Best RN job experience for FNP

umbdude, MSN, APRN · Sep 27, 2020

I'm not an FNP, but if you think about where FNPs work, it's difficult to say that one type of RN experience is better than another. Some FNPs end up working in specialty clinics with adults, some in family practice with kids, and some in urgent care seeing everyone for every urgent illnesses.

What do you see yourself doing as an FNP?

Noodle411, ADN, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 2, 2020

Speaking as a newly graduated adult health NP, here's my experience and what I learned:

As an NP student, I also thought that I would need special RN experience that would help prepare me for the NP role. However, I learned (and was told by faculty) this was not true because my NP training in Adult Gero NP (and similarly for those pursuing FNP) would be in PRIMARY CARE (like the experience you would have going to your own Primary Care Provider's office).
The only exception to the above that I can think of is if you wanted to train to be an Acute Care NP, then perhaps the experience of being an ER/ICU nurse would be helpful to you in the NP role.
Your duration (regardless of type) as an RN is important to the NP Program because this means that you have been exposed to a variety of population, disease processes, lab findings, treatments, medications, and people-skills -- these are the skills that will be helpful to have as a foundation. Additionally, as a future primary care NP, your RN experience will remind you where your patients will end up if their disease gets worse or when they have an acute episode.
Quick discussion: From my understanding, many primary care NP-trained professionals (such as FNPs and Adult health NPs) do not end up doing what they were trained for (primary care). Many end up working in a specialty (example: cardiology office, neurology office, hospitalist, etc.). That being said, if for example, you wanted to be an FNP to be a cardiology NP, then your RN experience in telemetry may help obtain a job in cardiology as a new grad NP. Advice: Maintain your connections for future recall when it comes time to get your first job.
In your FNP program, towards the end, you will have opportunities to practice and hone your FNP skills in a variety of precepted clinical rotations -- these are truly instrumental experiences that will be helpful to you in your future role as a Nurse Practitioner. In these clinical rotations, you will have opportunities to examine, order diagnostic testing if needed, diagnose, treat, evaluate, and of course, do preventive screening, etc. The main goal is to keep patients as healthy as possible so that they can be happy and living their best life and keep them out of the hospital.

Hope you found this post helpful. Wishing you the best in your future endeavors.

djmatte, ADN, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 2, 2020

Imo any job where you have experience with the broadest amount of medications and medical conditions is the best experience you can have. Meaning likely a med surg floor or possibly ED. I came from a career of pacu and pain management. While this gave me an edge in some areas, there was a huge learning curve in a range of medications and seeing the variance of a range of chronic illnesses. This curve was overcome with experience, but having that background would have likely helped me out more.

db2xs · Oct 4, 2020

In my personal opinion, it doesn't matter. I know NPs who never worked as an RN and are doing fine. There is debate about "Yes, you should get RN experience." If you take that stance and are deciding to go into primary care, then get outpatient clinic experience as an RN. The only time it will make a huge difference is if you want to work in acute care as an NP.