Are online ANP degrees destroying our credibility?

Nursing Students NP Students

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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 am a chiropractor working on NP or PA, but in my BSN degree. For my chiro licence I had to take 4 board exam spread over 3 years. The first set of exams were 6 parts of patho phys. The second board, six exam, was more clinical disease/treatment related. The third was one test about more detailed clinical situations. The fourth test was two day long question answer and practical in front of an examiner. Very intense.

Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
The military does not have an NP program.

The military has NP programs in the family and psych tracks:

USU Graduate School of Nursing

USU Graduate School of Nursing

Have you ever taken an online course or worked towards an online degree? I've done both and practiced nursing for over 30 years. I worked much harder for the online degree than for the one from a top rated brick & mortar school. I feel like I was spoon fed the material at my pre licensure on site program. In the online program the standards were higher. I did a lot more studying and research for the online program. Unless you've done distance learning, you shouldn't be so quick to judge.

I've taken online classes and they were extremely easy. I'm a good test taker, so all I had to do was take the exams and look up the answers during the test. I did very little work. I probably managed to do the entire week's worth of class in one day. It was ridiculous. My in person classes were more challenging and much more fulfilling. I personally think interactive lectures are extremely important for understanding. It's one thing to read information and it's another thing to have an expert explain it to you, answer your questions, and help you synthesize the material into a coherent framework.

Anyway, whether or not online education "works" isn't the point. The fact is that it makes other people look down on our profession. There's a reason medical school isn't online.

I guess my point is that I don't believe whether the education is obtained in a brick & mortar institution or online should matter. It's about the integrity of the program and the integrity of the student. There were loads of students who didn't show up for live lectures, or showed up only when there were "special" lecturers presenting. I worked previously in a family practice residency program and I know that medical students don't always show up for lecture.

People who "buy" degrees instead of who work for them will always exist, unfortunately. The program I was in expelled students who were found to be cheating, plagiarizing, or committing any sort of honor code infraction. It was always a shock to realize someone was gone and eventually we would hear some whispers about their not coming back. That may have been an effective deterrent for those who didn't have quite enough inner deterrent of their own; especially if one was already in debt for his/her education.

Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

It all boils down to perception. The public and the medical community view education in the health sciences based on traditional standards. Many equate educational rigor with long lectures held inside a classroom and hands on clinical supervision under experts in the field in a teaching medical facility. Both these elements are not always present in on-line education. This traditional model is followed by majority of programs in the health sciences (Medicine, Pharmacy, Rehabilitation Sciences) except for many programs in nursing.

The other piece that can affect public perception of quality education is school name recognition. In fact the US News rankings for graduate nursing programs are purely based on "public perception" (or ranking based on assessment of quality by peers to be specific). Ironically, the public (or the medical community for that matter) is seemingly unaware that there are highly ranked institutions on the US News list that do offer their NP programs online (#15 Rush and Vanderbilt, #21 UAB, #32 Arizona, #36 Georgetown, #50 Frontier and St Louis U).

Specializes in Psych, Chem Dependency, Occ. Health.
No, I did not. I graduated from an in residency program. We actually took some of our classes with the PA students. He is not someone I would want to work for anyways.

I am with you. Who proctors their tests? Their husbands or friends? I am okay with some online classes, but all tests should be taken in resident. You can just look up answers online or in a book. It really makes me angry that our credentialing leadership is allowing this to occur. In the end we all have to take the same test, but I feel maybe we should make these national certifying exams harder. In the end I do not feel that patients would be comfortable knowing their provider has an online degree and has never stepped a foot in labs getting their degree (no undergraduate doesn't count). Seems like a good Saturday Night Live episode. Sorry, enough said.

I'm attending a distance program for PMHNP. Exams are monitored via camera that records sight and sound around the room, requires fingerprint and facial recognition verification every time, and no open book exams.

I was addressing you. Although, you don't practice medicine. You do Psych, so we shall not worry about that.

You better worry about it. I prescribe drugs that can really mess you up or to kill yourself, put you in jail or keep you out, cost you economically or to wreak your entire life or the lives of others, etc, etc.. On top of that I get daily consults from hospitalists, intensivists, and ED docs. I have to know every fricking medical condition and every drug known to man and how they interact. The fun ones are the ones like one patient today who was on 19 meds, including herbs.

Personally, I think online schools undermine the profession as a whole. I have trouble understanding how a profession that deals with the human body and human beings can learn it while sitting in their living room on an electronic devive. I also think "fake it til you make it" and being able to take the NCLEX as many times as you want to try to pass undermines the profession as well. Just my :twocents:

This is difficult. So you mean I must hold a paper book in my hand and sit in a classroom in order to learn? This may shock you but I keep medical reference books on my iPad. Do you know physicians can operate on a person using robotics? Do you think at some point medicine's method of education will crawl out of the dark ages?

Let me break this down for many of you. You are welcome to your own opinion but you should have information to back it up. There are good and bad brick and mortar programs. Same for distance programs.

I have graduate nursing degrees (and others) in nursing obtained from both brick and mortar and distance education program. I have been an assistant professor in nursing school. My wife is an expert in the neuroscience of learning so I consult her often. I have been to 12 universities, 13 including an Oriental School of Medicine. I have done clinical in the states and abroad. In short I have experience and know a little about education.

There is a lot of research on distance education. Have any of you looked it up? Do you look up research on your own practice?

I do not want to sit in a classroom especially when I might have to drive an hour each way, find parking, burn up gas, put miles on my truck, and deal with students who don't impress me. That's 2 hours plus that I can be studying and getting ahead of a brick and mortar student.

No employer, physician, or anyone else has ever asked me if I went to a distance ed program. I don't think any has even asked what school I went to. You just need that license and get out there and perform.

The military does not have an NP program. They primarily uses PA's. My husband graduated from IPAP. He never saw any NP's in his Phase II training he said. In fact, there preceptors were not the same as the medical students. He said this statement is ridiculous. He was at Ft. Hood, TX when he went through, which is the largest post in the US Army. I am sure if there were NPs who shared preceptors they would have had them at FT. Hood.

I had a psychiatrist preceptor at the U.S. Navy Hospital Okinawa. There were NP's there in psych. I don't know about the other areas as i was too busy to check it out.

To their alumni. Those who haven proven to meet their standards. I highly doubt these are degree programs.

Oh, so they recognize the value of distance education then.

Specializes in ..

(I know I'm coming late to the discussion, but just realized my post didn't make it online)

The timing on this is great! I was literally just speaking with someone about this today and cam home planning to post a similar question! I chose to apply and ultimately enroll in programs that require regular classroom attendance. The solely online programs are ruining the public perception of this profession. Would you really want a doc who told you he got his MD online? We would rise up enmasse against any move to offer initial RN licensure online, so why is it OK to offer ADVANCED practice strictly online? After weighing the issues, I came to the conclusion that the responsibility of being independently accountable for someone else's life/healthcare is much too important to entrust to a school whose major winning point is the convenience of online classes. Another issue altogether that taints the issue is the extreme differences in programs and the rigor of online classes. Like it or not, perception is everything. The cheapening of the NP profession with the plethora of easy to obtain degrees is reflected in the higher failure rates and is just another extension of the DNP idiocy. While many of these programs may be high quality, the perception says otherwise. Online is good for some portions of the courses, but some face time must happen for legitimacy. A few years from now, the world will be full of people with RN degrees who no longer work as nurses because they thought being a RN would be a "good, stable, job". The same is destined to happen with NP degrees. A solid MSN is much more valuable than a DNP with fewer rigors. I realize that there are a myriad of generalizations and assumptions made here, but that is part of the problem. While quality varies, MD or PA schools are not questioned because of the understood, consistent format of all programs. The same goes for CRNA programs. Why has this mess been allowed to develop? Once again Nursing Academia is Nursing's worst enemy.

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