have considered medical school in the past but I like the versatility and flexibility nursing gives. SinceI want to explore so many different specialties ( ER, ICU, Forensics, Ortho, Surgery, neuro to name a few) the medical route would suits my needs because it would require multiple residencies. I would really like to hear from Physician scientist and Nurse Scientist

My questions are

1. What is the role of a Nurse scientist

2. Should I get a PH.D in nursing, health research or another discipline. (I'm not sure what I want to study but like my interests I want to perform research in a variety of specialties

3. Will my research be respected in and out of nursing, will i be taken serious as a researcher?, This is very important to me. (I have a curative mindset, I believe this is why people have always suggested medical school to me. But I'm often told that nursing isn't curative but medicine is. Nursing is holistic)

4. Since I aspire to become a Nurse Practitioner. I want to pursue my research interests from the lab and patient care conjointly. Is this practical?

[roser13, ASN, RN]

Start with pursuing your nursing degree in whatever form that you choose (ASN vs. BSN). Baby steps.

I've never heard of a Nurse Scientist and do not understand what that role would be and where that role would be utilized.

I disagree with your declaration that "nursing is holistic."

You will not obtain any responses from "Physician Scientists" (researchers?) on this forum. We are all nurses here and nurse-wannabes.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

Two separate things:

Nurse who is doctorate prepared (PhD or DNP) and works, full or part time, in nursing-related academia, or,

A Master's and up - prepared nurse who works as a researcher for someone else, usually a physician or pharma.

First way takes many years and best accomplished through high-level graduate programs like Ivy League. Nursing research, although there are lots of opportunities, is pretty much seen as silly in medical field. Partially it is because it continues to perpetuate things unknown anywhere but in nursing (such as "nursing theory" and "nursing diagnosis"), and partially because nursing is not, and for the time being, cannot be a money maker and so cannot generate money for research and attract rich Big Pharma sponsors. Not all subjects of nursing research are petty and cheap; in fact, although they do not like to recognize it, physicians do sometimes borrow ideas from nurses with (even more "sometimes") due acknowledge of it. In addition, nursing research as sole occupation has all the beauties of career in research in general (fierce politicking, "grant wars", petty relationships, etc) plus very low monetary compensation, as compared with other careers in science. For that reason, many nursing researchers continue for some extent with clinical work.

I was thinking hard about it and still toy the idea of PhD but the prospects for the area do not look good at all, in all senses.

Nurse researchers who work for someone else generally are not primary investigators. They do field work (recruitment, sample collection, data gathering, etc., and sometimes also analysis). They are required to have considerable experience in the area of their work, usually starting from bedside, and have limited authonomy. They are better paid, though.

If the OP would like to work in research some day, then she better watch her GPA. It must not slip below 3.75 or so, because research-intensive DNP programs want it as high as possible. And be prepared to enjoy the sequela of still -someplaces-prevailing point of view of "smart student = bad nurse".

[llg, PhD, RN]

Are you sure you want to be a nurse? It sounds to me as if you are not totally sure of that. If you are not sure, perhaps you should delay your entry into school and give it some more thought.

Let's assume you decide that you can commit to nursing. It's great to aspire to be a nurse-scientist and have a career in academia ... but it's too soon for you to be pinpointing your exact career trajectory. First, you need to see if you even like nursing. You can only do that by getting a little experience as a nurse. Then you need to figure out what specialty would suit your preferences and talents the best. Anything beyond entry-level education is specialized. People at the top of the hierarchy don't "focus on everything," they narrow their focus and study a specific field in-depth.

There is simply too much information in the world for anyone to be an expert on everything. The higher you go on the expertise scale, the more narrow your focus must become. And there are a variety of roles within nursing to choose from -- even for nurse academics with PhD's. You don't sound at all ready to be making any decisions about that sort of thing yet.

Get your feet wet ... decide if you like it well enough to invest several years of your life (and LOTS of money) in getting an advanced education in nursing. Choose a specialty and a role focus (NP, education, management, etc.) Then begin your graduate education and refine your focus area while you gain knowledge and concrete experience with that focus area. Then -- and only then -- will you be ready to be a full time researcher. That will take years -- and by then, the employment landscape for nurses with PhD's might look different than it does today -- so be prepared to be flexible.

llg, PhD, RN-BC