Calling all PNPs- Am I totally wrong here?

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Hey-

I am a neonatal nurse currently in a PNP primary care program. I am having a really frustrating experience taking pharmacology this semester. The course is taught by an experienced FNP, who, by her own admission, has never worked with kids. The entire course feels like it is geared towards FNP/geriatric students, particularly as PNP students only make up a handful of the class. It is beyond frustrating to spend this much time memorizing drugs/disease processes for conditions I probably won't even be licensed to treat, like BPH, CAD, arthritis, and Alzheimer's. All pediatric dosages/indications are brought up as an afterthought. When I brought my complaint to the instructor, she claimed that the nursing board wants PNP students to be familiar with drugs across the lifespan, and that peds-specific management will come up in my clinical courses. It doesn't help that I am a neonatal nurse, and haven't seen most of these drugs since nursing school. 

Do any other PNPs/PNP students have a similar experience? Is this standard across the board? 

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Specializes in Behavioral health.

I take it you are referring to pharmacology as part of your 3P's. Yes, this is typical. My specialization is mental health and I didn't learn much about psych meds. I got that content in the specialty courses and even then not a lot of emphasis on children. There is a mindset that children are little adults.

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Like gentleman said, that's true for all of the three P courses--patho and assessment/physical will probably be equally adult-focused and frustrating. Literally all NPs in every specialty have to take them to graduate NP school. You may have to self-study more than the nurses in the class with adult experience. It stinks, but that's just the way it is.

Many of my friends in NNP and PNP school have had similar experiences, but it becomes way easier once those classes are done and you finally get to focus on the specialty-specific stuff.

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Hi all,

Thanks for responding! I appreciate it. 
My program offers a separate pharmacology course for NNPs, but not PNPs. I wouldn't mind as much if any of the content was relevant to my future practice..... but it's almost exclusively focused on adult conditions that I won't be treating. So annoying. Thanks! 

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

My program was like this too. 

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