Are online ANP degrees destroying our credibility?

Nursing Students NP Students

Published

I was talking to a private practice doctor about an opening in his practice. Currently, I am employed by the hospital. He told me that they will only consider PA's due to having more of a hard science based training and longer residency. I have heard this before and brushed it off. Especially, considering that would only be of factor for new grads possibly. I brought this up and he gave me a second rejection with a whole new excuse. His practice as a whole were considering hiring NPs until a PA brought up you can get your degree online. He stated they can not take our education seriously with such low standards. UUUURRRGGGHH. I didn't really know what to say. Mostly due to not expecting that response. Either way he is not someone I would want to work for with that attitude. I want to know what other people's thoughts are regarding the online programs? Will it hurt our profession and the quality of our reputation?

I would love to have seen this occur in one of my classes at Univ. of Michigan. Hey, Dr. X is it cool if I bring my Biochem. book in for todays exam. I might forget something and have to look it up. It really is giving me no advantage over the others in the class we all have 50 questions and 60 minutes for the exam. Not like I will have much time to look things up. I can see Dr. X's puzzled look now!

This. For nursing prereqs there were several options at my school. There was in person anatomy and physiology (several classes) and online anatomy and physiology (one class). Guess which class everyone flooded and had a 30+ person waiting list? Guess which class was notorious for everyone getting As and Bs? The online class, of course. Open book/note anatomy & physiology exams... I mean, why even take the class?

People weren't breaking down the door to take this online class because it was more challenging than the in person counterpart, to say the least.

Oh another thing I did not address was the issue of open book tests. We also had those in my online program, and I thought that it was a joke because of this. I worked so much harder and did much more scholarly work in undergrad than I did in my graduate program. I sure never expected it to be this way. The only thing that I thought was challenging was finding a way to fit all my clinicals hours in and still continue to work full-time. The end result of the open book tests is that I pretty much had to teach myself everything while reviewing for boards. It should not be this way!

Gosh after reading this, I am wondering if some of the jobs I have applied for have looked down on me knowing that my program was an online program. The University has a pretty good reputation, but all they seem to care about is getting your money. I guess you can tell that I wasn't thrilled with my experience. While the online program was flexible with my work schedule and allowed me to continue to work full-time, I think my educational experience suffered. My physical examination skills are terrible because in my health assessment class you had to watch videos and learn the techniques on your own and came in and did a physical exam on a fake patient at the end of the semester. No time was ever devoted by the instructors to going over any of the material before the physical exam and individual feedback was not given to anyone after the physical exam despite the fact that we were all video taped. Sorry to go on a little bit of a rant there but that has been my biggest beef and my concern as a graduate from an online program.

Didn't you guys have to do clinical hours for your physical assessment class? In my program we had an Advanced Health Assessment class with 90 clinical hours with a preceptor.

I did not have to do any clinical hours for my Physical Assessment class. I think this would have definitely been an asset if I had. Instead, we were just expected to show up for clinicals and already know what we doing. On top of that, we just had one generic Physical assessment class, and did not have any training in pediatric physical assessment, which is what my NP is in.

I don't agree with you in regards to online MSN's, I did mine online and did all my clinical on a military facility including the Family Medicine residency clinic. I had the same preceptors that the PA's, MD's and NP's who attend the onsite Army schools had, I had a faculty member hired by my school who would come to my clinical site to evaluate me a few times each semester. None of my preceptors ever said that I knew any less than the other NP's or PA's at the family medicine residency clinic, or the other sites such as the pediatric clinic, or women health clinic. I'm very grateful for online education, my husband is an Officer in the military and we are constantly on the move and it afforded me the possibility to move up professionally. I graduated in December and have had several job offers including as a direct hire for the military where i did my clinical. I feel like I've had a quality education and if I had to do it all over I would do it online. Anyways, more power to you who can go to a classroom, be proud of your success and how you achieve it but don't be so judgmental of those who can't. Online NP education has existed for many years; it isn't a new thing, it's a proven and successful form of education that is here to stay.

I do not believe that all online programs are bad because I have heard of some NPs being very happy and successful graduates from these programs. Also online learning is not for everyone, but seems to be more common than it used to be. I guess my opinion is kind of biased because of the less than stellar experience I had in my online program. It is my fault that I did not do a lot of research into schools and online versus onsite programs before I started. I just applied to the one school in my area that seemed like the best bet.

Specializes in ER.

Hi all!

This debate about PA vs. NP, online vs. traditional education continues to rage, and always will. To me, it all boils down to assessment skills and critical thinking, and hopefully, you have both from being a nurse before choosing to go on for an NP.

Having been an RRT then an ER nurse, with 20 years of clinical experience, I feel confident in my assessment skills. The doctors I work with have confidence in my clinical skills, and have been very supportive of my FNP education, which is through St. Joseph's college of Maine.

I debated online education vs. a local brick and mortar NP program. I discussed the pros and cons with some of the doctors I worked with. They saw no problem with online didactic learning, and suggested that I would learn most of what I needed to know in my clinicals. They reminded me that much of medical education is self taught-you are constantly consulting textbooks, articles, and references to make sure you are prescribing the correct dose of medications, etc.

Several of the NP's in our area have graduated from online programs, including Frontier, and they are well regarded by physicians if they are good at what they do. There are good NP's good PA's, good Docs, and there are bad ones as well. I have yet to have a physician ask me "did you go to school online?" I have never heard them ask a crummy doctor, "did you get your medical degree from a foreign college?" You are your experience, and that is what makes you what you are.

I do believe that online colleges should be more choosy about who they admit into their programs. We have a very well regarded PA program in our state, at CMU. Getting into the program is harder than getting into medical school, and 100% of there grads have jobs before graduation. NP programs should have higher standards for admission, to ensure they are graduating competent NP's. Even our local, well regarded bricks and mortar NP program at the university accepts NP students with one year of nursing experience!!!! This is not enough experience to develop assessment and critical thinking skills.

If online programs expect you to teach yourself, they better make sure their students are competent before admitting them to the program.

At the end of it all, you graduate from the NP program, take the exam, and get your license. Then, you can practice. That is what matters to me.

I have personally have gone through both to brick and mortar version of crna school and online NP school and the online school is much tougher. You are on your own with online education most of the time. We did not have time for opening books during test.

.Have I seen snobery from traditional brick and mortor students......yes Does it make sense to drive 45 minutes to listen to instructors read word for word powerpoints that could be read by me at home.....noTruth is....online education in a busy schedule/family is one of the most efficent ways to learn period.

Specializes in nursing education.

What I see happening is that programs that are brick-and-mortar graduate programs are increasing their online components. I started MSN at one school and could only get into the online class- the classroom section was full! Changed programs (a different story for a different day...) to another respected brick-and-mortar school in town. Here, my two classroom classes both have an online component, to different degrees. My summer class will be online only and then...two of my fall semester classes are hybrid classroom and online.

My co-worker, who is in yet another MSN program at a brick-and-mortar school here, has majority online classes, but stuff like physical assessment is all in-person.

Kind of sneaky, I think, but some aspects are good. I love having the online support available. I like to pull off a powerpoint before class to take notes on. I love having all the links to journal articles- back in undergrad, I had to physically go to the library and request to see the article. There is SO much more access to knowledge now. But, can a student understand it? Synthesize it? Explain it clearly to a colleague, or a patient? I mean, in our patient rooms, we can get online! The internet is a tool. Use it wisely.

I certainly do hope that online ed has some respect, because we are going to be seeing more and more online education, like it or not.

I work for a teaching hospital of Yale school of medicine and online NPs wouldn't be hired. Instead, they would be derided by the Yale residents.

i work for a teaching hospital of yale school of medicine and online nps wouldn't be hired. instead, they would be derided by the yale residents.

really?

[table]

[tr]

[td=width: 570, colspan: 2]yale, oxford, princeton and stanford

launch 'distance learning' ventureyale, oxford, princeton and stanford universities are each providing $3 million to launch a "distance learning" venture to provide on-line courses in the arts and sciences to their combined 500,000 alumni.

[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

It doesn't matter zenman. Yale university does not control hiring within Yale New Haven Hospital or the Hospital of Saint Raphael, which are its two teaching hospitals.

You are exactly the person I don't want my children to go see. Not even a BP check. The consummate under achiever.

Who are you addressing? If it's me then let me inform you that I'm on call this weekend and totally responsible for the inpatient psych unit as well as floor consults from hospitalists. I've been admitting, discharging, and doing consults till I'm about to drop.

+ Add a Comment